No More Learning

out cause? O slender damsel! anger, I know, has torn thy soft
bosom; but whither thou art retired I know not. How can I
invite thee to return? Thou art seen by me, indeed, in a vision;
thou seemest to move before me. Ah! why dost thou not rush,
as before, to my embrace? Do but forgive me: never again will
I commit a similar offense. Grant me but a sight of thee, O
lovely Rādhā, for my passion torments me. ”
The damsel [as confidante] commissioned by Rādhā
[to seek the erring Krishna] found the disconsolate god under
an arbor of spreading Vaniras by the side of Yamunā; where,
presenting herself gracefully before him, she thus described the
affliction of his beloved:-
"She despises essence of sandalwood, and even by moonlight
sits brooding over her gloomy sorrow; she declares the gale of
Malaya to be venom, and the sandal-trees through which it has
breathed to have been the haunt of serpents. Thus, O Madhava,
is she afflicted in thy absence with the pain which love's dart
has occasioned; her soul is fixed on thee. Fresh arrows of desire
are continually assailing her, and she forms a net of lotos-leaves
as armor for her heart, which thou alone shouldst fortify. She
makes her own bed of the arrows darted by the flowery-shafted
god; but when she hoped for thy embrace, she had formed for
thee a couch of soft blossoms. Her face is like a water-lily
veiled in the dews of tears, and her eyes appear like moons
eclipsed. ”
[Krishna now sends a message in return by the damsel, who pictures to
Rādhā the longing of her lover's heart as follows:-)
((
V.
2.
“Whilst a sweet breeze from the hills of Malaya comes
wafting on his plumes the young god of Desire; while many a
flower points his extended petals to pierce the bosoms of sepa-
rated lovers, the deity crowned with sylvan blossoms laments,
friend, in thy absence. Even the dewy rays of the moon burn
him; and as the shaft of love is descending, he mourns inarticu-
lately with increasing distraction. When the bees murmur softly,
he covers his ears; misery sits fixed in his heart, and every
returning night adds anguish to anguish. He quits his radiant
palace for the wild forest, where he sinks on a bed of cold clay,
and frequently mutters thy name. In yon bower, to which the
pilgrims of love are used to repair, he meditates on thy form,


## p. 8213 (#413) ###########################################

JAYADEVA
8213
repeating in silence some enchanting word which once dropped
from thy lips, and thirsting for the nectar which they alone can
supply. Delay not, o loveliest of women; follow the lord of thy
heart: behold, he seeks the appointed shade, bright with the
ornaments of love, and confident of the promised bliss. Having
bound his locks with forest flowers, he hastens to yon arbor,
where a soft gale breathes over the banks of Yamunā; there,
again pronouncing thy name, he modulates his divine reed. Oh!
with what rapture doth he gaze on the golden dust which the
breeze shakes from expanded blossoms; the breeze which has
kissed thy cheek! With a mind languid as a dropping wing,
a
feeble as a trembling leaf, he doubtfully expects thy approach,
and timidly looks on the path which thou must tread. ”
[The damsel returns, and narrates to Krishna the love-born misery and
weakness of Rādhā. ]
VI. I. “She mourns, O sovereign of the world, in her verdant
bower; she looks eagerly on all sides in hope of thy approach;
then, gaining strength from the delightful idea of the proposed
meeting, she advances a few steps, and falls languid on the
ground. When she rises, she weaves bracelets of fresh leaves;
she dresses herself like her beloved, and looking at herself in
sport, exclaims, Behold the vanquisher of Madhu! ' Then she
repeats again and again the name of Krishna, and catching at a
dark blue cloud, strives to embrace it, saying, “It is my beloved
who approaches. ' Thus, while thou art dilatory, she lies expect-
ing thee; she mourns; she weeps; she puts on her gayest orna-
ments to receive her lord. ”
VII. I. By this time the moon spread out a net of beams
over the groves of Vrindāvan, and looked like a drop of liquid
sandal on the face of the sky, which smiled like a beautiful dam-
sel; while its orb with many spots betrayed, as it were, a con-
sciousness of guilt, in having often attended amorous maids to
the loss of their family honor. The moon, with a black fawn
couched on its disk, advanced in its nightly course; but Mādhava
had not advanced to the bower of Rādhā, who thus bewailed his
delay with notes of varied lamentation.
“The appointed moment is come; but Krishna, alas!
comes not to the grove. Must the season of my unblemished
youth pass thus idly away? Oh! what refuge can I seek, deluded
as I am by the guile of my female adviser ? The god with five
((
VII. 3.


## p. 8214 (#414) ###########################################

8214
JAYADEVA
arrows has wounded my heart; and I am deserted by him for
whose sake I have sought at night the darkest recess of the for-
est. Since my best beloved friends have deceived me, it is my
wish to die; since my senses are disordered, and my bosom is on
fire, why stay I longer in this world ? »
VII. 5.
[And as Krishna does not accompany the damsel, Rādhā supposes him to
be false; and fired by jealousy, she passes in anguish a sleepless night imagin-
ing her Krishna reposing in a rival's arms. ]
Her form is transfigured by the touch of her divine
lover; her garland quivers over her swelling bosom; her face like
the moon is graced with clouds of dark hair, and trembles, while
she quaffs the nectarous dew on his lip; her bright earrings
dance over her cheeks, which they radiate; and the small bells on
her girdle tinkle as she moves.
[But Krishna is faithful now to his true love, whom he fears he has lost.
His prolonged trial is at an end, and penitent he seeks Rādbā and falls weep-
ing at her feet. ]
X. 2.
"Speak but one mild word, and the rays of thy spar-
kling teeth will dispel the gloom of my fears. My trembling lips,
like thirsty Chakoras, long to drink the moonbeams of thy cheek.
O my darling, who art naturally so tender-hearted, abandon thy
causeless indignation. At this moment the fame of desire con-
sumes my heart: oh, grant me a draught of honey from the lotos
of thy mouth! Or, if thou beëst inexorable, grant me death from
the arrows of thy keen eyes; make thy arms my chains; and
punish me according to thy pleasure. Thou art my life; thou art
my ornament; thou art a pearl in the ocean of my mortal birth:
oh! be favorable now, and my heart shall eternally be grateful. ”
[And the reconciliation takes place in a beautiful moonlit bower, as de-
scribed above. ]
Translation of Sir William Jones.


