The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies Part 7

"Still day; the earth holds its breath."

"_Nov. 11._--Gold-crested wren and tom-t.i.t on furze clinging to the very spikes, and apparently busy on the tiny green buds now showing thickly on the p.r.i.c.kles.

"The contemplation of the star, the sun, the tree raises the soul into a trance of inner sight of nature."

"_Nov. 17._--Sycamore leaves--some few still on--spotted with intensely black spots an inch across. Willow buds showing."

"_Nov. 23._--Oaks most beautiful in sun--elms nearly leafless, also beech and willow--but oaks still in full leaf, some light-brown, still trace of green, some brown, some buff, and tawny almost, save in background, toned by shadow, a trace of red. The elms hid them in summer; now the oaks stand out the most prominent objects everywhere, and are seen to be three times as numerous as expected."

"_Nov. 25._--Thrushes singing again; a mild day after week or two cold."

"_Dec. 23._--Red-wings came within a yard, Velt (?) came within ten, wood-pigeon the same. Weasel hunting hedge under snow; under-ground in ivy as busy as possible; good time for them."

"_Jan. 6._--Very sharp frost, calm, some sun in morning, dull at noon."

"_Jan. 7._--Frost, wind, dull."

"_Jan. 8._--Frost light, strong N.E. wind."

"_Jan. 9._--Frost light, some little snow, wind N.E., light."

"_Jan. 10._--Very fine, sunny, N.E. wind, sharp frosty morning.

"Orange moss on old tiles on cattle-sheds and barns a beautiful colour; a picture."

"_Feb. 7._--Larks soaring and singing the first time; one to an immense height; rain in morning, afternoon mild but a strong wind from west; catkins on hazel, and buds on some hazel-bushes; missel-thrush singing in copse; spring seems to have burst on us all at once; chaffinches pairing, or trying to; fighting."

"_Feb. 8._--Numerous larks soaring; copse quite musical; now the dull clouds of six weeks have cleared away, we see the sun has got up quite high in the sky at noon."

"_Feb. 12._--Rooks, five, wading into flood in meadow, almost up to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; lark soaring and singing at half-past five, evening; light declining; partridges have paired.

"No blue geranium in Surrey that I have seen."

"_Feb. 17._--Rooks busy at nests, jackdaws at steeple; sliding down with wings extended, 4.50, to gardens below at great speed."

"_Feb. 20._--Ploughs at work again; have not seen them for three months almost."

"_Feb. 21._--Snow three or four inches; broom bent down; the green stalks that stand up bent right down; afterwards bright suns.h.i.+ne for some hours, and then clouded again."

"_Feb. 22._--Berries on wild ivy on birch-tree, round and fully-formed and plentiful; berries not formed on garden ivy."

"_Feb. 27._--Snow on ground since morning of 21st; four wild ducks going over to east; first seen here for two years; larks fighting and singing over snow; thawing; snow disappeared during day; tomt.i.t at birch-tree buds; pigeons still in large flocks."

"_March 7._--Splendid day; warm sun, scarcely any wind; wood-pigeons calling in copse here."

"_April 16._--Elms beginning to get green with leaf-buds; apple leaf-buds opening green."

"_May 12._--A real May-day at last; warm, west wind, suns.h.i.+ne; birds singing as if hearts would burst; four or five blackbirds all in hearing at once; b.u.t.terfly, small white, tipped with yellowish red; song of thrush more varied even than nightingale; if rare, people would go miles to hear it, never the same in same bird, and every bird different; fearless, too; _operatic_ singer.

"More st.i.tchwort; now common; it looks like ten petals, but is really five; the top of the petal divided, which gives the appearance; a delicate, beautiful white; leaves in pairs, pointed.

"Humble-bees do suck cowslips."

"_May 14._--Lark singing beautifully in the still dark and clouded sky at a quarter to three o'clock in the morning; about twenty minutes afterwards the first thrush; thought I heard distant cuckoo--not sure; and ten minutes after that the copse by garden perfectly ringing with the music. A beautiful May morning; thoroughly English morning: southerly wind, warm light breeze, smart showers of warm rain, and intervals of brilliant suns.h.i.+ne; the leaves in copse beautiful delicate green, refreshed, cleaned, and a still more lovely green from the shower; behind them the blue sky, and above the bright sun; white detached clouds sailing past.

