FIRST COUNTRY BOOKS 149 



natural than the cattle and sheep that have strayed into 

 his domains. For some inexplicable reason, although 

 they too are in reality natural, when he is present they 

 look as if they had been put there and were kept there 

 by artificial means. They do not, as painters say, shade 

 in with the colours and shape of the landscape. He is 

 as natural as an oak, or a fern, or a rock itself. He 

 is earth-born — autochthon — and holds possession by 

 descent. Utterly scorning control, the walls and hedges 

 are nothing to him — he roams where he chooses, as fancy 

 leads, and gathers the food that pleases him. . . .'* 



For its subject, its adequate statement and description 

 of matters even now little touched by books, and for 

 its author, ' Red Deer ' may long be remembered ; but 

 among his works it is something of a tour de force, and 

 is almost the only one which might be well liked and yet 

 not invite the reader to any of the others ; and in spite 

 of the advantage of unity which he gains from a well- 

 defined subject, it hardly makes us regret that he did 

 not oftener forsake the essay form, with all its encourage- 

 ment of looseness and irrelevance. 



* Red Deer. 



