152 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



feeling and colour, and though they are not meant to 

 compete with painting, they have the effect of a rich, 

 humanized landscape. But it is the seasonableness of 

 the gossip which gives whatever unity they have to the 

 papers that are without a definite subject, such as ' Trees 

 about Town,' ' Kew Gardens,' ' A London Trout.' Thus 

 the repetition which is noticeable in ' The Coming of 

 Summer ' and ' Round a London Copse ' is inevitable. 

 Most are for the Londoners at whose doors these things 

 were being discovered. They inform ; they prove the 

 truth of his assertion that ' the quantity and variety of 

 life in the hedges was really astonishing ' ; and to mainly 

 urban minds they may long be pleasant — ' The River,' 

 ' Nutty Autumn,' and ' A Barn ' most deservedly so — 

 for they make a charming inventory even when, as in 

 ' The Spring of the Year,' they are but notes and dates 

 and place-names, such as Long Ditton Road, Red Lion 

 Lane, Hogsmill Brook, Cockrow Hill, Southborough and 

 Worcester Parks, Hook, Horton, and the footpath from 

 Roxby Farm to Chessington. Now and then, even in 

 these informing papers, Jefferies escapes to write of the 

 strength and glory of the spring sun : ' Joy in life ; joy 

 in life. The ears listen and want more : the eyes are 

 gratified with gazing, and desire yet further ; the nostrils 

 are filled with the sweet odours of flower and sap. The 

 touch, too, has its pleasures, dallying with leaf and 

 flower. Can you not almost grasp the odour-laden air 

 and hold it in the hollow of the hand ?' Or he remembers 

 the greenfinches' love-making in the elms. Probably he 

 took the advice which he gives in ' Footpaths,' ' Always 

 get over a stile.' 



Where he catalogues, it is with an eye more bent upon 

 the finest detail of form and colour than before. In 

 ' A Brook ' he tells how he uses his sight : ' Even the 

 deepest, darkest water (not, of course, muddy) yields 

 after a while to the eye. Half close the eyelids, and while 

 gazing into it let your intelligence rather wait upon the 

 corners of the eye than on the glance you cast straight 



