The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies

by Walter Besant

He presently forwards a specimen chapter for the Shooting-Book. That was in September, 1878. In October he formally accepted the business arrangements offered by the firm, undertook the work, and signed the agreement. There follows here a gap of three years. When the letters are resumed, Jefferies is living at West Brighton (December, 1882). He offers to contribute to the new Longman's Magazine, and proposes an article consisting of three short sketches. (1) The Acorn-gatherer; (2) The Legend of a Gateway; and (3) A Roman Brook. This article, in fact, appeared under the title of "Bits of Oak Bark."

He presently speaks of his long illness, which has kept him out of the world. "I see," he says, "that you have got out the Shooting-Book under the title of 'The Dead Shot.'" This, however, was a reprint of an old book. Mr. Longman's idea of a complete manual for shooting has since been carried out in "The Badminton Library." "No wonder; I could not expect anyone to be more patient than you were. But even now I hope some day to send in a manuscript."

He is also ready to write another book. This time it is to be a series of "short story-sketches of life and character, incident and nature. I want to express the deeper feelings with which observation of life-histories has filled me, and I assure you I have as large a collection of these facts and incidents—the natural history of the heart—as I have ever written about birds and trees." In short, he proposes to write a series which shall take the place in the magazine of the novel, and says that he has enough material to carry him along until the year 1890, or longer. "Why not let other contributors, besides the novelist, occasionally give you a series? For myself, I have given up English novels and taken to the French, which are at least bright, short, dramatic, and amusing." The poor English novelist! He has to endure a great deal. Whenever an editor is in want of a subject for a leading article, or a critic for something to talk about, he has a fling at the English novelist. The greatest artist and the smallest, most insignificant story-teller; the master and the apprentice; the observer of manners and the school-girl—all are lumped together by the critic who has nothing else to write about, and discussed under the title of "the English Novelist." And to think that Jefferies—Richard Jefferies—should throw his stone! Oh! 'tis too much! But Nemesis fell upon him, for he presently wrote "Green Ferne Farm," which is neither short, bright, dramatic, nor amusing. That proposed series did not appear. He says, a few days afterwards, that he has begun a paper asked for by Mr. Longman on "The County Suffrage." This paper subsequently appeared under the title of "After the County Suffrage."

It was in June, 1883, that Longman's Magazine contained the article called "The Pageant of Summer." This fine paper, the best thing ever written by Jefferies, glorified the whole of that number. There has never been, I think, in any magazine any article like unto it, so splendid in imagery and language, so perfectly truthful, so overflowing with observation, so full of the deepest feeling, so tender and so touching, so generous of thought and suggestion. In this paper Jefferies reached his highest point. There are plenty of single pages and detached passages in which he has equalled the "Pageant of Summer;" but there is no one chapter, no single article, in which he has sustained throughout the elevation of this noble paper. I will return to "The Pageant of Summer" later on.

Although he wrote this paper while in dire straits of poverty; although he had already entered that valley whose gloomy sides continually narrow; where the slopes become, little by little, precipices; where the light grows dim, and where the spectre of death slowly rises before the eyes and takes shape: although he lived poorly; although he continued unknown to the mass of the reading world, who passed him by, everything, to us, seems compensated by the splendid power which he had now acquired of thinking such thoughts and expressing them in such language. I have heard it said by some that Jefferies wrote too much. Not a single page too much, beginning from the "Gamekeeper at Home," and thinking only of the "Gamekeeper's" legitimate successors! That is to say, we are prepared to surrender portions, but not all—saving great pieces, huge cantles, here and there whole chapters—of "Bevis," "Wood Magic," "After London," "Green Ferne Farm," "The Dewy Morn," and even "Amaryllis." We will blot out everything that has to do with the ordinary figures, conversations, and situations of what the writer called a novel. But of the rest we will not part with one single line. Year after year—generation after generation—the truth and fidelity and beauty of these pages will sink deeper and deeper into the heart of the world. So deeply will they sink, so long will they live, that he who writes a memoir of this man trembles for thinking that when future ages ask who and what was the man who wrote these things, the pages which contain his life may seem unequal to the subject—too low, pedestrian, and creeping for the greatness of the author he commemorates.

I return to the packet of letters. They go on to offer articles, and to explain how promised papers are getting on. He wrote nine papers in all for Longman's Magazine—namely, three in 1883, two in 1884, one in 1885, one in 1886, and two, which appeared after his death, in the year 1887.

In June of 1883 he offers a manuscript which, he says, he has been meditating for seventeen years. In that case he must have begun to think of it at eighteen. This, if one begins to consider, is by no means improbable. On the contrary, I think it is extremely probable, and that Jefferies meant his words to be taken literally. The thoughts of a boy are long thoughts. Sometimes one remembers, by some strange trick of memory—it shows how the past never dies, but may be recalled at any moment—a train of thought which filled the mind on some day long passed away, when one was a lad of eighteen; a child; almost an infant. At such a moment one is astonished to remember that this thought filled the brain so early. As for the age of adolescence, there is no time when the brain is more active to question, to imagine, to create, to inform; none, when the mind is more eager to arrive at certainty; none, more hopeful of the future; none, more anxious to arrive at the truth. Therefore, when Jefferies tells Mr. Longman that he has meditated "The Story of My Heart" for eighteen years, I believe him: not that he then consciously called the work by that or by any other name, but that the book is the outcome of so long a period of thought and questioning. "It is," he says, "a real record—unsparing to myself as to all things—absolutely and unflinchingly true."

The book was published with Longman's autumn list in October, 1883. I have something to say about it in another chapter.

Jefferies' industry at this time seems superhuman. The MS. of "The Story of My Heart" is no sooner out of his hands, than he asks Mr. Longman if he will look at another. This time it is his "Red Deer," which I really believe to be the very best book of the kind ever produced. This is what he says himself about it:

"The title is 'Red Deer,' and it is a minute account of the natural history of the wild deer of Exmoor, and of the modes of hunting them. I went all over Exmoor a short time since on foot in order to see the deer for myself, and in addition I had the advantage of getting full information from the huntsman himself, and from others who have watched the deer for twenty years past. The chase of the wild stag is a bit out of the life of the fifteenth century brought down to our own times. Nothing has ever interested me so much, and I contemplate going down again. In addition, there are a number of Somerset poaching tricks which were explained to me by gamekeepers and by a landowner there, besides a few curious superstitions. There seem to be no books about the deer—I mean the wild deer. A book called 'Collyer's Chase of the Wild Red Deer' was published many years ago, but is not now to be had."