December ig, 



•] 



Garden and Forest. 



515 



things about which no one knew so mucli as he. The 

 novels were failures, however, while the articles succeeded, 

 so he was gradually driven, we may almost say, to the work 

 for which he had been born. Then for a number of years 

 he was a constant contributor to various periodicals, and as 

 fast as his essays accumulated they were republished in book 

 form. Among his best known volumes are "The Game- 

 keeper at Home," "The Amateur Poacher," "Wild Life in a 

 Southern County," "Round about a Great Estate," "Nature 

 Near London," "The Open Air" and " Hodge and His IVIas- 

 ters." About seven years ago his health began to fail and was 

 never restored before his death in 1S87. During the greater 

 part of this time he suffered incredibly, worn with want of 

 nourishment and sleep, racked with perpetual terrible pain, 

 and coming often under the surgeon's knife ; tortured with 

 poverty, too, wild with a longing for the out-door life he could 

 no longer lead, eager to write but unable to hold a pen, ex- 

 ternal needs and internal cravings for expression tormenting 

 the vigorous mind while the body was alive only in the sense 

 of suffering. Yet during this time some of his most beautiful 

 work was done — dictated bit by bit as his pain and feebleness 

 allowed. One of his last essays was " An English Deer Park," 

 recently published in the Century JSlagasine. 



It is hard to explain the cpiality of Jefferies' work to those 

 who do not know it. He kept a note-book, like Thoreau, from 

 day to day, and if we may judge by tlie few extracts ]\Ir. Besant 

 gives, he seems therein Thoreau's inferior. The accuracy, the 

 minute delicacy of observation, is the same, but the record is 

 briefer and drier, and we miss Thoreau's poetical, philosophical 

 tone. But in the essays which he published he stands on 

 the same height as Thoreau in point of literary power — or, to 

 many eyes, perhaps, on a still loftier height. His style is a 

 marvel of ease, clearness, variety and charm, and as personal 

 as a style well could be. It has certain oddities — as, for 

 instance, the dropping out of the verb from time to time — 

 which, with a weaker writer, we might resent. But everything 

 Jefferies does seems right as he does it, for whatever it may 

 be, it never means a lapse from graphic distinctness, from 

 personal charm and grace and force. Then the human ele- 

 ment, which is lacking with Thoreau, is very prominent with 

 him — it is men in nature that he paints, not nature merely, or 

 the soul of the single man who is gazing upon her. Very little 

 definite instruction is to be gathered from his pages. He was 

 even less a man of science than Thoreau, and nothing could 

 be more naive than his way of showing that he never thought 

 of going to the most substantial sources of information for 

 that knowledge of natural things which he earnestly desired to 

 get. A " botanist friend," or a good book of colored pictures 

 — these were the aids he sought, and while acknowledging 

 their insufficiency, he felt no impulse to turn to the science 

 of botany itself. And he never tries to tell us, as John Bur- 

 roughs does, of all the lovely, interesting things we may find 

 in this spot or in that. He simply records his impressions, 

 now in the way of the most exquisite pictures of certain visible 

 objects, and now in the way of thoughtful rhapsodies which 

 are, perhaps, the finest things of their kind in the language — 

 at once the sanest and the most ethereal, the most poetical 

 and the most human. Sometimes his poetizing instincts lead 

 him into work which can scarcely be called descriptive in any 

 of its parts ; sometimes an innate artistic instinct shows with 

 curious distinctness, as when he refers to that method of 

 painting which we call " impressionistic," which is so gener- 

 ally misunderstood and condemned by laymen, but which he 

 felt to be true, in certain ways, above all other methods ; and 

 sometimes he is the social reformer, the prophet of the poor 

 and suffering, the sympathetic man forgetting the beauty of 

 inanimate nature, almost, in the sight of how men may 

 struggle and perish on her bosom. The greatest charm of 

 his work lies in its perpetual variety — but this fact makes it all 

 the more impossible for us to do it justice within our narrow 

 limits. It should be enough, however, to point our readers to 

 Mr. Besant's biography. We can trust this to lead them 

 straightway to Jefferies himself as his books explain him, 

 showing us a man to admire and love, as well as a writer to 

 enjoy and an interpreter of nature with a very personal and 

 vital message on his lips. 



Periodical Literature. 



Scribner's Magazine for December appropriately opens with 

 a beautiful article called " Winter in the Adirondacks," by 

 Mr. H. W. Mabie. The text is pleasant reading, and shows 

 true appreciation of the charms of winter landscape as well 

 as of winter life in the wilderness. But the illustrations are of 

 more exceptional value. Those from photographs are well 



chosen and admirably executed; yet still better, because as 

 true in their way and possessing the added charm of personal 

 human feeling, are tjiose from drawings by various artists. 

