LAST ESSAYS 315 



This incident has been interpreted in two ways. One 

 party says that Jefferies died an orthodox Christian, 

 and some would even go so far as to make him a sort of 

 Dr. Faustus, who was redeemed at the last hour. The 

 other party says : 



' Herein is the simple explanation of Jefferies' alleged 

 conversion. He was very weak — so weak that he perhaps 

 could not but yield outward acquiescence to the affec- 

 tionate importunities of those around him, while still 

 inwardly holding the views which, as he recently avowed, 

 " expressed his most serious convictions." So long as 

 he retained any shght measure of health and strength ; 

 so long as he was able, even at rare intervals, to enjoy 

 that vital communion with Nature on which his whole 

 being depended ; so long, in fact, as he was Richard 

 Jefferies, and not a shattered wreck, he was a free- 

 thinker. Even at the last he withdrew no syllable of his 

 writings ; he saw no priest ; he made no acceptance of 

 any sort of dogma. His own published statements 

 remain, and will remain, beyond dispute or question, the 

 authoritative expression of his life-creed.'* 



With the interpretations that come of private grief and 

 affection, nobody outside the family and friends of the 

 dead is concerned. But there are some narrow sectarians 

 who would ignore the work of Jefferies' maturity, and lay 

 stress upon words which might be paralleled from the 

 condemned cell. They strike him when he is down, 

 which is a liberty hardly to be conceded to Christians, 

 even when the opponent is a freethinker. They do not 

 claim that his thought progressed to this orthodox end ; 

 but, intruding upon a matter of the spirit with dead 

 words — with words once spiritual in which they have 

 slain the spirit — they would drag the dead man into an 

 unquiet air, as of a political election, in order that he 

 who pursued the truth may vote as a partisan. His 

 pursuit was tripped up by death, and to attach any 

 importance to his fallen hours is to cast scorn upon life, 



* Richard Jefferies : Bis Life and His Ideals, by Henry S. Salt. 



