LATER ESSAYS 221 



in a score of different ways equally well. It is the work 

 of a faithful observer, and it can suggest Nature to those 

 who know it. The words are such as the observer might 

 have used to another in order to describe a scene familiar 

 to them both. But the objects are written about ; they are 

 not presented as, for example, visible objects are presented 

 in Mr. Sturge Moore's " Rout of the Amazons." The 

 writing is nearer to the original than an auctioneer's 

 descriptions, but is not different in essential character. 

 For both are without imagination, the power that sees 

 a thing alive with the mind's eye, so that, even were that 

 thing outside to pass away for ever, it would still be clear 

 and with power of motion within the brain. To possess 

 that power is to enjoy and suffer life intensely : to give 

 that inward image another outer life, in words, in paint, 

 in marble, in melody, is to be an artist. Jefferies had 

 that power, but the images that he preserved in full 

 vitality were of emotions and sensations rather than of 

 physical objects. The emotion connected with an object 

 was usually more vivid in his mind than the object itself, 

 notwithstanding his powerful and faithful sight. Even 

 in the passage just quoted it is a feeling about the land- 

 scape that comes nearest to being created and made 

 alive. When the feeling is stronger and prevails, as in 

 the harvest landscape of ' The Dewy Morn,' and in many 

 passages in ' The Pageant of Summer ' and ' Meadow 

 Thoughts,' Nature's loveliness, permanence, and abun- 

 dance is married to the writer's humanity in a manner 

 that effects a more rare and more difficult achievement — 

 one of Jefferies' greatest achievements — than the pictures 

 of Ruskin or of Stevenson. 



In i Sunlight in a London Square,' which is typical of 

 his later moralized landscape, there is no mere advice to 

 a landscape painter : 



' I stood under the portico of the National Gallery in 

 the shade, looking southwards, across the fountains and 

 the lions, towards the green trees under the distant tower. 

 Once a swallow sang in passing on the wing, garrulous still 



