CHAPTER VIII.
THE LONGMAN LETTERS.
Mr. Charles Longman, who for the last eight years of Jefferies' life was one of his most constant friends, has lent me a packet of letters written to him by Jefferies between the years 1878 and 1886. They form by themselves, like the previous letters to Mrs. Harrild, a kind of diary of his life during that period.
"The papers on the 'Gamekeeper at Home,' in the Pall Mall Gazette," Mr. Longman writes, "were the first things of Jefferies' that attracted me. I thought at once that they seemed to me written by a man who could see more of the secrets of nature than anyone whose work I had ever come across. I wrote to Mr. George Smith, asking him to forward a letter to the writer of the papers, whose name I did not know. In the letter I proposed that he should write a complete work on Shooting, to be what Hawker's work was forty years ago. He never did it; but this was the beginning of my friendship with this most interesting man."
"He never did it." Jefferies could never do anything which did not spring from his own brain. He has written admirable pages on kindred subjects—he was the very man to write such a book—and it would undoubtedly have proved a most popular book. Why, there is not a gentleman's house in the three kingdoms or the colonies which would not desire to have a copy of such a work. But the work was proposed to him by another man, therefore Jefferies could not see his way to put his heart in it. However, he did think of it; he even went so far as to draw up a scheme of the work. He would have chapters on the gun, the gun-room, the art of shooting, etiquette of the field, the dog, the various kinds of game, and so forth. Presently, we hear that the book is actually begun; that there are difficulties about getting information as to various points; that he has been occupied with the various kinds of game, and so on. He also mentions with complacency pardonable and even praiseworthy that he has received a proposal to write two books from a leading Edinburgh firm. Nothing apparently came of this proposal. It is, however, noticeable, and to young writers it should be very encouraging, that no sooner did his first really good book appear—the "Gamekeeper at Home"—than his genius was at once recognised, and the best publishers began inviting him to write for them. He then offers a novel—always a novel!—which Messrs. Longmans' reader does not advise the house to accept. What was that novel? Perhaps one of those which had already been refused by one publisher, if not by more. Pending the writing and completion of the book on Shooting, he submits another proposal. He says:
"To carry out this volume I must partly lay aside some MSS. which I had previously begun, and before writing it I should like to hear your opinion on the subject. The provisional title of one for which I have accumulated materials and ideas for some time is 'The Proletariate: the Power of the Future.' It has been my lot to see a great deal of the Labour Question, not only agricultural, but also urban." Really? Urban? Where, how, and in what period of his life did he get his urban experience? Was it on the streets of Swindon, that great centre of life and thought? "And it seems to me that all politics are slowly resolving into this one great point." He means that the condition of the people all over the world is rapidly becoming the dominant question. He was right; but he spoke ten years too soon. "Religion, society, institutions of every kind are affected. No doubt you saw the extraordinary account in the Times recently of the burial of a Socialist in Germany, and the marked progress of their doctrines. There are several books on wages, capital and labour, etc., but it seems to me that most thinkers and writers treat the subject on grounds too narrow. Of wages I propose to say very little. My idea is to point out how proletarian influences are at work everywhere under the surface. The Church, the Chapel, the Houses of Parliament, legislation, society, at home; abroad, the same. Note the Nihilism in Russia, and the railway insurrection in the United States lately. Everywhere the masses are heaving and fermenting. In our own rural districts I clearly foresee changes in the future through the education now beginning of the cottagers. Personally, I have little feeling, and my book will be absolutely free of party politics. I look at it much as I should dissect and analyze a given period in the history of ancient Rome."
Nothing came of this proposal, and, indeed, one feels that Jefferies was not the man to write such a book. Of the people in other countries he knew nothing but what he read in the papers; of the people at home he knew only the agricultural portion; and though he had read a great many books he was in no sense an historical student. But he was still young, and it still seemed to him, as to all young writers, that he could write a book upon any subject which it interested him to read about in the papers or elsewhere.
The same letter contains another idea. It is that of a book on "The History of the English Squire." This seems a very good subject for a competent person. Perhaps someone will take up the idea and write the history of the English squire before he becomes extinct. One would like to see how, first, the yeoman added acre to acre, ousting his neighbour, and so became the squire; then how, gradually, all over the country, owing to the action of forces too strong for him, the yeoman began to disappear; how the squire was able to add more acres, buying out yeoman after yeoman, always on the look-out to buy more land, and therefore always becoming more important; and how, presently, he got a title, which he now "enjoys," claiming superiority of blood and descent, while the ex-yeoman, once his equal, is now his tenant, and humbly doffs his hat. Jefferies, one feels convinced, ought to have written a most interesting and instructive volume upon this subject, if—which he has never shown—he had the patience for historical research and investigation.