i83 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



of body and of mind ; greater perfection of physique, 

 greater perfection of mind and soul ; that I might be 

 higher in myself.'* 



Later still, he walked along the Marlborough road to 

 the fir-trees, where he could ' think a moment ' with his 

 morning soul and eyes untroubled by recollection of irrele- 

 vant daily things. Such experiences — the being absorbed 

 and the exaltation — differently interpreted, or fitted into 

 different schemes of life, or neglected, or allowed to 

 leaven life by hidden ways, must come to many. A 

 sense of humour or much social intercourse may easily 

 subdue them or compel them to work underground. 

 Jefferies, perhaps because they belonged to the moments 

 when he was most remote from the painful life of 

 journalism or of his father's house, and because there 

 was no one with whom he could share or illuminate 

 them, cherished and dwelt upon them. Except in his 

 ready and devout acceptance of these spiritual intima- 

 tions, he resembles Behmen with his deep, inward 

 ecstasy ; and Behmen bore his mysticism about with 

 him in silence for twelve years. 1 e mystic teachers 

 lucidly described in Mr. Edward C rpenter's ' Adam's 

 Peak to Elephanta ' attain to a similar ' universal or 

 cosmic consciousness.' They aim ' by will to surrender 

 the will ; by determination and concentration to press 

 inward and upward to that portion of one's being which 

 belongs to the universal '; they consciously, as Jefferies 

 unconsciously, use the long breath, followed by slow 

 breathing, as a physical introduction to the mystic state. 

 Jefferies also at times concentrated himself deliberatel}'', 

 driving away ' by continued will ' all sense of outward 

 appearances. The novelty and strangeness of the mystic 

 state cause what are considered ' phantasmal trains of 

 delusive speculation ' in some minds. Tennyson, again, 

 by the repetition of his own name, reached a trance in 

 which ' the individual seemed to dissolve and fade away 

 into boundless being . . . when death was an almost 



* T/ig Story of My Heart. 