## p. 8215 (#415) ###########################################

8215
RICHARD JEFFERIES
(1848–1887)
N English essayist of unusual quality was Richard Jefferies,
whose birthplace was near the Wiltshire village of Swindon.
There, November 6th, 1848, the son of a farmer, he began the
life that was to end untimely before he had come to the age of forty.
His baptismal name was John Richard. Self-educated by sheer will-
power, struggling up out of untoward humble circumstances, Jefferies
offers an example of one of the finest spectacles earth affords: per-
sonal merit winning its way against odds.
He wrote early for local newspapers, and
contributed tentatively to Fraser's Maga-
zine. In 1877, still under thirty, he settled
at Surbiton near London, in order to take
up the literary career for better or worse.
He wrote for the Pall Mall Gazette, Long-
mans' Magazine, and like periodicals; his
essays attracting attention by their indi-
vidual note, fresh spirit, accurate descrip-
tions, and loving feeling for nature.
Although dying comparatively young, -
August 14th, 1887, at Goring in Sussex, (? )-
Jefferies was a voluminous writer, his list RICHARD JEFFERIES
of published works numbering twenty-four.
Of these, characteristic early works were (The Gamekeeper at
Home: or, Sketches from Natural History and Rural Life' (1878);
(The Amateur Poacher) (1879); Hodge and His Masters) (1880); and
Round About a Great Estate (1880). A number of novels also date
from this period; and while Jefferies was deficient in construction and
action, and not properly a maker of fiction, his fine descriptive powers
and strong thought give even his stories a certain value. But it is in
the essay devoted to the study and praise of nature that he becomes
a master. When he began to write of British scenery, of the birds,
flowers, and trees of his own region, he produced work that won him
a unique position among modern English essayists. Volumes like
Life of the Fields) (1884), the wonderful autobiographical sketch
(Story of My Heart) (1883), and the posthumous collection of papers
published by his widow under the title (Field and Hedgerow, illus-
trate phases of this activity.

-


## p. 8216 (#416) ###########################################

8216
RICHARD JEFFERIES
During the six final years of his life Jefferies was an invalid, and
spent his time in country villages in the quest of health; yet some
of the most suggestive and beautiful of his essays were written under
these conditions, the poetic and mystic in him coming out strong
towards the last, and lending a sort of magic to his pen.
Like the American John Burroughs, Jefferies unites knowledge
and love of his chief subject with the power of popular literary pres-
entation. Technicalities are forgotten in the infectious glow of his
enthusiasm. The two writers are not unlike, also, in their philosophy,
which interprets Nature without discovering in her the conventional
religious symbols. But Jefferies is more the prose poet, and has an
idealistic element which gives a peculiar charm to his essays.
The
exquisite passage which follows, from the Story of My Heart,' is
as good an illustration of this mystic quality as the whole body of
his writings affords. Seldom has a more remarkable confession of
spiritual travail been written down. The Story' is so candid, so
intimate, yet so delicate; and it is all true, "absolutely and unflinch-
ingly true,” as he says. One hardly knows at first whether it be a
real experience or a literary tour de force, — until more knowledge of
Jefferies, of his honesty and unconventionality, stamps the book as
naïvely genuine. The poetry of it will be felt by any one sensitive
to beautiful words that carry beautiful thoughts. An example is also
given of his earlier, more objective and practical mood and manner.
HILL VISIONS
From (The Story of My Heart)
He story of my heart commences seventeen years ago.
In the
T
It
in
I felt the necessity of a strong inspiration of soul-thought.
My heart was dusty, parched for the want of the rain of deep
feeling; my mind arid and dry, - for there is a dust which
settles on the heart as well as that which falls on a ledge.
is injurious to the mind as well as to the body to be always
one place, and always surrounded by the same circumstances.
A species of thick clothing slowly grows about the mind; the
pores are choked, little habits become a part of existence, and
by degrees the mind is inclosed in a husk. When this began to
form, I felt eager to escape from it, to throw it off like heavy
clothing, to drink deeply once more at the fresh fountain of life.
An inspiration - a long deep breath of the pure air of thought
- could alone give health to the heart.


## p. 8217 (#417) ###########################################

RICHARD JEFFERIES
8217
On a
warm
I re-
sun
There was a hill to which I used to resort at such periods.
The labor of walking three miles to it, all the while gradually
ascending, seemed to clear my blood of the heaviness accumu-
lated at home.
summer day the slow continued
rise required continued effort, which carried away the sense of
oppression. The familiar every-day scene was soon out of sight;
I came to other trees, meadows, and fields; I began to breathe a
new air and to have a fresher aspiration. I restrained my soul
till I reached the sward of the hill; psyche, the soul that longed
to be loose, -I would write psyche always instead of soul, to
avoid meanings which have become attached to the word “soul,”
but it is awkward to do so. Clumsy indeed are all words the
moment the wooden stage of commonplace life is left.
strained psyche, my soul, till I reached and put my foot on the
grass at the beginning of the green hill itself.
Moving up the sweet short turf, at every step my heart
seemed to obtain a wider horizon of feeling; with every inhala-
tion of rich pure air, a deeper desire. The very light of the
was whiter and more brilliant here, By the time I had
reached the summit I had entirely forgotten the petty circum-
stances and the annoyances of existence. I felt myself, myself.
There was an intrenchment on the summit, and going down
into the fosse I walked round it slowly to recover breath. On
the southwestern side there was a spot where the outer bank
had partially slipped, leaving a gap. There the view was over
a broad plain, beautiful with wheat and inclosed by a perfect
amphitheatre of green hills. Through these hills there was
one narrow groove or pass southwards, where the white clouds
seemed to close in the horizon. Woods hid the scattered hamlets
and farm-houses, so that I was quite alone.
I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down
on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, the air,
and the distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the earth's
firmness -I felt it bear me up; through the grassy couch there
came an influence as if I could feel the great earth speaking to
I thought of the wandering air — its pureness, which is its
beauty: the air touched me and gave me something of itself. I
spoke to the sea;- though so far, in my mind I saw it green
at the rim of the earth and blue in deeper ocean; — I desired
to have its strength, its mystery and glory. Then I addressed
the sun, desiring the soul-equivalent of his light and brilliance,
me.


