2o8 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



rearranged the book and given it an appearance of 

 reasonableness which it could not long survive. It is by 

 the tones and gestures of the writer, in his words and 

 ideas and images, that he must be interpreted if he is to 

 inspire where he cannot instruct, and forbid the duck- 

 weed to mantle overhead. Nor let anyone rashly argue 

 that his prophecy is the offspring of morbid sensitiveness, 

 unless it be thought that by this time the plain man — if 

 any such there be — ought to be superseding the man of 

 genius in directing the world ; that we have had enough 

 of madmen who will go cheerfully to the hemlock or the 

 cross, or even live on, for an idea. He fought in the dim, 

 far-off, wavering van, of which we have yet no sure tidings, 

 his weapon the mountain harp or the pebbles of the brook, 

 and that, too, in spite of the acquaintance who urged him 

 to produce ' more saleable ware,' and the anonymous 

 Christian whose comment on the book was, ' The fool 

 hath said in his heart.'* 



* In a letter to Jefferies. 



