202 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



above this irregularity and ' inhuman ' nature, he beheves 

 that it is on a mistaken road, and has missed ' an immense 

 range of thought.' Our symmetrical and regular thought 

 is not fit for this unruly universe. Jefferies' hope 

 actually springs from this absence of design and of a 

 superior power, because ' all things become,' if we accept 

 this view, ' at once plastic to our will.' Nothing is done 

 for us ; then let us set about ruling the earth. Accidents 

 are crimes ; they and diseases are all preventable. Our 

 bodies are flawed by our ancestors ; * none die of age. 

 The only things that have been stored up have been for 

 our evil and destruction, diseases and weaknesses crossed 

 and cultivated and rendered almost part and parcel of 

 our bones. In twelve thousand written years the world 

 has not yet built itself a House, nor filled a Granary, 

 nor organized itself for its own comfort. It is so 

 marvellou^- I cannot express the wonder with which it 

 fills me.'* 



There is something savage in this child-like astonish- 

 ment at the way o fthe world, as of the barefoot man 

 who first sat down to muse why flints should tear his 

 flesh as he mounted the hill. 



Nevertheless, he thinks it possible that death is un- 

 necessary. The beauty of the ideal human being indi- 

 cates immortality. Above all, man has a soul, an 

 ' inner consciousness which aspires,' and ' may yet dis- 

 cover things now deemed unnatural.' Now let us, there- 

 fore, ' begin to roll back the tide of death, and to set 

 our faces steadily to a future of life. It should be 

 the sacred and sworn duty of every one, once at 

 least during lifetime, to do something in person 

 towards this end. It would be a delight and pleasure 

 to me to do something every day, were it ever so 

 minute. . . .'f 



Theory and experiment are good. Observation is 

 better still, for it can master chance. Like M. Maeter- 

 linck much later, he says that ' it is essential that 



* The Story of My Heart. \ Ibid. 



