Although he wrote this paper while in dire straits of poverty; although he had already entered that valley whose gloomy sides continually narrow; where the slopes become, little by little, precipices; where the light grows dim, and where the spectre of death slowly rises before the eyes and takes shape: although he lived poorly; although he continued unknown to the mass of the reading world, who passed him by, everything, to us, seems compensated by the splendid power which he had now acquired of thinking such thoughts and expressing them in such language. I have heard it said by some that Jefferies wrote too much. Not a single page too much, beginning from the "Gamekeeper at Home," and thinking only of the "Gamekeeper's" legitimate successors! That is to say, we are prepared to surrender portions, but not all--saving great pieces, huge cantles, here and there whole chapters--of "Bevis," "Wood Magic," "After London," "Green Ferne Farm," "The Dewy Morn," and even "Amaryllis." We will blot out everything that has to do with the ordinary figures, conversations, and situations of what the writer called a novel. But of the rest we will not part with one single line. Year after year--generation after generation--the truth and fidelity and beauty of these pages will sink deeper and deeper into the heart of the world. So deeply will they sink, so long will they live, that he who writes a memoir of this man trembles for thinking that when future ages ask who and what was the man who wrote these things, the pages which contain his life may seem unequal to the subject--too low, pedestrian, and creeping for the greatness of the author he commemorates. I return to the packet of letters. They go on to offer articles, and to explain how promised papers are getting on. He wrote nine papers in all for _Longman's Magazine_--namely, three in 1883, two in 1884, one in 1885, one in 1886, and two, which appeared after his death, in the year 1887.