## p. 8218 (#418) ###########################################

8218
RICHARD JEFFERIES
ness.
his endurance and unwearied race. I turned to the blue heaven
over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite color and sweet.
The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky drew
my soul toward it, and there it rested; for pure color is rest of
heart. By all these I prayed: I felt an emotion of the soul
beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing to it, and the word
is a rude sign to the feeling, but I know no other. By the
blue heaven, by the rolling sun bursting through untrodden
space, a new ocean of ether is every day unveiled. By the fresh
and wandering air encompassing the world; by the sea sound-
ing on the shore- the green sea white-flecked at the margin,
and the deep ocean; by the strong earth under me. Then
returning, I prayed by the sweet thyme, whose little flowers I
touched with my hand; by the slender grass; by the crumble of
dry, chalky earth I took up and let fall through my fingers.
Touching the crumble of earth, the blade of grass, the thyme
flower; breathing the earth-encircling air; thinking of the sea
and the sky, holding out my hand for the sunbeams to touch it,
prone on the sward in token of deep reverence,- thus I prayed
that I might touch to the unutterable existence infinitely higher
than Deity.
With all the intensity of feeling which exalted me, all the
intense communion I held with the earth, the sun and sky, the
stars hidden by the light, with the ocean - in no manner
the thrilling depth of these feelings be written. With these I
prayed as if they were the keys of an instrument, of an organ,
with which I swelled forth the notes of my soul, redoubling my
own voice by their power. The great sun burning with light;
the strong earth, dear earth; the warm sky; the pure air; the
thought of ocean, — the inexpressible beauty of all filled me
a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this inflatus, too, I prayed.
Next to myself I came and recalled myself, my bodily existence.
I held out my hand; the sunlight gleamed on the skin and
the iridescent nails; I recalled the mystery and beauty of the
flesh. I thought of the mind with which I could see the ocean
sixty miles distant, and gather to myself its glory. I thought of
my inner existence, that consciousness which is called the soul.
These - that is, myself - I threw in the balance to weigh the
prayer the heavier. My strength of body, mind, and soul I Aung
into it; I put forth my strength; I wrestled and labored and
toiled in might of prayer.
The prayer, this soul-emotion, was in
can
with


## p. 8219 (#419) ###########################################

RICHARD JEFFERIES
8219
itself; not for an object - it was a passion. I hid my face in the
grass; I was wholly prostrated; I lost myself in the wrestle; I
was rapt and carried away.
Becoming calmer, I returned to myself and thought, reclining
in rapt thought, full of aspiration, steeped to the lips of my soul
in desire. I did not then define or analyze or understand this.
I see now that what I labored for was soul-life, more soul-nature,
to be exalted, to be full of soul-learning. Finally I rose, walked
half a mile or so along the summit of the hill eastwards, to soothe
myself and come to the common ways of life again. Had any
shepherd accidentally seen me lying on the turf, he would only
have thought that I was resting a few minutes; I made no out-
ward show. Who could have imagined the whirlwind of passion
that was going on within me as I reclined there! I was greatly
exhausted when I reached home. Occasionally I went upon the
hill, deliberately deeming it good to do so; then again, this
craving carried me away up there of itself. Though the princi-
pal feeling was the same, there were variations in the mode in
which it affected me.
Sometimes on lying down on the sward, I first looked up at
the sky, gazing for a long time till I could see deep into the
azure and my eyes were full of the color; then I turned my
face to the grass and thyme, placing my hands at each side of
my face so as to shut out everything and hide myself. Having
drunk deeply of the heaven above, and felt the most glorious
beauty of the day, and remembering the old, old sea, which (as
it seemed to me) was but just yonder at the edge, I now became
lost, and absorbed into the being or existence of the universe,
I felt down deep into the earth under, and high above into the
sky, and farther still to the sun and stars, still farther beyond
the stars into the hollow of space; and losing thus my sep-
arateness of being, came to seem like a part of the whole.
Then I whispered to the earth beneath, through the grass and
thyme down into the depth of its ear, and again up to the starry
space hid behind the blue of day. Traveling in an instant
across the distant sea, I saw, as if with actual vision, the palms
and cocoanut-trees, the bamboos of India, and the cedars of the
extreme south. Like a lake with islands the ocean lay before
me, as clear and vivid as the plain beneath in the midst of the
amphitheatre of hills.


## p. 8220 (#420) ###########################################

8220
RICHARD JEFFERIES
With the glory of the great sea, I said; with the firm, solid,
and sustaining earth; the depth, distance, and expanse of ether;
the age, tamelessness, and ceaseless motion of the ocean; the stars,
and the unknown in space; by all those things which are most
powerful, known to me, and by those which exist but of which
I have no idea whatever, I pray. Further, by my own soul, that
secret existence which above all other things bears the nearest
resemblance to the ideal of spirit infinitely nearer than earth,
sun, or star. Speaking by an inclination towards, not in words,
my soul prays that I may have something from each of these;
that I may gather a flower from them, that I may have in my.
self the secret and meaning of the earth, the golden sun, the
light, the foam-flecked sea. Let my soul become enlarged; I am
not enough; I am little and contemptible. I desire a greatness
of soul, an irradiance of mind, a deeper insight, a broader hope.
Give me power of soul so that I may actually effect by its will
that which I strive for.
In winter, though I could not then rest on the grass, or stay
long enough to form any definite expression, I still went up to
the hill once, now and then, for it seemed that to merely visit
the spot repeated all that I had previously said. But it was
not
only then.
In summer I went out into the fields, and let my soul in spire
these thoughts under the trees, standing against the trunk or
looking up through the branches at the sky. If trees could
speak, hundreds of them would say that I had these soul-emotions
under them. Leaning against the oak’s massive trunk, and feel-
ing the rough bark and the lichen at my back, looking south-
wards over the grassy fields, cowslip-yellow, at the woods
the slope, I thought my desire of deeper soul-life. Or under the
green firs, looking upwards, the sky was more deeply blue at
their tops; then the brake-fern was unrolling, the doves cooing,
the thickets astir, the late ash leaves coming forth. Under the
shapely, rounded elms, by the hawthorn bushes and hazel, every-
where the same deep desire for the soul-nature; to have from
all green things and from the sunlight the inner meaning which
was not known to them, - that I might be full of light as the
woods of the sun's rays. Just to touch the lichened bark of a
tree, or the end of a spray projecting over the path as I walked,
seemed to repeat the same prayer in me.
on


