i86 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



behind the blue of day. Travelling in an instant across 

 the distant sea, I saw as if with actual vision the palms 

 and cocoanut-trees, the bamboos of India, and the 

 cedars of the extreme south. Like a lake with islands 

 the ocean lay before me, as clear and vivid as the plain 

 beneath in the midst of the amphitheatre of hills. 



' With the glory of the great sea, I said ; with the firm, 

 solid, and sustaining earth ; the depth, distance, and ex- 

 panse of ether ; the age, tamelessness, and ceaseless 

 motion of the ocean ; the stars, and the unknown in 

 space ; by all those things which are most powerful 

 known to me, and by those which exist, but of which I 

 have no idea whatever, I pray. Further, by my own 

 soul, that secret existence which above all other things 

 bears the nearest resemblance to the ideal of spirit, in- 

 finitely nearer than earth, sun, or star. Speaking by an 

 inclination towards, not in words, my soul prays that I 

 may have something from each of these, that I may 

 gather a flower from them, that I may have in myself 

 the secret and meaning of the earth, the golden sun, the 

 light, the foam.-flecked sea. Let my soul become en- 

 larged ; I am not enough ; I am little and contemptible. 

 I desire a greatness of soul, an irradiance of mind, a 

 deeper insight, a broader hope. Give me power of soul, 

 so that I may actually effect by its will that which I strive 

 for. . . . Dreamy in appearance, I was breathing full of 

 existence ; I was aware of the grass blades, the flowers, 

 the leaves on hawthorn and tree. I seemed to live more 

 largely through them, as if each were a pore through 

 which I drank.'* 



' I see now,' he says, ' that what I laboured for was 

 soul-life, more soul-nature, to be exalted, to be full of 

 soul-learning '; to map out the obscure country he had 

 discovered, to show irts relation to the earth, to build 

 a long airy bridge from one to the other, that he and his 

 fellows might pass over and be blessed. Speaking ' not 

 in words,' his soul prayed to be enlarged, to have some- 



* The Story of My Heart. 



