212 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



The third class of Jefferies' essays appear to belong 

 chiefly to the period which brought forth ' The Story of 

 My Heart ' and ' The De\\y Morn.' Many of their 

 thoughts are to be traced to the stir from which sprang 

 * The Story of My Heart '; some are almost repetitions 

 of parts of that book ; others are developments, or 

 further conclusions, or have faint infusions of the pro- 

 phetic mood after its fury has passed. In ' Meadow 

 Thoughts,' for example, some of the same thoughts 

 fall into their place among the visible beauties of Nature 

 with a tranquillity not to be found in the autobiography — 

 the contrast between the bright summer light and books, 

 and the correspondence between the light and ' some 

 likewise beautiful and wonderful truth ' as yet unknown, 

 and again the bitter, simple thought that ' no physical 

 reason exists why every human being should not have 

 sufficient, at least, of necessities.' The sunlight puts 

 out the words of the printed books as it puts out the 

 fire ; ' the very grass blades confound the wisest.' The 

 thought comes to him amid the weariness of printed 

 matter at the British Museum : the pigeons fleeting 

 about the portico lure him again to the something be- 

 yond thought. ' They,' he says, ' have not laboured in 

 mental searching as we have ; they have not wasted their 

 time looking among empty straw for the grain that is 

 not there. They have been in the sunlight. Since the 

 days of ancient Greece the doves have remained in the 

 sunshine. We who have laboured have found nothing. 

 In the sunshine, by the shady verge of woods, by the 

 sweet waters where the wild dove sips, there alone will 

 thought be found.' It is the cry, with a deeper tone in 

 it, which the poet cried : 



' The swoon of Imogen, 

 Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den, 

 Are things to brood on with more ardency 

 Than the death-days of empires.' 



There is the hope, too, that the beautiful and wonderful 

 thought hovering in the sunlight will come to earth — will 



