246 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



wealthy people who possessed scores of valuable pictures 

 without the least love of art ? whether, in short, even he, 

 a painter of pictures, considered pictures the whole end 

 and aim of art ? 



' Is not art rather in the man than on the wall ? 

 ' Once now and then I have been into the cottages of 

 farm labourers (who had the good fortune to possess 

 security of tenure) and found old oak furniture ; curious 

 grotesque crockery, generally much coloured — the favour- 

 ite colour red ; ancient brazen-faced upright clocks ticking 

 slowly, as the stars go slowly past in the quiet hours of 

 night ; odd things on the mantelpiece ; an old gun with 

 brass fittings, polished brass ornaments ; two or three old 

 books with leather bindings ; on the walls quaint smoke- 

 tinted pictures three-score years old. 



* Outside, trees in the garden — plums, pears, damsons — 

 trees planted by the owner for fruit and shade, but 

 mostly for solace, since it is a pleasant thing to see a tree 

 grow. These people, having no fear of being turned out 

 of doors, had accumulated such treasures, a chair at a 

 time, making the interior home-like. And out of doors 

 they had planted trees ; without love of trees, I doubt if 

 there be any art. Of art itself in itself they had had no 

 thought ; not one had ever tried to draw or paint. They 

 had coloured their strips of flower-garden or bordering 

 with bright yellow flowers ; that was all the paint they 

 knew. 



' Yet I think this home-life in itself was something like 

 true art. There was a sense of the fitness of things, and 

 good instinctive taste in the selection of interior fittings, 

 furniture, and even of colour. 



' Oak is our national wood, old oak, dark and deep- 

 shaded — Rembrandt oak — oak is part of our national art. 

 Brass polishes and gleams in sunlight through the window 

 or glows in the sparkle from winter's fire. It sets off the 

 black oak. Red-coloured chinaware (perhaps it is a shade 

 of pink) is gay and bright under low-pitched ceilings with 

 dark wood beams and no white ceiling. Yellow flowers 



