RECAPITULATION 327 



long solitary walks, and later his ill health, kept him 

 from seeking society, and he was happy with the relations 

 and the friends of simple tastes among whom he found 

 himself. He was homely and unaffected in their com- 

 pany, and with them, as with literary and other acquaint- 

 ances, he talked not much, but easily, on his own subjects 

 and on current matters. He wrote few letters, and in 

 none, apparently, expressed himself with anything like 

 the deeper egoism of his books. His life went perfectly 

 well, nourished by his own energy and by domestic affec- 

 tion. He had one difficulty — ill health — which in its 

 turn threatened poverty. So long as he could send 

 articles to the papers and magazines he was well off, but 

 seldom able to save. He enj oyed, simply and passionately, 

 his own life and the life of others, and in his books that 

 enjoyment survives, and their sincerity and variety keep, 

 and will keep, them alive ; for akin to, and part of, his 

 gift of love was his power of using words. Nothing is 

 more mysterious than this power, along with the kindred 

 powers of artist and musician. It is the supreme proof, 

 above beauty, physical strength, intelligence, that a man 

 or woman lives. Lighter than gossamer, words can 

 entangle and hold fast all that is loveliest, and strongest, 

 and fleetest, and most enduring, in heaven and earth. 

 They are for the moment, perhaps, excelled by the might 

 of policy or beauty, but only for the moment, and then 

 all has passed away ; but the words remain, and though 

 they also pass away under the smiling of the stars, they 

 mark our utmost achievement in time. They outlive the 

 life of which they seem the lightest emanation — the 

 proud, the vigorous, the melodious words. Jefferies' 

 words, it has been well said, are like a glassy covering 

 of the things described. But they are often more than 

 that : the things are forgotten, and it is an aspect of 

 them, a recreation of them, a finer development of them, 

 which endures in the written words. These words call 

 no attention to themselves. There is not an uncommon 

 word, nor a word in an uncommon sense, all through 



