286 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



the wainscot worn by his father's head ; or he has a naive, 

 ferocious anger, as when he points to the men and women 

 tramps, the Things, that go shp-slop to the fair, ' not 

 equal in value to the sheep . . . not worth anything when 

 they're dead.' ' Fate ' is here stronger than ever : Iden 

 is unfortunate for a hundred reasons, and * after all said 

 and done. Fate.' Everything * is in the Turkish manner,' 

 he says, making Grand- Viziers of Barbers, making great 

 Iden and fair Amaryllis the quarry of creditors. Never- 

 theless, night has enfolded the hamlet, lamps are hghted, 

 the snow is piled without, and Mrs. Iden has warmed her 

 elder wine ; her husband's potatoes are buried in the warm 

 ashes : Jefferies has but two years to live, and it is loving- 

 kindness which, after all, he feels and makes feel, as he 

 draws up to the fire, towards a world not yet fit for the 

 life he dreamed of on the Downs. Until men and women 

 are ready for that pallet ' in the midst of air and Hght,' 

 that plain and simple house, there is much goodness in 

 the farm when men speak truth and drain large cups. 

 With aU its unhappiness, the house, and in some degree 

 the book, with all its honesty, is a consoling one. We 

 seem to hear the poet who sang : A great storm comes 

 out of the heavens, the streams are frostbound ; pile up 

 the fire, mix lavishly the honey-sweet wine, and lay your 

 head on a cushion soft. 



* Let the grandees go to the opera,' he says ; ' for 

 me the streets.' In his mind he cannot get away from 

 that terrible beautiful * thickness of people,' London, 

 any more than Alere could. The vastness, variety, 

 complexity, opulence, disorder, are a delight as well 

 as a pain. It is all wrong, and meantime let us love 

 it — love it, except the sycophancy and the tyranny ; 

 Jefferies would add also ' thrift and — twaddle.' How 

 delicious, he says — the man who has to crawl upstairs on 

 hands and knees when he is so fortunate as to have got 

 downstairs ! — ■' How delicious now to walk down Regent 

 Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a 

 widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, 