## p. 8221 (#421) ###########################################

RICHARD JEFFERIES
8221
The long-lived summer days dried and warmed the turf in
the meadows. I used to lie down in solitary corners at full
length on my back, so as to feel the embrace of the earth. The
grass stood high above me, and the shadows of the tree branches
danced on my face. I looked up at the sky with half-closed eyes,
to bear the dazzling light. Bees buzzed over me, sometimes a
butterfly passed, there was a hum in the air, green-finches sang
in the hedge. Gradually entering into the intense life of the
summer's days, – a life which burned around as if every grass-
blade and leaf were a torch, - I came to feel the long-drawn life
of the earth back into the dimmest past, while the sun of the
moment was warm on me. Sesostris on the most ancient sands
of the south, in ancient, ancient days, was conscious of himself
and of the sun. This sunlight linked me through the ages to
that past consciousness. From all the ages my soul desired to
take that soul-life which had flowed through them, as the sun-
beams had continually poured on earth. As the hot sands take
up the heat, so would I take up that soul-energy. Dreamy in
appearance, I was breathing full of existence; I was aware of
the grass-blades, the flowers, the leaves on hawthorn and tree. I
seemed to live more largely through them, as if each were a
pore through which I drank. The grasshoppers called and leaped,
the green-finches sang, the blackbirds happily fluted, all the air
hummed with life. I was plunged deep in existence, and with
all that existence I prayed.
Through every grass-blade in the thousand thousand grasses;
through the million leaves, veined and edge-cut, on bush and
tree; through the song-notes and the marked feathers of the bird;
through the insects' hum and the color of the butterfly; through
the soft warm air and the flecks of clouds dissolving, -I used
them all for prayer with all the energy the sunbeams had poured
unwearied on the earth since Sesostris was conscious of them on
the ancient sands; with all the life that had been lived by vigor-
ous man and beauteous woman since first in dearest Greece the
dream of the gods was woven; with all the soul-life that had
flowed a long stream down to me,- I prayed that I might have
a soul more than equal to, far beyond my conception of, these
things of the past, the present and the fullness of all life; not
only equal to these, but beyond, higher, and more powerful
than I could imagine; that I might take from all their energy,
a


## p. 8222 (#422) ###########################################

82 2 2
RICHARD JEFFERIES
grandeur, and beauty, and gather it into me; that my soul might
be more than the cosmos of life.
I prayed with the glowing clouds of sunset, and the soft light
of the first star coming through the violet sky. At night, with
the stars according to the season: now with the Pleiades, now
with the Swan, or burning Sirius, and broad Orion's whole con-
stellation, red Aldebaran, Arcturus, and the Northern Crown;
with the morning star, the light-bringer, once now and then
when I saw it, a white-gold ball in the violet-purple sky, or
framed about with pale summer vapor, floating away as red
streaks shot horizontally in the east. A diffused saffron ascended
into the luminous upper azure.
The disk of the sun rose over
the hill; Auctuating with throbs of light, his chest heaved in
fervor of brilliance. All the glory of the sunrise filled me with
broader and furnace-like vehemence of prayer that I might have
the deepest of soul-life, the deepest of all, deeper far than all this
greatness of the visible universe and even of the invisible; that
I might have a fullness of soul till now unknown, and utterly
beyond my own conception.
In the deepest darkness of the night, the same thought rose
in my mind as in the bright light of noontide. What is there
which I have not used to strengthen the same emotion ?
THE BREEZE ON BEACHY HEAD
From Nature Near London)
T"
He waves coming round the promontory before the west wind
still give the idea of a flowing stream, as they did in
Homer's days. Here beneath the cliff, standing where beach
and sand meet, it is still; the wind passes six hundred feet over-
head: but yonder, every larger wave rolling before the breeze
breaks over the rocks; a white line of spray rushes along them,
gleaming in the sunshine; for a moment the dark rock-wall dis-
appears, till the spray sinks.
The sea seems higher than the spot where I stand, its surface
on a higher level, - raised like a green mound, -as if it could
burst it and occupy the space up to the foot of the cliff in a
moment.
It will not do so, I know: but there is an infinite pos-
sibility about the sea; it may do what it is not recorded to have


## p. 8223 (#423) ###########################################

RICHARD JEFFERIES
8223
done. It is not to be ordered; it may overleap the bounds human
observation has fixed for it. It has a potency unfathomable.
There is still something in it not quite grasped and understood,
something still to be discovered, a mystery.
So the white spray rushes along the low broken wall of rocks,
the sun gleams on the flying fragments of the wave; again it
sinks, and the rhythmic motion holds the mind, as an invisible
force holds back the tide. A faith of expectancy, a sense that
something may drift up from the unknown, a large belief in the
unseen resources of the endless space out yonder, soothes the
mind with dreamy hope.
The little rules and little experiences — all the petty ways of
narrow life — are shut off behind by the ponderous and impassa-
ble cliff; as if we had dwelt in the dim light of a cave, but com-
ing out at last to look at the sun, a great stone had fallen and
closed the entrance, so that there was no return to the shadow.
The impassable precipice shuts off our former selves of yester-
day, forcing us to look out over the sea only, or up to the deeper
heaven.
These breadths draw out the soul; we feel that we have wider
thoughts than we knew; the soul has been living as it were in
a nutshell, all unaware of its own power, and now suddenly finds
freedom in the sun and the sky. Straight, as if sawn down
from turf to beach, the cliff shuts off the human world, for the
sea knows no time and no era; you cannot tell what century it
is from the face of the sea. A Roman trireme suddenly round-
ing the white edge-line of chalk, borne on wind and oar from
the Isle of Wight towards the gray castle at Pevensey (already
old in olden days), would not seem strange. What wonder could
surprise us coming from the wonderful sea ?
The little rills winding through the sand have made an islet
of a detached rock by the beach; limpets cover it, adhering like
rivet-heads. In the stillness here, under the roof of the wind so
high above, the sound of the sand draining itself is audible.
From the cliff, blocks of chalk have fallen, leaving hollows as
when a knot drops from a beam. They lie crushed together
at the base, and on the point of this jagged ridge a wheatear
perches.
There are ledges three hundred feet above; and from these
now and then a jackdaw glides out and returns again to his
place, where, when still and with folded wings, he is but a speck


