312 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



physically, that, as a matter of fact, there never was any 

 earth.' 



It is most mournful music, but it is music. At first 

 sight it is one of the most numbing and desperate things 

 outside of our own lives. With its interruptions, its 

 moodiness, it is an exquisite portrait of an hour in the 

 life of a sensitive egoist, with disease and poverty against 

 him, looking backward, as Lamb and Hood looked back- 

 ward. Were it nothing more, it might seem to be one 

 of those pieces that check the heart and make against 

 life. But it is more ; it is not merely a swaying wreck 

 that drifts to the whirlpool and death of its desire. 

 Languor, acquiescence, retrospection can effect nothing, 

 even if sometimes they guide a pen. Behind this gloom 

 there is intense vitality, a stirring and a promise of the 

 lightning which, purging the gloom, brings the rain and 

 the sunhght of beauty and joy again. The piece has that 

 intensity which makes pure sorrow the equal of pure joy, 

 so keen is it, so expressive of the whole character, so rich in 

 apprehensions of Nature and men. Jefferies' style here 

 attains its greatest simplicity, the highest expressiveness 

 of the period which followed ' The Story of My Heart ' 

 and produced ' Amarylhs.' He was dictating, not writing. 

 There is no long-sought mot propre intruding upon the 

 sentences that are like speech and, as is not rare in 

 Jefferies, are unafraid of slang. There is nothing ornate, 

 nothing luxurious ; his eye is quiet. Like ' Winds of 

 Heaven,' ' Hours of Spring,' and others, it has the effect 

 of music, in spite of its lack of melody or pattern. It is a 

 lonely human voice speaking clearly as the heart moves 

 it on the plainest matters. Again and again it touches 

 the source of tears, then suddenly ceases. That they are 

 the tears of a dying man is an accident, and is not neces- 

 sary to the effect of the whole. They are also the tears 

 of one who is still young. In some ways the style, un- 

 affected, sufficient, without pecuharities, within reach of 

 the commonplace, recalls that of ' The Amateur Poacher.' 

 But in these ten years of passionate thought and observa- 



