And what they desire for themselves they come to desire also for all companions, as they march singing down the great roads of the universe. It is a life which will transfer no affections to some problematical future, but here and now will riot and rejoice in the glory of the sum of things. Jefferies was perplexed and saddened by the confusion that man has made of his world. “In twelve thousand written years the world has not yet built itself a House, nor filled a Granary, nor organised itself for its own comfort. It is so marvellous I cannot express the wonder with which it fills me.” Yet he believes that there would be enough for all, if only all were willing to share it. He brushes aside the ordinary ambitions which inflame mankind: “money, furniture, affected show, and the pageantry of wealth.” He longs for the coming of a day when the ambition of the multitude will be fixed on the idea of form and beauty. “I would submit to a severe discipline,” he declares, “and to go without many things cheerfully, for the good and happiness of the human race in the future.” “The labour of our predecessors in this country, in all other countries of the earth, is entirely wasted. We live--that is, we snatch an existence--and our works become nothing. The piling up of fortunes, the building of cities, the establishment of immense commerce, end in a cipher. These objects are so outside my idea that I cannot understand them, and look upon the struggle in amazement. Not even the pressure of poverty can force upon me an understanding of, and sympathy with, these things.” But he does not despair of the future. “Earth,” he asserts in _The Pageant of Summer_, “holds secrets enough to give them the life of the favoured immortals.” His heart was fixed firm and stable in the belief that “ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man’s existence.” “There is so much for us yet to come,” he believes, “so much to be gathered and enjoyed.”