## p. 8224 (#424) ###########################################

8224
RICHARD JEFFERIES
(
of black. A spire of chalk still higher stands out from the wall;
but the rains have got behind it, and will cut the crevice deeper
and deeper into its foundation. Water too has carried the soil
from under the turf at the summit over the verge, forming brown
streaks.
Upon the beach lies a piece of timber, part of a wreck; the
wood is torn and the fibres rent where it was battered against
the dull edge of the rocks. The heat of the sun burns, thrown
back by the dazzling chalk; the river of ocean flows ceaselessly,
casting the spray over the stones; the unchanged sky is blue.
Let us go back and mount the steps at the Gap, and rest on
the sward there. I feel that I want the presence of grass. The
sky is a softer blue, and the sun genial; now the eye and the
mind alike are relieved — the one of the strain of too great soli-
tude (not the solitude of the woods), the other of too brilliant
and hard a contrast of colors. Touch but the grass, and the
harmony returns; it is repose after exaltation.
A vessel comes round the promontory. It is not a trireme
of old Rome, nor the "fair and stately galley Count Arnaldus
hailed with its seamen singing the mystery of the sea; it is but
a brig in ballast, high out of the water, black of hull and dingy
of sail; still it is a ship, and there is always an interest about a
ship. She is so near, running along but just outside the reef,
that the deck is visible. Up rises her stern as the billows come
fast and roll under; then her bow lifts, and immediately she
rolls, and loosely swaying with the sea, drives along.
The slope of the billow now behind her is white with the
bubbles of her passage, rising too from her rudder. Steering
athwart with a widening angle from the land, she is laid to clear
the distant point of Dungeness. Next a steamer glides forth,
unseen till she passed the cliff; and thus each vessel that comes
from the westward has the charm of the unexpected. Eastward
there is many a sail working slowly into the wind, and as they
approach, talking in the language of flags with the watch on the
summit of the Head.
Once now and then the great Orient pauses on her outward
route to Australia, slowing her engines: the immense length of
her hull contains every adjunct of modern life; science, skill, and
civilization are there. She starts, and is lost sight of round the
cliff, - gone straight away for the very ends of the world. The
incident is forgotten, when one morning as you turn over the


## p. 8225 (#425) ###########################################

RICHARD JEFFERIES
8225
newspaper, there is the Orient announced to start again. It is
like a tale of enchantment: it seems but yesterday that the Head
hid her from view; you have scarcely moved, attending to the
daily routine of life, and scarce recognize that time has passed at
all. In so few hours has the earth been encompassed.
The sea-gulls as they settle on the surface ride high out of
the water, like the mediæval caravels, with their sterns almost as
tall as the masts. Their unconcerned flight, with crooked wings
unbent, as if it were no matter to them whether they flew or
floated, in its peculiar jerking motion reminds one of the lap-
wing; the heron has it too, a little: as if aquatic or water-side
birds had a common and distinct action of the wing.
Sometimes a porpoise comes along, but just beyond the reef;
looking down on him from the verge of the cliff, his course can
be watched. His dark body, wet and oily, appears on the surface
for two seconds; and then, throwing up his tail like the fluke of
an anchor, down he goes. Now look forward along the waves
some fifty yards or so, and he will come up, the sunshine gleam-
ing on the water as it runs off his back, to again dive, and re-
appear after a similar interval. Even when the eye can no longer
distinguish the form, the spot where he rises is visible, from the
slight change in the surface.
The hill receding in hollows leaves a narrow plain between
the foot of the sward and the cliff; it is plowed, and the teams
come to the footpath which follows the edge; and thus those who
plow the sea and those who plow the land look upon each other.
The one sees the vessel change her tack, the other notes the
plow turning at the end of the furrow. Bramble-bushes project
over the dangerous wall of chalk, and grasses fill up the inter-
stices, a hedge suspended in air; but be careful not to reach too
far for the blackberries.
The green sea is on the one hand, the yellow stubble on the
other. The porpoise dives along beneath, the sheep graze above.
Green seaweed lines the reef over which the white spray Aies,
blue lucerne dots the field. The pebbles of the beach seen from
the height mingle in a faint blue tint, as if the distance ground
them into colored sand. Leaving the footpath now, and crossing
the stubble to “France,” as the wide open hollow in the down is
called by the shepherds, it is no easy matter in dry summer
weather to climb the steep turf to the furze line above.
XIV-515.


## p. 8226 (#426) ###########################################

8226
RICHARD JEFFERIES
Dry grass is as slippery as if it were hair, and the sheep
have fed it too close for a grip of the hand. Under the furze
(still far from the summit) they have worn a path - a narrow
a
ledge, cut by their cloven feet — through the sward. It is time
to rest; and already, looking back, the sea has extended to an
indefinite horizon. This climb of a few hundred feet opens a
view of so many miles more. But the ships lose their individu-
ality and human character; they are so far, so very far away,
they do not take hold of the sympathies; they seem like sketches
- cunningly executed, but only sketches -- on the immense can-
vas of the ocean. There is something unreal about them.
On a calm day, when the surface is smooth as if the brimming
ocean had been stroked, — the rod passed across the top of the
measure, thrusting off the irregularities of wave; when the dis-
tant green from long simmering under the sun becomes pale;
when the sky, without cloud, but with some slight haze in it,
likewise loses its hue, and the two so commingle in the pallor of
heat that they cannot be separated, - then the still ships appear
suspended in space. They are as much held from above as
upborne from beneath.
They are motionless, midway in space – whether it is sea or
air is not to be known. They neither float nor fly, they are sus-
pended. There is no force in the flat sail, the mast is lifeless,
the hull without impetus. For hours they linger, changeless as
the constellations; still, silent, motionless, phantom vessels on a
void sea.
Another climb up from the sheep-path, and it is not far then
to the terrible edge of that tremendous cliff which rises straighter
than a ship's side out of the sea, six hundred feet above the
detached rock below, where the limpets cling like rivet heads,
and the sand rills run around it. But it is not possible to look
down to it: the glance of necessity falls outwards, as a raindrop
from the eaves is deflected by the wind, because it is the edge
where the mold crumbles; the rootlets of the grass are exposed;
the chalk is about to break away in flakes.
You cannot lean over as a parapet, lest such a fake
should detach itself; lest a mere trifle should begin to fall,
awakening a dread and dormant inclination to slide and finally
plunge like it. Stand back; the sea there goes out and out to
the left and to the right, and how far is it to the blue overhead ?
over


