COUNTRY LIFE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 9

COUNTRY LIFE

THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME; THE OPEN AIR. By Richard Jefferies. (Uniform edition). Eyre and Spottiswoode Lid., London. +OR some people there are only two Jefferies-the "cataloguer’ (as he was once called) of natural phenomena, and the impassioned nature mystic of The Story of My Heart. But these two reprints, the first of a uniform edition of 15 volumes published to mark the centenary of his birth, reveal the breadth of his personality and those qualities of his writings which have established him as a minor, though genuine, man of letters. His portrayal of rural life in The Gamekeeper shows that he was something more than a simple cataloguer. He sets down the accurate records of his close watch on wild life (‘this is the secret of obgervation: stillness, silence, and apparent indifference"), but he paints, too, a picture of a society and a way of life that are rapidly disappearing. Quietly, with authentic touches of rustic character and manners, he builds up his picture of the life of the gamekeeper and his

family, of the ploughman, the tenant farmer, the poacher, and all the poor people of the Wiltshire countryside whom he knew So intimately in his youth, The Open Air contains some of the best-loved of his essays-for example, "Wild Flowers," "Under the Acorns,’ and "One of the New Voters"-and there are many others that show the diversity of his interests. In ‘The Bathing Season" he smiles slyly at some demure Victorian bathing belles, in the "London" essays he looks at*the metropolis from the countryman’s point of view, and in "Beauty in the Country" he shows the sensual side of his nature. ("Merely as an animal, how grand and beautiful is & perfect woman! Simply as a living, breathing creature, can anything imaginable come near her!"’) He loves jndeed all aspects of country life, and because he does more than merely observe, because what he writes about has been deeply experienced and become an integral part of him, he succeeds in transmitting his enthusiasm to the reader in a remarkable way. The books are tastefully produced in grey-blue binding and an elegant typeface, and they are a handy size for the pocket. The introductions are by C. Henry Warren, one of to-day’s leading writers on the Enoelish countrvside.

P.J.

W.