'THE STORY OF UY HEAJ^T ' i8i 



neighbonrliood of pheasants, at least, docs men little good. 

 I knew a parish of 10,397 souls, of which 10,000 were 

 pheasants and the rest human beings, so miserable — 

 except seventeen of them at the big house and rectory — 

 that they were not even worth shooting or, as far as was 

 known, eating. Jefferies was no longer capable of taking 

 just an intelligent party view of things, of remaining an 

 observer and a gossip only, of leaving at the bottom of 

 the well the thoughts peculiarly his own and choosing 

 instead things as they are, and have been, and evermore 

 shall be. For at length the ' superstitions and traditions 

 acquired compulsorily in childhood '* fell away and dis- 

 appeared, and he was free to do what he could by himself, 

 a lonely, an extremely isolated, man. 



' The Story of My Heart ' is a confession, a description, 

 of the stages by which he reached the ideas of his later life. 

 He has erased from his mind the traditions and learning 

 of the past ages, and stands ' face to face with the un- 

 known.' His general aim is ' to free thought from every 

 trammel, with the view of its entering upon another and 

 larger series of ideas than those which have occupied the 

 brain of man so many years. He believes that there is a 

 whole world of ideas outside and beyond those which now 

 exercise us.' 



As a child he used to go away by himself, if only for 

 two or three minutes, ' to think unchecked.' ' Involun- 

 tarily,' he says, ' I drew a long breath, then I breathed 

 slowly. My thought, or inner consciousness, went up 

 through the illumined sky, and I was lost in a moment 

 of exaltation. This only lasted a very short time, 

 perhaps only part of a second, and while it lasted there 

 was no formulated wish.' There came, too, ' a deep, 

 strong, and sensuous enjoyment of the beautiful green 

 earth, the beautiful sky and sun,' and the thought ' that 

 I might be Hke this ; that I might have the inner meaning 

 of the sun, the light, the earth, the trees and grass, 

 translated into some growth of excellence in myself, both 



* The Story of My Heart. 



