SOURCE: An introduction to Jefferies' England: Nature Essays, edited by Samuel J. Looker, Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1938, pp. xi-xxvii.

In the excerpt below, Looker compares the early and later works of Jefferies.

What is most striking in the life of Richard Jefferies is the gradual development of his power of thought from the conventional and specious attitude of the early papers to a deeper realisation of the underlying needs and hopes of the mind.

It is a far cry from the Gamekeeper at Home to the "Pageant of Summer." The Jefferies of 1876 could hardly have written: "To be beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of nature." The whole of his life was a progression from crude ideas and actions to high ideals and deep creative thought.

Like Thoreau, he came, by way of the sportsman's gun and habits, to a wider, closer understanding...