## p. 8227 (#427) ###########################################

RICHARD JEFFERIES
8227
The eye must stay here a long period and drink in these dis-
tances, before it can adjust the measure and know exactly what
it sees.
Here, reclining on the grass — the verge of the cliff rising a
little shuts out the actual sea — the glance goes forth into the
hollow unsupported. It is sweeter towards the corn-ricks, and
yet the mind will not be satisfied, but ever turns to the unknown.
The edge and the abyss recall us; the boundless plain — for it
appears solid as the waves are leveled by distance — demands the
gaze. But with use it becomes easier, and the eye labors less.
There is a promontory standing out from the main wall, whence
you can see the side of the cliff, getting a flank view, as from a
tower.
The jackdaws occasionally floating out from the ledge are as
mere specks from above, as they were from below. The reef
running out from the beach, though now covered by the tide, is
visible as you look down on it through the water; the seaweed,
which lay matted and half dry on the rocks, is now under the
wave. Boats have come round, and are beached; how helplessly
little they seem beneath the cliff by the sea!
On returning homewards towards Eastbourne, stay awhile by
the tumulus on the slope. There are others hidden among the
furze; butterflies Autter over them, and the bees hum round by
day; by night the night-hawk passes, coming up from the fields
and even skirting the sheds and houses below. The rains beat
on them, and the storm drives the dead leaves over their low
green domes; the waves boom on the shore far down.
How many times has the morning star shone yonder in the
east? All the mystery of the sun and of the stars centres around
these lowly mounds.
But the glory of these glorious downs is the breeze. The air
in the valleys immediately beneath them is pure and pleasant;
but the least climb, even a hundred feet, puts you on a plane
with the atmosphere itself, uninterrupted by so much as the tree-
tops. It is air without admixture. If it comes from the south
the waves refine it; if inland, the wheat and flowers and grass
distill it. The great headland and the whole rib of the promon-
tory is wind-swept and washed with air; the billows of the atmo-
sphere roll over it.
The sun searches out every crevice amongst the grass, nor is
there the smallest fragment of surface which is not sweetened by


## p. 8228 (#428) ###########################################

8228
RICHARD JEFFERIES
air and light. Underneath, the chalk itself is pure, and the turf
thus washed by wind and rain, sun-dried and dew-scented, is a
couch prepared with thyme to rest on. Discover some excuse to
be up there always, to search for stray mushrooms,— they will be
stray, for the crop is gathered extremely early in the morning, -
or to make a list of flowers and grasses; to do anything, and if
not, go always without any pretext. Lands of gold have been
found, and lands of spices and precious merchandise; but this is
the land of health.
There is the sea below to bathe in, the air of the sky up
hither to breathe, the sun to infuse the invisible magnetism of
his beams. These are the three potent medicines of nature, and
they are medicines that by degrees strengthen not only the body
but the unquiet mind. It is not necessary to always look out
over the sea. By strolling along the slopes of the ridge a little
way inland, there is another scene where hills roll on after hills
till the last and largest hides those that succeed behind it.
Vast cloud-shadows darken one, and lift their veil from an.
other; like the sea, their tint varies with the hue of the sky over
them. Deep narrow valleys - lanes in the hills - draw the foot-
steps downwards into their solitude; but there is always the de-
licious air, turn whither you will, and there is always the grass,
the touch of which refreshes. Though not in sight, it is pleasant
to know that the sea is close at hand, and that you have only to
mount to the ridge to view it. At sunset the curves of the shore
westward are filled with a luminous mist.
Or if it should be calm, and you should like to look at the
massive headline from the level of the sea, row out a mile from
the beach. Eastwards a bank of red vapor shuts in the sea; the
wavelets — no larger than those raised by the oar- on that side
are purple as if wine had been spilt upon them, but westwards
the ripples shimmer with palest gold.
The sun sinks behind the summit of the downs, and slender
streaks of purple are drawn along above them. A shadow comes
forth from the cliff; a duskiness dwells on the water; something
tempts the eye upwards, and near the zenith there is a star.


## p. 8229 (#429) ###########################################

8229
THOMAS JEFFERSON
(1743-1826)
BY PAUL LEICESTER FORD
He consideration of Thomas Jefferson from the literary aspect
involves a certain anomaly; for superficially he was not
merely no maker of books, but took great pains that most
of the productions of his pen should be only for the eye of his few
intimates, or should, if issued to the public, appear without his name.
His only important book, the Notes on Virginia,' - which has been,
of all works produced south of Mason and Dixon's Line, the most fre-
quently reprinted, — was written to oblige a single man, was then
privately printed that a few friends might have copies, and was pub-
lished only when it was no longer possible to prevent the appearance
of a pirated edition. The Summary View of the Rights of British
America, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill for Religious Free-
dom, the Territorial Ordinance of 1784, and the Kentucky Resolutions
of 1798, were all mere drafts of papers intended for the use of public
bodies, necessarily appearing without his name; and so well was the
secret of authorship kept that the origin of two of them became the
subject of serious historical controversy. Almost the only important
paper definitely put forth with his name was his inaugural address as
President; which has been hailed as the platform of a new party, but
which in fact was rather an expression of its highest culmination, and
therefore by no means an influential factor afterwards.
Yet the fact remains that the writings of no single American have
so powerfully influenced American thought and history. Jefferson
was one of the most prolific of writers; and if not himself a direct
molder of public thought through the press, he indirectly affected
public sentiment to an unmeasurable degree. Hamilton must be re-
futed: he wrote to James Madison, roughing out the line of argument
to be taken, and begged him to enter the lists. A States-Rights view
of the Constitution was needed: he inspired John Taylor to write it.
His views on religion ought to be made public: he outlined a book,
sent it to Joseph Priestley, and succeeded in getting him to under-
take the task. It was Jefferson's often repeated assertion that he
never wrote for the press; yet by means of his confidants, no man of
his times approached him in the public expression of his ideas. He


