174 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



Pevensey, in 1880, that he made the seminal notes for 



• The Story of My Heart.' 



As he drew near the Downs in the train he could read 

 no more. He forgot the dust of London, that * fills the 

 eyes, and blurs the vision ' and ' chokes the spirit.' 

 ' There is,' he wrote, ' always hope in the hills ' ; ' hope 

 dwells there, somewhere mayhap in the breeze, in the 

 sward, or the pale cups of the harebells.' He was at 

 home again on the Downs, on the ancient hill and its 

 earthwork ' alone with the wind.' The sea-air, the sight 

 of the waters, the wind, the holiday voices and dresses of 

 Brighton in sunlight, were champagne to him. In ' Sea, 

 Sky, and Down ' he saw the sea ' reflected in the plate- 

 glass windows of the street, . . . covering over the golden 

 bracelets and jewellery with a moving picture of the 

 silvery waves.' He used to walk up to the station to see 

 the happy, beautiful, jolly people arriving, and the cabs 

 ' overgrown with luggage like huge barnacles,' and he 

 ' left feeling better.' He liked the dry bright air, in which 

 the liveliest colours were inlaid ; ' no tint is too bright — 

 scarlet, cardinal, anything the imagination fancies ' ; the 

 ' pleasant lines of people chatting, the human sunshine of 

 laughter ' ; the fishermen ; the women riding ; the opulence 

 of it all ; the old houses. ' This,' he says, ' is the land of 

 health.' Sea, the air of the hills, and sunshine are 



* medicines that by degrees strengthen not only the body, 

 but the unquiet mind.' And the first papers written in 

 Sussex, those included in ' Nature near London,' reflect a 

 larger enjoyment than any of those about Surrey. In 

 ' The South Down Shepherd ' he might have been on his 

 own Downs again. He is happy to see the ancient 

 shepherd and talk of the crooks — ' each village-made 

 crook had an individuality ' — of the hares and foxes and 

 sheep-dog ; to see the oxen ploughing with an ancient 

 plough of a form slowly wrought out and as delicate as a 

 plant — ' in these curved lines and smoothness, in this 

 perfect adaptability of means to end, there is the spirit of 

 art showing itself, not with colour or crayon, but working 