That is the morning; afternoon more cloudy.

"More swifts later in evening. The first was flying low down against wind; seemed to progress from tip to tip of wing, alternately throwing himself along, now one tip downwards, now the other, like hand-over-hand swimming. Furze-chat, first in furze opposite, perched on high branch of furze above the golden blossom thick on that branch; a way of shaking wings while perched; 'chat-chat' low; head and part of neck black, white ring or band below, brownish general colour. Nightingale singing on elm-branch--a large, thick branch, projecting over the green by roadside--perched some twenty-five feet high. Yellow-hammer noticed a day or two ago perched on branch lengthwise, not across. Oaks: more oaks out. Ash: thought I saw one with the large black buds enlarged and lengthened, but not yet burst."

"_May 18._--The white-throat feeds on the brink of the ditch, perching on fallen sticks or small bushes; there is then no appearance of a crest; afterwards he flies up to the topmost twig of the bush, or on a sapling tree, and immediately he begins to sing, and the feathers on the top of his head are all ruffled up, as if brushed the wrong way."

"_May 20._--Coo of dove in copse first."

"_May 21._--The flies teased in the lane to-day--the first time."

Such a man as Jefferies, with his necessities of fresh air and solitude, should have been adopted and tenderly nursed by some rich man; or he should have been piloted by some agent who would have transacted all his business for him, placed his articles in the most advantageous way, procured him the best price possible for his books, and relieved him from the trouble of haggling and bargaining--a necessary business to one who lives by his pen, but to one of his disposition an intolerable trouble. It would, again, one thinks, have proved a profitable speculation if some publisher had given him a small solid income in return for having all his work. Consider: for the truly beautiful papers on the country life which Jefferies wrote, there were the magazines in which they might first appear, both American and English, and there was the volume form afterwards. Would four hundred pounds a year--to Jefferies it would have seemed affluence--have been too much to pay for such a man? I think that from a commercial point of view, even including the year when he was too ill to do any work, it might have paid so to run Jefferies. As it was, he had no one to advise him. He drifted helplessly from publisher to publisher. His name stood high, and rose steadily higher, yet he made no more money by his books. The value of his work rose no higher--it even fell lower. This curious fact--that increase of fame should not bring increase of money--Jefferies did not and could not understand. It constantly irritated and annoyed him. He thought that he was being defrauded out of his just dues. On this point I will, however, speak again immediately.

The young couple remained at Swindon until February, 1877, when Jefferies thought himself justified in giving up his post on the _North Wilts Herald_, and in removing nearer London. But it must not be too near London. He must only be near in the sense of ready access by train.

Therefore he took a house at Surbiton--it was at No. 2, Woodside. At this semi-rural place one is near to the river, the fields, and the woods. It is not altogether a desertion of the country. Jefferies _could_ not leave the country altogether. It was necessary for him to breathe the fresh air of the turf and the fragrance of the newly-turned clods. He could not live, much less work, unless he did this. As for his work, that was daily suggested and stimulated by this continual communing with Nature. Poverty might p.r.i.c.k him--it might make him uneasy for the moment--it never made him unhappy--but unless his brain was full to overflowing, he could not work. Out of the abundance of his heart his mouth spoke. It seems, indeed, futile to regret that such a man as this did not make a more practical advantage to himself out of his success.

He could not. If a man cannot, he cannot. Just as in scientific observation there is a personal equation, so in the conduct of life there is a personal limitation. Some unknown force holds back a man when he has reached a certain point. The life of every man, rightly studied, shows his personal limitation. But without the whole life of a man spread out before us, it is not easy to understand where this personal limitation begins. There is no more to be said when this is once understood. It is a matter of personal limitation. Those kindly people who continually occupy themselves with the concerns of their neighbours, constantly go wrong because they do not understand the personal limitation. What we call fate is often another word for limitation. Why do I not write better English, and why have I not a n.o.bler style, and why cannot I become the greatest writer who ever lived? Because I cannot rise above a certain level. If I am a wise man, I find out that level; I reach it, and am content therewith. Why did not Jefferies make himself rich with the opportunities he had? Because he could not. Because to grasp an opportunity and to turn it to his own material interest was a thing beyond his personal limitation. To seize Time by the forelock, though he go ever so slowly, is to some men impossible. For while they look on and hesitate, another steps in before them; or the world is looking on and observes the situation, ready to sneer and sn.i.g.g.e.r, and there seems a kind of meanness in the act--very likely there _is_ meanness; or to do so one must trample on one's neighbours; or one must desert one's habits of life, throw over all that one loves, and make a change of which the least that can be said is that it is certain to make one uncomfortable for the remainder of life.