## p. 8230 (#430) ###########################################

8230
THOMAS JEFFERSON
worked in fact through other men; and his twenty-five thousand let-
ters, in contrast to his half-dozen State papers of moment, revealed
the methods by which he influenced public opinion, and created that
mass of doctrine, nowhere formulated, that is to-day known as “the
Jeffersonian principles. ”
The consensus of both public opinion and history has assigned to
this man rank with Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln, as the four
Americans who have reached the greatest eminence through pub-
lic service. But while granting this position, a curious distinction
is made, which deserves careful consideration. All men achieving
political prominence are the object of attack, necessarily involving
not merely criticism of their measures, but also of their character.
Washington was accused of murder, treachery, corruption, hypocrisy,
ingratitude, moral cowardice, and private immorality; Franklin was
charged with theft, debauchery, intrigue, slander, and irreligion; while
the manifold charges against Lincoln remain within the memory of
many now living: and so there is nothing strange in the fact that
Jefferson was accused of dishonesty, craftiness, slander, irreligion, im-
morality, cowardice, and incompetence. The contrast consists in the
fact that while the failings of Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln have
long since been forgotten, and their characters absolutely established
in universal estimation, yet towards Jefferson there is still manifested
by many a distinct partisan dislike; and as a natural corollary, by
another class a distinct partisan affection. Our newspapers, our public
orators, and even our histories, to this day give criticism or praise
to him that rings so strongly as to suggest a conflict with the living,
rather than judgment of the dead. No particular act of Jefferson
excited any greater political opposition than did some advocated or
enforced by Washington, Franklin, or Lincoln; and it is therefore
necessary to seek some deeper reason for this difference than mere
personality or policy. Without for a moment belittling the work of
these others, the conclusion is forced that they worked for what was
temporary, in the sense that when done it passed from the category
of what is debatable to that which is decided; while what Jefferson
worked for were issues of permanent importance,- in other words,
that he was, and therefore still is, merely an expression of forces
permanent in man; and to that fact is due the controversy which
still centres about his name.
This is in effect to maintain that the political theories and usages
originated or adopted by the great democrat have a far deeper and
broader principle underlying them than is always recognized. In
popular estimation, Jefferson stands as the founder of the Democratic
party, and the developer of the theory of States-Rights; and on these
foundations are based the so-called "Jeffersonian principles, and the


## p. 8231 (#431) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8231
respect and acceptance, as well as the criticism and contravention,
accorded to them. That this basis was deemed sufficient during his
life, is natural; for judgment of a living man must always be partial
and superficial. That this limited view should during that time ac-
quire prestige and momentum enough to project it into history, is
not strange; the more that the logical conclusions of certain theories
advanced by him suited the policy of one of our political parties.
The acceptance of this narrow view has enabled his antagonists and
critics to charge him with hypocrisy, opportunism, and even lack of
any political principles; and the contradictions and instability they
have cited in his opinions and conduct have embarrassed even his
most devoted adherents. If this view is still to be accepted, these
criticisms must stand; and judged by them, the marvel of the Fed-
eralists and his later critics, that he should have been the chosen
instrument of American democracy, is proper. The scholarly and
recluse nature of his tastes and studies; the retiring and limited
character of his intercourse with the world; the influence of his social
equals; his dislike of party and personal antagonism; and his sensi-
tiveness to abuse and criticism,— make his acceptance of that leader-
ship as strange a problem as that the people should have chosen for
their representative a man lacking nearly all of the personal qualities
which are presumed to win popularity with the masses. And it is
only explicable from the standpoint of his critics as the success of
an ambitious and unprincipled self-seeking man, attained by astute-
ness and chicane so great as to deceive the people.
But if the people embody the total of human thought and experi-
ence, as our political theories maintain, there are better reasons than
these for his elevation, and for the political influence his name has
carried for over one hundred years; better reasons than the leader-
ship of a party, or a fine-spun theory of the respective powers of the
State and national governments. The explanation of these anomalies
lies deeper than any mere matter of individuality, party success, or
rigid political platform. Thus an understanding of what he endeav-
ored to accomplish, explains or softens many of his apparent contra-
dictions and questionable acts. The dominant principle of his creed
was, that all powers belonged to the people; and that governments,
constitutions, laws, precedents, and all other artificial clogs and
<protections,” are entitled to respect and obedience only as they
fulfill their limited function of aiding — not curtailing — the greatest
freedom to the individual. For this reason he held that no power
existed to bind the people or posterity, except in their own acts.
For this reason he was a strict construer of the national Constitution
where he believed it destructive of personal freedom; and he con-
strued it liberally where it threatened to limit the development of


## p. 8232 (#432) ###########################################

8232
THOMAS JEFFERSON
the people. He was the defender of the State governments; for he
regarded them as a necessary division for local self-government and
as natural checks on the national power, and so a safeguard to the
people. That he appealed to them in his Resolutions of 1798 was
because he believed the people for once unable to act for their own
interest; and the theories of that paper are a radical and short-lived
contradiction of his true beliefs. Because he believed the national
judiciary and the national bank to be opposed to the will of the
people, he attacked them. Because he believed he was furthering
the popular will, he interfered in the legislative department and
changed office-holders. Because he wished the people free to think
and act, he favored separation from England, abolition of religion, and
the largest degree of local self-government. As already suggested,
his methods and results were not always good, and his character and
conduct had many serious flaws. Yet in some subtle way the people
understood him, and forgave in him weaknesses and defects they
have seldom condoned. And eventually this judgment will universally
obtain, as the fact becomes clearer and clearer that neither national
independence nor State sovereignty, with the national and party
rancors that attach to them, were the controlling aim and attempt
of his life; that no party or temporary advantage was the object of
his endeavors, but that he fought for the ever enduring privilege of
personal freedom.
Recognition of the principles for which he fought does not, how-
ever, imply indorsement of his methods and instruments. Many of
his failings can be traced to cowardice; the physical side of which
was well known to his age, and the moral side of which is visible in
nearly erything he did wrote. Yet even with this allowance, it
is difficult to reconcile such a faith as his in the people, with his
constant panics over the smallest events. Indeed, it is hard to believe
it possible that a man so instinct with the popular mood could shy
wildly at the levees of Washington, and the birth-night balls, as evi-
dences of a monarchical tendency; or conceive that his walking to
his inauguration, and his reception of a foreign minister in soiled
linen and slippers down at the heel,” were serious political maneu-
If he truly believed this «the strongest government on earth,”
it seems little less than fatuous in him to declare that the scribbling
of one abusive editor had “saved our Constitution,” and to refer the
success of the Democratic party in 1800 to the influence of another.
Still more of his defects can be accounted for by the influence of
those with whom he labored: Demos being seldom scrupulous in its
ways, and fighting without the feelings or code that go to make war-
fare a duel of equal conditions. His patronage of such hack libelers
as Freneau, Bache, Duane, Paine, and Callender, to say nothing of
vres.


