e. 'Why is it,' he asks, 'that this cry arises that
agriculture will not pay?... The answer is simple enough. It is
because the earth is idle one-third of the year.' He looks round a
January field and sees 'not an animal in sight, not a single
machine for making money, not a penny being turned.' He wishes to
know, 'What would a manufacturer think of a business in which he was
compelled to let his engines rest for a third of the year?' Then he
falls upon the miserable Down-land because that is still more idle
and still less productive. 'With all its progress,' he cries, 'how
little real advance has agriculture made! All because of the
stubborn, idle earth.' It is a genuine cry, to be paralleled by
'Life is short, art long,' and by his own wonder that 'in twelve
thousand written years the world has not yet built itself a House,
unfilled a Granary, nor organized itself for its own comfort,' by
his contempt for 'this little petty life of seventy years,' and for
the short sleep permitted to men.

The editor of _Longman's_ had to explain that, in publishing 'After
the County Franchise,' he was not really 'overstepping the limit
which he laid down in undertaking to keep _Longman's Magazine_ free
from the strife of party politics, because it might be profitable to
consider what changes this Bill will make, when it becomes law, in
the lives and the social relations of our rural population.' It was
true that Jefferies was no longer a party politician. He was by that
time above and before either party. He is so still, and the
reappearance of these no longer novel ideas is excusable simply
because Jefferies' name is likely to gain for them still more of the
consideration and support which they deserve, for it may be hoped
that our day is ready to receive the seed of trouble and advance
contained in the modest suggestion which he believed to be
compatible with 'the acquisition of public and the preservation of
private liberty.'

['We now govern our village ourselves;] why should we not
possess our village? Why should we not live in our own houses?
Why should we not have a little share in the land, as much, at
least, as we can pay for?... Can an owner of this kind of
property be permitted to refuse to sell? Must he be compelled to
sell?'

Twenty-five years ago Jefferies, knowing that neither land nor
cottages were to be had, that there was no security of tenure for
the labourer, hoped for the day when 'some, at least