CHAPTER XVII 



'AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR' 



' Amaryllis at the Fair ' was the last book published by 

 Jefferies during his lifetime. Probably it was written 

 before May, 1886, since he then offered a book to a 

 publisher, saying, ' I think you will soon see that the 

 characters are from life ' ; this was most likely ' Amaryllis.' 

 He was very ill ; his spine had given way, and there was 

 no position in which he could lie or sit so as to use a pen 

 without distress ; and ' consequently,' he wrote, ' a vast 

 mass of ideas go into space, for I cannot write them down.' 

 In this book, also, he revisits Coate Farm — how different 

 a man from what he was in ' The Poacher,' ' Be vis,' ' The 

 Dewy Morn ' ! He painted his own youth in various ways 

 in * The Poacher ' and * The Story of My Heart ' and 

 other books, and he painted it amidst the fields of Coate. 

 He called upon them, also, to deepen the lines of ' Meadow 

 Thoughts ' and ' Oak Bark.' But now Coate Farm (or 



* Coombe Oaks,' as he calls it in ' Amaryllis ') no longer 

 belonged to a Jefferies, though James Luckett and his 

 wife still lived ; and Jefferies returns to it a sick, wise 

 man of thirty-six or thirty-seven, of many thoughts and 

 changes, if of no forgettings, with his love and his joy 

 deepened, the cup of beauty preserved and enriched by a 

 touch of bitterness that takes away any over-sweetness or 

 tendency to go sour. Almost the first words are : 



* There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in 

 summer at Coombe Oaks.' 



The people are Amaryllis, a girl of sixteen ; her father 



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