220 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
give him a greater satisfaction than all his other 
achievements in the field? After it, all legitimate 
sport would seem illegitimate, and whole hecatombs 
of hares and pheasants, and even large animals, 
fallen before his gun, would only stir in him a feel- 
ing of disgust and self-contempt. He would pro- 
bably hold his tongue about a combat of that brutal 
kind, but all the same he would gladly remember 
how in some strange, unaccountable way he sud- 
denly became possessed of the daring, quickness, 
and certitude necessary to hold his wily, desperate 
foe in check, to escape its fangs and claws, and 
finally to overcome it. Above all, he would re- 
member the keen feeling of savage joy experienced 
in the contest. This would make all ordinary sport 
seem insipid; to kill a rat in some natural way 
would seem better to him than to murder elephants 
scientifically from a safe distance. The feeling 
occasionally bursts out in the Story of My 
Heart: “To shoot with a gun is nothing.... 
Give me an iron mace that I may crush the savage 
beast and hammer him down. A spear to thrust 
him through with, so that I may feel the long blade 
enter, and the push of the shaft.’’ And more in the 
same strain, shocking to some, perhaps, but show- 
ing that gentle Richard Jefferies had in him some 
of the elements of a fine barbarian. 
But it is in childhood and boyhood, when in- 
stincts are nearest to the surface, and ready when 
occasion serves to spring into activity. Inherited 
second nature is weakest then; and habit has not 
