There is a winkle-stall
by the South Kensington Station of the Underground Railway.
Underneath the stall the pavement is strewn with shells, where
they have fallen and continue to lie. Close to the stall is a
cab-stand, paved with a few cobbles, lest the road be worn
overmuch by the restless trampling of cab-horses, who stand here
because it is a cab-stand. The thick woollen goods which appear
in the haberdashers' windows through the winter--generally
_inside_ the plate glass--give way to garments of a lighter
texture as the summer advances, and are put away or exhibited at
decreased prices. But collars continue to be shown, quite white
and circular in form; they will probably remain, turning grey as
the dust settles on them, until they are sold."

This is no travesty. It is a hasty, but I believe a pretty exact
application of Jefferies' method. And I ask how it would look in a
book. If the critics really enjoy, as they profess to, all this
trivial country lore, why on earth don't they come into the fresh air
and find it out for themselves? There is no imperative call for their
presence in London. Ink will stain paper in the country as well as in
town, and the Post will convey their articles to their editors. As it
is, they do but overheat already overheated clubs. Mr. Henley has
suggested concerning Jefferies' works that

"in years to be, when the whole island is one vast congeries of
streets, and the fox has gone down to the bustard and the dodo,
and outside museums of comparative anatomy the weasel is not, and
the badger has ceased from the face of the earth, it is not
doubtful that the _Gamekeeper_ and _Wild Life_ and the
_Poacher_--epitomising, as they will, the rural England of
certain centuries before--will be serving as material authority
for historical descriptions, historical novels, historical epics,
historical pictures, and will be honoured as the most useful
stuff of their kind in being."

Let me add that the movement has begun. These books are already
supplying the club-novelist with his open-air effects: and, therefore,
the club-novelist worships them. From them he gathers that "wild
apple-trees, too, are not uncommon in the hedges," and straightway he
informs the public of this wonder. But it is hard on the poor
countryman who, for the benefit of a street-bred reading public, must
cram his boo