The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies

by Walter Besant

This was going back to the right line. He seems, however, to have done no more in this line until August of the next year (the month after his marriage), when he returned in earnest to the rural life, and never afterwards left it. His earliest and fastest friend was Fraser's Magazine, now, alas! defunct. But he was speedily engaged to write for other papers and magazines. His real literary life, in fact, may be said to begin at this period. The "Farmer at Home" was the title of this paper singled out by the Spectator as the best of all the papers for the month. Here there occurs a really striking passage on the "Farmer's Creed." They live, says the writer, amid conditions so unchanging that they have acquired a creed of their own, which they rarely express, never discuss, and never fail to act upon.

"... In no other profession do the sons and the daughters remain so long, and so naturally, under the parental roof. The growth of half a dozen strong sons was a matter of self-congratulation, for each as he came to man's estate took the place of a labourer, and so reduced the money expenditure. The daughters worked in the dairy, and did not hesitate to milk occasionally, or, at least, to labour in the hay-field. They spun, too, the home-made stuffs in which all the family were clothed. A man's children were his servants. They could not stir a step without his permission. Obedience and reverence to the parent was the first and greatest of all virtues. Its influence was to extend through life, and through the whole social system. They were to choose the wife or the husband approved of at home. At thirty, perhaps, the more fortunate of the sons were placed on farms of their own nominally, but still really under the father's control. They dared not plough or sow except in the way that he approved. Their expenditure was strictly regulated by his orders. This lasted till his death, which might not take place for another twenty years. At the present moment I could point out ten or twelve such cases, where men of thirty or forty are in farms, and to all appearance perfectly free and independent, and yet as completely under the parental thumb as they were at ten years old.... These men, if they think thus of their own offspring, cannot be expected to be more tender towards the lower class around them. They did at one time, and some still wish to, extend the same system to the labouring population.... They did not want only to indulge in tyranny; what they did was to rule the labouring poor in the same way as they did their own children—nothing more nor less. These labouring men, like his own children, must do as the farmer thought best. They must live here or there, marry so and so, or forfeit favour—in short, obey the parental head. Each farmer was king in his own domain; the united farmers of a parish were kings of the whole place. They did not use the power circumstances gave them harshly, but they paid very little regard to the liberty of the subject.... In religion it is, or lately was, the same. It was not a matter with the farmer of the Athanasian Creed, or the doctrine of salvation by faith, or any other theological dogma. To him the parish church was the centre of the social system of the parish. It was the keystone of that parental plan of government that he believed in. The very first doctrine preached from the pulpit was that of obedience. 'Honour thy father and thy mother' was inculcated there every seventh day. His father went to church, he went to church himself, and everybody else ought to go. It was as much a social gathering as the dinner at the market ordinary, or the annual audit dinner of their common landlord. The Dissenter, who declined to pay Church-rates, was an unsocial person. He had left the circle. It was not the theology that they cared about, it was the social nonconformity. In a spiritual sense, too, the clergyman was the father of the parish, the shepherd of the flock—it was a part of the great system. To go a step farther, in political affairs the one leading idea still threaded itself through all. The proper Parliamentary representative—the natural law-giver—was the landlord of the district. He was born amongst them, walked about amongst them, had been in their houses many a time. He knew their wants, their ideas, their views. His own interest was identical with theirs. Therefore he was the man."

A third paper, called "John Smith's Shanty," gave a picture of the agricultural labourer's life. He here began, timidly at first, to leave the regions of hard actual fact, and to venture upon the higher flights of poetic and ideal work, but poetry based upon the actual facts. Yet not to leave altogether the journalistic methods. Thus, he wrote for Fraser a paper on "The Works at Swindon," which was simply a newspaper descriptive article, and one on "Allotment Gardens" for the New Quarterly Review. This was like his "Future of Farming"—a wholly practical paper. One of the new principles, he says, that is now gradually entering the minds of the masses, is a belief that each individual has a right to a certain share in the land of his birth. That was written twelve years ago. Since that time this belief has extended far and wide. There are now books and papers which openly advocate the doctrine that the land is the property of the people. It is no longer a question which is asked, an answer which has to be whispered on account of its great temerity: it is a doctrine openly held and openly taught. But Jefferies was the first to find it out. He heard the whisper in the cottage and in the village ale-house; the reeds beside the brook whispered it to him. If, he thinks, every labouring man had his allotment, he would cease to desire the general division of the land.

"If it is possible to find ground near enough to the residence of the population to be practically useful as cemeteries, there can be no valid reason why spaces should not be available for a system of gardens. Numerous companies have been formed for the purpose of supplying the workmen with houses; the building societies and their estates are situated outside the city, but within easy reach by rail. Why should not societies exist and flourish for the equally useful object of providing the workman with a garden? If the plan of universal division of land were thoroughly carried out, it follows that the cities would disappear, since, to obtain a bare living out of the four acres, a man must live on or very near to it, and spend his whole time in attending to it. But the extent of allotment-ground which such a society as this would provide for the workman must not be so large as to require any more attention than he could pay to it in the evening, or the Saturday afternoon, or at most in a day or so of absence from his work. He would have, of course, to go to his allotment by rail, and rail costs money. But how many thousands of workmen at this very hour go to their work day by day by rail, and return home at night; and the sum of money they thus expend must collectively be something enormous in the course of a year! To work his allotment he would have no necessity to visit it every day, or hardly every week. Such an allotment-ground must be under the direction of a proper staff of officers, for the distribution of lots, the collection of rent, the prevention of theft, and generally to maintain the necessary order. Looked at in this light, the extension of the allotment system to large towns does not hold out any very great difficulties. The political advantage which would accrue would be considerable, as a large section of the population would feel that one at least of their not altogether frivolous complaints was removed. As a pecuniary speculation, it is possible that such a society would pay as well as a building society; for the preliminary expenses would be so small in comparison. A building society has to erect blocks of houses before it can obtain any return; but merely to plough, and lay out a few fields in regular plots, and number them on a plan, is a light task. If the rent was not paid, the society could always seize the crops; and if the plot was not cultivated in a given time, they might have a rule by which the title to it should be vacated. To carry the idea further, a small additional payment per annum might make the plot the tenant's own property. This would probably act as a very powerful inducement."

