74 
NATURE NOTES. 
LIFE IN THE FIELDS.* 
It has been found possible to put together yet another volume of the hitherto 
uncollected essays of Richard Jefferies, and one which, although it cannot rank 
among the best of his books, is by no means the least interesting of them. It contains 
.some of his earliest and some of his latest work, the former dating from 1872 and 
1S74, the latter published since his death; while one of the essays, “A True 
Tale of a Wiltshire Labourer,” has not hitherto appeared in print. To this last, and 
the half dozen more on kindred topics the volume owes most of its bulk and nearly 
all its value; the remainder are mainly fragments, and add nothing to Jefferies’ repu- 
tation. These last are of the style which we usually regard as characteristic of the 
writer — astylemore adequately displayed in the Life of the Fields, of which we are 
glad to welcome a neat edition of the right size and shape for the pocket. When 
shall we have a similar re-issue of the Gamekeeper at Home and Wild Life — perhaps 
his best books ? 
The life of the field to Jefferies however, always included its human element. 
In Hodge and his Masters this prevailed almost to the exclusion of the natural 
features, although in other books it was kept in the background. Very pathetic 
and sad in many ways are the aspects of country life as pourtrayed by this man, 
who wrote from intimate knowledge, and was in keen sympathy with his subject. 
“The Labourer’s Daily Life,” in which “there is absolutely no poetry, no 
colour,” as Jefferies describes it, is almost as hopeless as A Village Tragedy, 
saddest of books ; and the efforts to improve it do not seem to be very successful. 
“Field-faring Women” have no better time, although Mr. Jefferies does not 
adopt the view that field labour is degrading to women ; and the children, “hardy 
young dogs, one and all,” although they enjoy life at its beginning, soon settle 
down to hard work and drudgery. We have for some time known that the poetry 
of rural life is in the main perceptible only by those who regard it from a distance, 
and a course of Jefferies cannot fail to deepen this conviction. 
In each of these volumes, much of the information is conveyed in narrative 
form. Jefferies could not write a novel, but such sketches as “John Smith’s 
Shanty,” “ The P'ield-Play,” and “ The Wiltshire Labourer,” are in many ways 
prototypes of the short story which has of late been so much in vogue, and — in 
that curious way in which one thing sometimes reminds us of another quite unlike 
it — recall the graphic narratives of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. They are “realistic,” 
to employ a much-abused word — perhaps somewhat too much so to suit all tastes — 
and have undoubted power. 
But it is in such sketches as “ The Pageant of Summer,” in The Life of the 
Fields, foreshadowed by the earlier “ The Coming of Summer” in Toilers, that 
we find the Jefferies dear to Selbornians — the man who not only saw what we can 
all see if we choose, but who set it down so accurately that to read one of his 
chapters by the fireside is to be transported into the fields of summer. There is 
no need to quote from it, if we began it would be difficult to stop, and half-a- 
crown will buy the whole book. The “ Water-Colley,” again — by which local name 
the water-ousel or dipper is intended — is a delightful piece of writing, although it 
contains one slip, for Jefferies speaks of the “early purple orchis,” when it is 
clear from his description that he means the spotted orchis {O. maailata). In 
“ Village Miners” we have a delightful talk about country .words and old-time 
phraseology ; even in a London square and among the pigeons at the British 
^Museum the life of the fields is traced — “it is there too, if you w'ill but see.it.” 
The great charm of books such as this lies in their absolute simplicity and 
straightforwardness. Vears back, when some who are now in middle life were 
young, essays about natural objects would have teemed with moral and religious 
teaching — would, indeed, have been written mainly with a view to that end. 
Xow-a-days the fashion of teaching has changed, but the passion for it remains, 
iind we have many delightfully written little volumes, the only drawback to 
w'hich is that the author is all the while paving the way for inferences which, if 
they are not borne out by facts, may, at any rate, claim the merit of originality. 
• The Toilers of the Field, by Richard Jefferies. Longmans, 8vo, pp. 327, 6s. The Li/e, 
of the Fields, by the same. Chatto and Windus. 8vo, pp. 262, 2S. 6d. 