Therefore, Jefferies suffered that forelock to be plucked by another, and continued to wander about the fields. He had now indeed attained the object of his ambition. He was not only a recognised and successful writer, but his work was also looked for and loved. Happy that author who knows that his work is expected before it is ready, and is loved when it appears. Henceforth he made no more mistakes. He understood by this time his personal limitation. His work, as well as his days, must be concerning the fields and the wild life. Year after year that work becomes more beautiful until the end. As for an income, it was mainly secured by his contributions to the magazines and journals. He wrote, during the last ten years of his life, for nearly all the magazines, but especially for _Longman's_. He also contributed to the _Standard_, the _St. James's_, the _Pall Mall_, the _Graphic_, the _World_, and other papers. Most of these articles he gathered together as soon as there were enough of them, and published them in a volume. In this way he made a little more out of them. He even contrived to save a little money. But his income was never very great.

The first five of the works on the country life were published by Messrs. Smith and Elder. These were the "Gamekeeper at Home," "Wild Life in a Southern County," "The Amateur Poacher," "Greene Ferne Farm," and "Round About a Great Estate." Then he did either a very foolish or a very unfortunate thing. He left Messrs. Smith and Elder, and for the rest of his life he went about continually changing his publisher, always in the hope of getting a better price for his volumes, and always chafing at the smallness of the pecuniary result. An author should never change his publisher, unless he is compelled to do so by the misfortune of starting with a shark, a thing which has happened unto many. The very fact of having all his works in the same hands greatly a.s.sists their sale. A reader who is delighted, for instance, with "Red Deer,"

and would wish to get other books by the same author, finds the name of Longmans on the back, but no list of those books published by Smith and Elder, Chatto and Windus, Ca.s.sell and Co., and Sampson Low and Co. I have myself found it very difficult to get a complete set of Jefferies'

books. At the London Library, even, they do not possess a complete set.

Then that reader lays down his book, and presently forgets his purpose.

I suppose that there are very few, even of Jefferies' greatest admirers, who actually possess all his works.

He was, as I have already said, bitter against publishers for the small sums they offered him. He made the not uncommon mistake of supposing that, because the reviews spoke of his works in terms so laudatory, which, indeed, no reviewers could refrain from doing, the public were eagerly buying them. I have, myself, had perhaps an exceptional experience of authors, their grumblings, and their grievances, and I know that this confusion of thought--this unwarranted conclusion--is very widespread. An author, that is to say, reads a highly-complimentary review of his work, and looks for an immense and immediate demand in consequence for that work. Well, every good review helps a book, undoubtedly, but to a much smaller extent, from the pecuniary point of view, than is generally believed. The demand for a book is created in quite other ways; partly by the author's previous works, which, little by little, or, if he is lucky, at a single bound, create a _clientele_ of those who like his style; partly by the talk of people who tell each other what they have read, and recommend this or that book. Then, since most books are read from the circulating library, and that kind of personal recommendation, especially with a new writer, takes time, the libraries are able to get along with a comparatively small number of copies; in fact, an author may have a very considerable name, and yet make, even with the honourable houses, quite a small sum of money by any work. Again, this is not, one sorrowfully owns, a country which buys books. My compatriots will buy everything and anything, except books.

They will lavish their money in every conceivable manner, except one--they never commit extravagances in buying books. For the greater part, the three-guinea subscription to the library is the whole of the family expenditure for the greatest, the only unfailing, delight that life has to offer them.

Again, in the case of Richard Jefferies, the demand for his books was confined to a comparatively small number of readers. I do not suppose that his work will ever be widely popular, and yet I am certain that his reputation will grow and increase. Of all modern writers, I know of none of whom one can predict with such absolute certainty that he will live.