In the year 1874 he meditates a great work, which he began but never finished, using up his notes in after-years for what is really the same subject treated with more literary finish and style than he had as yet acquired. He proposes (May 20th) to Messrs. Longmans to write a great book in two volumes on the whole Land Question. The first volume he proposes to call "Tenant and Labourer;" the second, "Land and Landlord." He will deal, he says, with the subject in an "impartial and trenchant" manner, but still "with a slightly conservative tone, so as to counsel moderation." On June 8th he sends an instalment of two hundred manuscript folios, proposing that the first volume shall be called "The Agricultural Life." The chapters are to be as follows:

I.	The Creed of the Agriculturist.
II.	The Agriculturist at Home.
III.	Agriculture as a Business.
IV.	Summary of the Farmer's Case.
V.	The Labourer's Daily Life.
VI.	The Labourer's Case.
VII.	The Gist of the Whole Matter.

This proposal never came to anything; but the subject-matter was abundantly treated by Jefferies later on. Most of the chapters will be found in "Hodge and his Masters." So far, he is still, it will be observed, the practical man. Whatever feeling he has for the poetry of Nature, he has as yet found little expression of it. He next wrote a paper on "Field-faring Women" for Fraser. He also wrote a most delightful article for the Graphic on the same subject, in which the truth is told about these women. This was the very first paper written in his later and better style:

"Those who labour in the fields require no calendar, no carefully-compiled book of reference to tell them when to sow and when to reap, to warn them of the flight of time. The flowers, blooming and fading, mark the months with unfailing regularity. When the sweet violet may be found in warm sheltered nooks, and the sleepy snake first crawls out from under the brown leaves, then it is time to gather the couch or roots after the plough, and to hoe the young turnips and swedes. This is the first work of the year for the agricultural women. It is not a pleasant work. Everyone who has walked over a ploughed field remembers how the boots were clogged with the adhesive clay, and how the continuous ridges and furrows impeded progress. These women have to stoop and gather up the white couch-roots, and the other weeds, and place them in heaps to be burnt. The spring is not always soft and balmy. There comes one lovely day, when the bright sunlight encourages the buds and peeping leaves to push out, and then follows a week or more of the harsh biting east wind. The arable field is generally devoid of hedges or trees to break the force of the weather, and the couch-pickers have to withstand its cutting rush in the open....

"The cold clods of earth numb the fingers as they search for the roots and weeds. The damp clay chills the feet through thick-nailed boots, and the back grows stiff with stooping. If the poor woman suffers from the rheumatism so common among the labouring class, such a day as this will make every bone in her body ache. When at last four o'clock comes, she has to walk a mile or two miles to her cottage and prepare her husband's supper. In hilly districts, where sheep are the staple production, it follows, of course, that turnips and swedes, as their food, are the most important crop. Upon the unenclosed open downs the cold of early spring is intense, and the women who are engaged in hoeing feel it bitterly. Down in the rich fertile valleys, in the meadows, women are at work picking up the stones out of the way of the scythe, or beating clots about with a short prong. All these are wretched tasks, especially the last, and the remuneration for exposure and handling dirt very small. But now 'green grow the rushes,' and the cuckoo-flower thrusts its pale petals up among the rising grass. Till that grass reaches maturity, the women in meadow districts can find no field employment. The woods are now carpeted with acres upon acres of the wild hyacinth, or blue-bell, and far surpass in loveliness the most cultivated garden. The sheen of the rich deep blue shows like a lake of colour, in which the tall ash poles stand, and in the sunset each bell is tinged with purple. The nightingale sings in the hazel-copse, or on the hawthorn bough, both day and night, and higher up, upon the downs, the skies are full of larks carolling at 'Heaven's gate.' But the poor woman hears them not. She has no memories of poetry; her mind can call up no beautiful thoughts to associate with the flower or the bird. She can sign her name in a scrawling hand, and she can spell through simple print, but to all intents and purposes she is completely ignorant. Therefore, she cannot see, that is, appreciate or feel, the beauty with which she is surrounded. Yet, despite the harsh, rude life she leads, there works up to the surface some little instinctive yearning after a higher condition. The yellow flowers in the cottage-garden—why is it that cottagers are so fond of yellow?—the gilly-flower, the single stock, marigolds, and such old-fashioned favourites, show a desire for ornament; still more so the occasional geranium in the window, specially tended by the wife."

Later on he returns to the subject, and relates the story of Dolly most mournful, most tragic, full of tears and pity.