FIRST COUNTRY ESSAYS 109 



' Curiosities of Natural History ' was published in 1857, is 

 simply a curious, chatty naturalist with some stories to 

 tell ; and when he does not appeal to naturalists, as in 

 ' Whitmonday at Harting,' he has not enough humanity 

 to appeal to anyone else. Kingsley, in his ' Prose Idylls ' 

 of 1873, is sportsman, naturalist, historian, clergyman, 

 and country gentleman. They are in dialogue, and they 

 are bluff, hard, and superficial ; but they belong to the 

 same class as Jefferies' essays, from which they differ 

 chiefl}^ in this : that while his lead us to the writer's per- 

 sonality through Nature, Kingsley's lead us to Nature 

 through the writer's personality, and if that is not liked 

 by the reader, his pictures, etc., are unendurable. 



In these early essays of 1875 and 1876 Jefferies sets him- 

 self the unusual and difficult task of reflecting in prose 

 the solitary enjoyment of Nature, without any of the 

 resources of these predecessors in sport or natural history, 

 without the aid even of any passion, as of love, except 

 what Nature herself inspires. In ' Marlborough Forest ' 

 he mentions the Civil War, saying that it did not touch the 

 forest ; but he relies for his effect upon the leaves and 

 fruits, the pathless bracken, the woodpeckers and jays, 

 the pack of stoats, the fighting stags, the beech avenue, 

 and the inhuman quiet. As he says himself, ' The subtle 

 influence of Nature penetrates every limb and every vein, 

 fills the soul with a perfect contentment, an absence of 

 all wish except to lie there half in sunshine, half in shade 

 for ever, in a Nirvana of indifference to all but the ex- 

 quisite delight of simply living.' But he fails as yet to 

 convey that influence, to produce more than a readable 

 article which only the careless townsman or unobservant 

 countryman can much enjoy. In ' Village Churches ' 

 he has the aid of memory, quoting from ' Faust ': 



' Dim dream -like forms I your shadowy train 

 Around me gathers once again.' 



A phrase like ' a visible silence, which at once isolates 

 the soul, separates it from external present influences, 

 and compels it, in falling back upon itself, to recognize its 

 own depths and powers,' has its value as a glimpse of 