He will surely live. He draws, as no other writer has done, the actual life of rural England under Queen Victoria. For the very fidelity of these pictures alone he must live. No other writers, except Jefferies and Thomas Hardy, have been able to depict this life. And, what is even more, as the hills, and fields, and woods, and streams are ever with us, whether we are savages or civilized beings, whatever our manners, dress, fas.h.i.+ons, laws or customs, the man who speaks with truth of these speaks for all time and for all mankind.

Yet he is not, and will never be, widely popular. There are many persons, presumably persons of culture, who cannot read Jefferies. A country parson--poor man!--observed to me in Swindon itself, that he hoped the biography of Richard Jefferies would not prove so dry as the works of Richard Jefferies. These, he said, with the cheerful dogmatism of his kind, were as dry as a stick, and impossible to read. Now, this good man was probably in some sort a scholar. He lives in the Jefferies county. All round him are the hills and downs described in these works.

To us those hills and downs are now filled with life, beauty, and all kinds of delightful things, entirely through those very books. The good vicar finds them so dry that he cannot read them. Others there are who complain that Jefferies is always "cataloguing." One understands what is meant. To some of us the picture is always being improved by the addition of another blade of gra.s.s, another dead leaf, or the ear of a hare visible among the turnip-tops; others are fatigued by these little details. Jefferies is too full for them.

Another thing against him in the minds of the frivolous is that you cannot skip in reading Jefferies. To take up a volume is to read it right through from beginning to end. You can no more skip Jefferies than you can skip Emerson. Now, most readers like to rush a volume. You cannot rush Jefferies. I defy the most rapid reader to rush Jefferies.

You might as well try to rush the Proof of the Binomial Theorem. Others there are who like to be made to laugh or to cry. This man never laughs.

You may, perhaps, put down the book and smile at the incongruities of the rustic talk, but you do not laugh. Hardy's rustics will make you laugh a whole summer's day through, but Jefferies' rustics never. He is always in earnest. Hardy is a humorist; Jefferies is not. And, worst sin of all in him who courts popularity, he makes his readers think. Men who live alone, who walk about alone, who commune with Nature all day long, do not laugh, and do not make others laugh.

For these reasons, then, among others, Jefferies was never popular, despite the laudatory reviews and the readiness with which editors welcomed his work.

As to the remuneration which he received. With these considerations in our minds, let us next remember that publis.h.i.+ng is a business undertaken, not for love of literature or of authors, but for profit, for a livelihood, for making money. It is, therefore, conducted upon "business principles." Now, in business of every kind, the first rule is that the business man must "make a profit on every transaction." You must pay your publisher, if you engage one, just as you must pay your solicitor. This is fair, just, and honest. You must pay him for his time and his trouble. He must be paid either by the author, or out of the books which he sells. The only question, therefore, not including certain awkward points into which we need not here enter--I am speaking only of honourable houses--is what proportion of a book's returns, or what sum, should be paid to a publisher for his trouble. Now, I have learned enough of the sale of Jefferies' books, and of the sums which he received for them, to be satisfied that his publishers' services were by no means exorbitantly paid by the sale of his books, and that no more, from a business point of view, could have been given. That is to say, if more had been given, it would have been as a free gift, or act of charity, which this author would have spurned. All these things, however, he could not understand, perhaps because they were never explained to him.

I have been told by one who knew Jefferies from boyhood that he was indolent, and would never have worked had it not been for necessity. His writings do not convey to me the idea of an indolent man. On the contrary, they are those of a man of an intellect so active that he must have been compelled to work. Yet one can understand that he could not work, after making the grand discovery of what his work should be, until his brain was overflowing with the subject. Generally it was a single and a simple subject round which he wove his tapestry. The subject once conceived, he could do nothing until his brain was charged and possessed with it.

His life has henceforth no incidents to record, except those of work and illness. He worked, he walked, he wrote, he walked again, he read, he watched and observed, he thought. That is his life, until illness fell upon him. Always a silent man, always a man of few friends, always a man of simple habits, in all weathers delighting to be out of doors, refusing to put on a great-coat or to carry an umbrella.