CHAPTER XVI 



'AFTER LONDON' 



' After London,' or ' Wild England,' was published in 

 1885, but finished in March or April, 1884. On April 2, 

 1884, he wrote* from Brighton that he had just put the 

 finishing touch to it, though in June, 1885, he said that 

 ' the MS. was completed three years since.' It is, he 

 says, ' in no sense a novel, more like a romance, but a 

 romance of a real character. . . . You will, I think, 

 do me the justice to say that it is original.' The two 

 years at Brighton were his most prolific. He wrote 

 there ' The Story of My Heart,' ' The Dewy Morn,' 

 * Red Deer,' ' After London,' as well as many of the 

 essays in ' Nature near London,' ' The Life of the 

 Fields,' ' The Open Air,' ' Field and Hedgerow,' and 

 some not yet reprinted from the magazines. This was an 

 oasis of comparative health and unbounded mental energy 

 after the illness of 1881-82, and as late as March 27, 1884, 

 he could write* that his illness was ' not at all serious, but 

 very annoying, being so apt to prevent his getting about ' ; 

 it had, in fact, kept him away from London for some time, 

 except to see a physician. So busy had he been that he 

 was told he wrote too much. 



' To me,' he answers,* ' it seems as if I wrote nothing, 

 more especially since my illness, for this is the third year 

 I have been so weakened. To me it seems as if I wrote 

 nothing, for my mind teems with ideas, and my difficulty 

 is to know what to do with them. I not only sketch out 



* To Mr. C. J. Longman. 

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