104 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERTES 



miller and miser, May's grandfather. The rivalry of 

 Valentine and Geoffrey is only ended by a fight with guns 

 in a double hedge, an accidental offence setting fire to 

 their smouldering hate. Geoffrey marries Margaret, 

 and Felix May, without any important conflict of char- 

 acters or display of manners, but with enough incident 

 to make so short a book just barely acceptable to a mere 

 reader of novels. 



Geoffrey represents part of Jefferies himself, especially, 

 perhaps, in the unseen watching of his sweetheart in the 

 sunlit woods, ' rapt in the devotion of the artist, till a 

 sense came over him like that feeling which the Greeks 

 embodied in the punishment that fell on those who look 

 unbidden upon the immortals.' Only Jefferies could have 

 made him pause to admire the drop of blood on her white, 

 polished skin before drawing out a thorn from her thumb. 

 When he writes of Geoff rej' watching the dawn, he inevit- 

 ably describes his own impression : 



* . . . Out from the last fringe of mist shone a great 

 white globe, like molten silver, glowing with a lusciousness 

 of light, soft and yet brilliant, so large and bright, and 

 seemingly so near — but just above the ridge yonder — 

 shining with heavenly splendour in the very dayspring. 

 He knew Eosphoros, the Light-Bringer, the morning star 

 of hope and joy and love, and his heart went out towards 

 the beauty and the glory of it. Under him the broad 

 bosom of the earth seemed to breathe instinct with life, 

 bearing him up, and from the azure ether came the 

 wind, filling his chest with the vigour of the young 

 day. 



' The azure ether — yes, and more than that ! Who 

 that has seen it can forget the wondrous beauty of the 

 summer morning's sky ? It is blue — it is sapphire — it is 

 like the eyes of a lovely woman. A rich purple shines 

 through it ; no painter ever approached the colour of it, 

 no Titian or other, none from the beginning. Not even 

 the golden flesh of Rubens' women, through the veins in 

 whose limbs a sunlight pulses in lieu of blood shining 



