14 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



his feeling for his native place was one of strange in- 

 tensity, a life-long passion ; and when the Venite Lau- 

 damus Domino filled the little church with a sudden 

 tempest of musical sound, the thought of his dust 

 lying close by came to my mind, and I wished that 

 that loud noise of the living in a quiet place could 

 wake him out of his hundred years' sleep for a brief 

 spell, so that he might taste the summer sunshine 

 once more, and look once more, though but for a 

 moment, on his beloved hills and home. 



Enough of Hurdis: after having been his debtor 

 since boyhood it is satisfactory to feel that that ancient 

 obligation has at length been discharged in full. 



We may say of Sussex that its native writers have 

 done nothing, or nothing worth doing, for it ; and that 

 no outside writers of note have come to its aid, as has 

 happened in the case of some other counties. Had 

 Richard Jefferies lived it would, I believe, have been 

 different. It is true that his soul was dyed, and dyed 

 deeply, in that North Wilts nature which he had first 

 beheld, where his revelation came to him ; but the 

 visible world was too much to him, and his senses too 

 well trained, to let him rest satisfied with memories; 

 and we may see in The Story of my Heart and some 

 other of his writings, that the Sussex coast country where 

 he found a home powerfully attracted and held him. 

 The thirteen years that have passed since his sad death 

 would have brought his splendid powers, always pro- 

 gressing until the last day of his life, to their fullest 