## p. 8233 (#433) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8233
the half rebellious democratic societies made up chiefly of the mobs
of the large cities and the moonshiners” of the mountains, is well-
nigh impossible to account for without a confession of the lack of
certain moral qualities innate in most men, and of the noblesse oblige
of his class.
Not less extraordinary is the freedom and sweepingness of his
criticism of the financial plans of Hamilton,-certainly the ablest
financier ever in charge of our national treasury,— when Jefferson
himself was seldom able to add up a column of figures correctly, for
over fifty years of his life was hopelessly insolvent, almost brought
about the national mortification of the public arrest for debt of the
President of the United States, was the recipient of several public
subscriptions that he might live, and in his last years even urged
the Legislature of Virginia to allow a lottery in his behalf. As he
was blind morally in many respects, so too he seemed blind to the
greatest truth of our governing principle,- the rights of the minority,
as compared with those of the majority. «The will of the majority
is the natural law of society," he wrote; and except for the moment-
ary attitude taken in the Resolutions of 1798, he never urged what
is so obvious to any but partisans. On the contrary, his course in
Virginia in the destruction of the old aristocracy, and his attack on
the Supreme Court, show how absolutely he was lacking in the spirit
of majority and minority compromise which is really the basis of
republican government. It is true that in his inaugural address he
said, “We are all Republicans: we are all Federalists;» but this
only referred to the Federalists who were already coalescing with the
Republicans, and towards the leaders of the opposing party he ever
held an intolerant and unforgiving course.
A study of his life goes far to explain these facts. From his
father, Peter Jefferson, an uneducated Indian-fighter, pioneer, and
surveyor, he received an inheritance both of common-sense and of
sympathy with the masses. From his mother, Jane Randolph, came
a strain of the best gentry blood of Virginia; a line at once famous
for its lawyers and statesmen, and shadowed by hereditary insanity.
These dual heritages from his parents were both of vital influence
in his career. Born on April 2d, 1743, at Shadwell, Virginia, on the
foot-hills of the Blue Ridge, then one of the most western of settle-
ments, the frontier life unquestionably developed the qualities he had
received from his father; and bred in this cradle of democracy, he was
ever after able to appreciate and to sympathize with the spirit. Nor
was his mother's influence less potent; for, carefully educated at Will-
iam and Mary College, and with an entrée to the best society of the
colony, he became the cultivated gentleman that he was. From this
double or complex nature flowed curious results. During his whole


## p. 8234 (#434) ###########################################

8234
THOMAS JEFFERSON
life he was fighting the battle of the masses, yet at no period did he
ever associate with them save in his own county, and then only as a
great planter, or county squire; nor is there discernible in anything
he did or wrote, the feeling of personal as opposed to theoretical lik-
ing for mankind. Humane, sympathetic, broad-minded, he always was
in his views and actions; but in relations to his fellow-kind he seems
to have had a distinct repugnance to association with hoi polloi. On
the contrary, the chief happiness of his life was found in his inter-
course with his social equals; and when his adoption of the people's
cause had produced social ostracism by the society of Philadelphia, so
that old friends of his crossed the street merely to avoid touching
their hats to him," and in his own words, “many declined visiting
me with whom I had been on terms of the greatest friendship and
intimacy,” he ever after, when alluding to the period, used expres-
sions implying that he had endured the keenest suffering. With
scarcely an exception, democracy the world over has fought its bat-
tles with self-made men as leaders; men near enough the soil not to
feel, or at least able to resist, the pressure of higher social forces:
but Jefferson was otherwise, and the suffering this alienation and dis-
crimination caused him is over and over again shown by his reiter-
ated expressions of hatred of the very politics to which he gave the
larger part of his life.
Nor was it merely by heritage that Jefferson took rank with
the «classes ); for intellectually as well, he belonged among them.
From his youth he was a close and hard student: he stated himself
that he studied over ten hours a day; and James Duane asserted in
1775 that Jefferson was the greatest rubber-off of dust that he had
met with; that he has learned French, Spanish, and wants to learn
German. ” He believed in the study of original sources; and in his
desire to study these, even taught himself Anglo-Saxon that he might
investigate the development of English law. Only when theorizing
on the great principles controlling society does he seem to have
taken distinct enjoyment in the political side of his career; and this
distinction no doubt accounts for his great reputation as a theoret-
ical statesman, and his almost absolute failure in every executive
office he held. Not the least influence in his life was his intense
interest in everything scientific. An eclipse, a new animal or plant,
the meteorology or the longitude of a place, or any other scientific
datum, was eagerly sought for. Mathematics was another youthful
passion, and to this late in life he returned. In his early days he
took great pleasure in music, fiction, and poetry; but with advancing
years he lost this liking to such a degree that he himself said of
the last, “So much has my relish for poetry deserted me that at
present I cannot read even Virgil with pleasure. ” In the words of a


## p. 8235 (#435) ###########################################

THOMAS JEFFERSON
8235
»
biographer, “His instincts were those of a liberal European noble-
man, like the Duc de Liancourt; and he built himself at Monticello
a chateau above contact with man. ” Here the management of his
farm was his constant delight, but chiefly on its experimental or sci-
entific side, and it is to be noted that practically it never yielded
him a profit; here he gathered an unusually fine library of standard
books (for the time); and here, except for his few intimates, he shut
out the world.
The result of these influences was that from his early manhood
he became a thorough skeptic of tradition and precedent; and in his
own words, he never feared to follow truth and reason, to whatever
results they led, and bearding every authority which' stood in their
way. ” In fact, all through his life there was a certain affectation of
original thinking; and a contemporary who knew him well declared
that “it constituted a part of Mr. Jefferson's pride to run before the
times in which he lived. ” This foible made him dreaded by the
conservatives, and the Federalists were never tired of charging him
with being a radical and a man of sublimated theories; but in the
main his imagination was balanced by an almost equally strong logical
quality of mind.
Almost alone of the Revolutionary leaders, Jefferson was born on
the frontier. Among those conditions he passed the formative period
of his life; and as representative of this region he made his first
essay in politics in 1765, and naturally as an advocate and defender
of the democratic mountaineers. In the Virginia Assembly, in which
his earliest battles were fought, the strongest line of party division
was between the aristocratic “planter” interest - great landed and
slaveholding proprietors, with the prestige and inertia of favorable
laws and offices - and the “settler” interest inhabiting the frontier,
far from the law or protection of government, but strong in numbers,
independence, and necessities; and in these conflicts he learned how
absolutely selfish and grasping all class legislation is. Then came the
Revolution; and Jefferson saw governments deriving their authority
from laws innumerable, and their force from the strongest nation of
Europe, utterly destroyed, with hardly a blow, merely through their
non-recognition by the masses. With the Committees of Safety and
the Congresses that succeeded, and in which he took a prominent
part, he saw the experiment of “a government of the people, by the
people, for the people, established and tested.