 All are similar, of course, in theme ; but this fact only makes 

 their essential contrast more interesting. Six painters have 

 seen the same themes under the same conditions ; each has 

 painted truthfully, but each gives us a different effect, be- 

 cause each has put a bit of himself into the result — has felt 

 what he saw in a different way, and has clearly expressed his 

 feeling. The picture by Mr. Crane, whicli was chosen for 

 the frontispiece, is good, yet perhaps the least good of the 

 six, while the charming " impression" by Mr. Twachtman, if 

 not the very best, is at all events the most individual and 

 charming. A single artist might have portrayed the aspect 

 of the woods in winter as faithfully as it is portrayed in this 

 article ; but no one artist by himself could so thoroughly have 

 portrayed their spirit, illustrated all their moods and meanings, 

 and very certainly no camera could. 



The fact that even the midwinter numbers of our great 

 magazines are not thought complete without an out-door arti- 

 cle of one sort or another, is a pleasing sign of the growth of 

 our public in appreciation of nature. In Harper's Magazine 

 for December, as well as in Scribner s, we find such an arti- 

 cle — "A Midnight Ramble" — from the well-known pen of 

 Mr. Hamilton Gibson. It is not so appropriate in theme to 

 midwinter, we think for a moment, as the Adirondack chap- 

 ter. But after a moment we are well content, for what can 

 be pleasanter in midwinter than to find ourselves transported 

 to midsummer — shown its loveliness and mystery in sympa- 

 thetic words and charming pictures ? Much as Mr. Gibson 

 has written in former days about woodland rambles, he has 

 found a new theme to-day. Taking us out-doors at midnight, 

 he shows us many old friends with new faces — sleepy, droop- 

 ing, dew-besprinkled faces, often very different from those the 

 sun beholds. Much real instruction is prettily given in the 

 text, which will tempt many readers to nocturnal explorations 

 with a lantern. Yet, once again, the illustrations are still 

 more attractive. The contrasted groups of Locust, Melilot, 

 Lupine and Oxalis, here awake and there asleep, are particu- 

 larly charming, while nothing could be more fairy-like than 

 the sphinx-moths among the Honey-suckles, or more truthful 

 and graceful than the Nasturtivmis, and, especially, the Even- 

 ing Primroses. He must be a happy man wlx) can see so 

 much in nature as Mr. Gibson, can write about it so well and 

 can picture it so daintily. Most of us would be content with 

 either one of his three gifts. 



Meetings of Societies. 



The Forestry Congress at Atlanta. 



THE Forestry Meeting at Atlanta on December 5th, 6th and 

 7th, was marked by the termination of the existence of the 

 southern organization and its union with the .A.merican For- 

 estry Congress. The attendance at the meetings was large, 

 and the people of Atlanta, the members of the Legislature, 

 and the officers of the city and state governments, were con- 

 stant and profuse in their courtesies to the visitors. There 

 were pleasant receptions at the house of Governor Gordon 

 and other places, there were very full and accurate reports 

 in the leading newspapers, and the Congress and its objects 

 and ^^'ork received from everyljody the most cordial and 

 serious respect. 



There were interesting essays and addresses by Colonel E. 

 T. Ensign, on Colorado Forestry, and on Rocky Moimtain 

 Forests; by General Greely, on Rainfall; by Professor Charles 

 Mohr, on Forest Lands ; li'y Professor George F Atkinson, on 

 the Relations of Trees to Bird and Insect Life ; by i\Ir. M. J. 

 Kerns, on Public Parks and Forests ; by Mrs. Ellen Call Long, 

 on the Forest Features of Florida; by Professor Eggleston, on 

 the Forestry Outlook; and the discussions were interesting, 

 though they were restricted somewhat by the feeling duit the 

 tari/f"is an inflammable subject and one to be kept out of a 

 Forestry Cofigress. . 



On the last day of the session there was a free-planting at 

 the Girls' Pligh School, in the presence of vast throngs of peo- 

 ple, with short addresses by members of the Congress. Ofli- 

 cers were elected, committees appointed, and the customary 

 resolutions adopted. There was nothing remarkable or 

 striking in the proceedings, f>ut the meeting was pleas- 

 ant and interesting. The Congress represents very well the 

 official side of forestry in this country, the ideas and work of 

 the Forestry Division' of the Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington. Its vitality hitherto has, in great degree, been 



