FIRST NOVELS 93 



deep coombes cloven in the chalk at Liddington or Bad- 

 bury or Chisledon ; also a wood ' half an hour's walk dis- 

 tant,' perhaps Burderop Wood ; another, ' two miles 

 along the road to a spot where the hills began,' seems 

 most likely to be by the fir-trees on the Marlborough road, 

 at the corner of the ' New ' road, where the pass through 

 the Downs at Ogbourne St. George is in sight. 



Little of this is to be found in his first published novel, 

 ' The Scarlet Shawl ' (1874). His characters are persons 

 with much leisure for passions. Percival Gifford is in love 

 with Nora, but is enslaved by the dazzling Pauline Vietri, 

 while Nora turns aside to flirt. The name and the 

 naughtiness of Pauline Vietri, like that of Carlotta in 

 * Restless Human Hearts,' is perhaps a reflection from 

 Jefferies' early reading of ' Poems and Ballads.' Percival, 

 for a time ' a detestably conceited puppy,' reasons cleverly 

 about polygamy, and questions whether he is carrying 

 out the decree of Heaven if he stints his natural ability 

 ' by confining himself to one lady.' But, in spite of this, 

 he can reflect the ardours of Jefferies himself, when, for 

 example, he dreams of ' a book of religion which should 

 supersede ' the Koran and the Bible, and says, with a 

 faint foretaste of ' The Story of My Heart ':* 



' The unconscious cerebration which had been going on 

 in his mind, excited by the perception of the glories and 

 beauties of Nature — of stars, sea, flowers, art — which per- 

 ception in him was peculiarly acute, when his vanity made 

 him exalt himself and think of doing justice to himself, 

 forced itself forward, and he grasped at it as the readiest 

 and best means of showing his worth. He could no more 

 have written down that stream of unconscious thought 

 than he could have turned sensation itself into material 

 shape ; but he conceived the idea of doing so. . . .' 



And again : 



' His eyes, fastened on the horizon, drank in the glorious 

 dawn of the light as the glowing sun revealed itself — a 

 visible archangel. The azure sky, the roseate clouds, 



* The Scarlet Shawh 



