LAST ESSAYS 313 



tion, of much life and much writing, he has found himself ; 

 and now it is no longer the sportsman, or the naturalist, 

 or the agriculturist, or the colourist, or the mystic, that 

 speaks, but a man who has played these parts and been 

 worn and shaped by them, by work and pain. Whether 

 this was but a stage towards an end never to be at- 

 tained — 



' Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, 

 And burned is Apollo's laurel bough ' — 



or only the last stage before death, it is impossible to 

 say. But it is certain that these last years, these last 

 months, brought gifts that had not been received when 

 ' The Amateur Poacher,' when ' The Story of My Heart ' 

 and ' The Dewy Morn ' were written. The observation 

 was as fine as ever, and the humanity was deeper and 

 more varied, and his maturing interest in men made 

 him regret that White ' did not leave a natural history 

 of the people of his day.'* When he undertook the 

 preface to the ' Natural History of Selborne ' in 

 February, 1887, he was ' a perfect invalid.' Sending 

 it to Mr. Ernest Rhys, in June, he wished that he had 

 had time for a longer essay. William Sharp had sent 

 him a copy of Whitman's ' Specimen Days ' as a token 

 of esteem ; and Jefferies was still enough alive to ask, ^ 

 ' Why doesn't Mr. Sharp send me his " Leaves of Grass," 

 as a companion to " Specimen Days " ?' But his work 

 was done. He had few more months to live, and he 

 spent them in weakness and pain, though not without 

 intervals of pleasure ; for Mr. J. W. Northf tells how, at 

 this time, when he was at Goring on a visit, Jefferies 

 arranged for him and Mrs. Jefferies a trip to Arundel, 

 partly that he might, ' unrebuked, spend some of his 

 latest hard earnings in a pint of " Perrier Jouet " for my 

 supper,' and on their return he was standing against 

 the doorpost to welcome them. During these months 



* Preface to White's Selborne. 



t Pall Mall Gazette, August i6, 1887. 



