erved_

=Dedicated=

TO

CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.

[Illustration]

INTRODUCTION.[1]

"THE book is not a novel" is a phrase often in the mouth of critics, who
on second thoughts might, perhaps, add with less emphasis, "It does not
conform to the common type of novel." Fortified, however, with that
sense of rectitude that dictates conformity to our neighbours and a safe
acquiescence in the mysterious movements of public taste, the critics
have exclaimed with touching unanimity--"What a pity Jefferies tried to
write novels! Why didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"

What a pity Jefferies should have given us "Amaryllis at the Fair," and
"After London"!--this opinion has been propagated with such fervency
that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring into the nature
of these his achievements. Certainly the critics, and their critical
echoes, are united. "He wrote some later novels of indifferent merit,"
says a critic in "Chambers' Encyclopaedia." "Has anyone ever been able to
write with free and genuine appreciation of even the later novels?"
asks or echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies. "In
brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at all," says Mr. Henry
Salt. "It is therefore certain that his importance for posterity will
dwindle, if it has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle of
descriptive selections. But these will occupy a foremost place on their
particular shelf, the shelf at the head of which stands Gilbert White
and Gray," says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter of genius, and
he never got beyond reporting. Mr. Besant has the vitalising imagination
which Jefferies lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again, "They are not novels
as he (Walter Besant) admits, they are a series of pictures. . . . That
is the way he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure for this critic
to say that in his judgment "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the very
few later-day novels of English country life that are worth putting on
one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would turn out certain
highly-praised novels by Hardy which do not ring quite true, novels
which the critics and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the reade