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The Story of My Heart

Richard Jefferies

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1. "The Story of My Heart", para. 1. The Story of My Heart
2. "by Richard Jefferies", para. 1. by Richard Jefferies
3. "Contents", para. 1. Contents
4. "CHAPTER I", para. 1. CHAPTER I The story of my heart commences seventeen years ago. In the glow of youth t
5. "CHAPTER I", para. 4. Moving up the sweet short turf, at every step my heart seemed to obtain a wider horiz
6. "CHAPTER I", para. 5. I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in m
7. "CHAPTER I", para. 7. With all the intensity of feeling which exalted me, all the intense communion I held
8. "CHAPTER I", para. 8. Becoming calmer, I returned to myself and thought, reclining in rapt thought, full of
9. "CHAPTER I", para. 9. Sometimes on lying down on the sward I first looked up at the sky, gazing for a long
10. "CHAPTER I", para. 10. With the glory of the great sea, I said, with the firm, solid, and sustaining earth;
11. "CHAPTER I", para. 12. In summer I went out into the fields, and let my soul inspire these thoughts under th
12. "CHAPTER I", para. 13. The long-lived summer days dried and warmed the turf in the meadows. I used to lie do
13. "CHAPTER I", para. 14. Through every grass blade in the thousand, thousand grasses; through the million leav
14. "CHAPTER I", para. 15. I prayed with the glowing clouds of sun-set and the soft light of the first star comi
15. "CHAPTER II", para. 1. CHAPTER II Sometimes I went to a deep, narrow valley in the hills, silent and solitar
16. "CHAPTER II", para. 3. Full to the brim of the wondrous past, I felt the wondrous present. For the day—the v
17. "CHAPTER II", para. 5. All the succeeding incidents of the year repeated my prayer as I noted them. The firs
18. "CHAPTER II", para. 8. My work was most uncongenial and useless, but even then sometimes a gleam of sunlight
19. "CHAPTER II", para. 10. If I could have been in physical shape like these, how despicable in comparison I am;
20. "CHAPTER II", para. 13. After a long interval I came to the hills again, this time by the coast. I found a de
21. "CHAPTER II", para. 15. Of the three divisions, the last was of so little importance that it scarcely deserve
22. "CHAPTER II", para. 16. For the flesh, this arm of mine, the limbs of others gracefully moving, let me find s
23. "CHAPTER II", para. 17. Of the mind, the inner consciousness, the soul, my prayer desired that I might discov
24. "CHAPTER II", para. 18. It happened just afterwards that I went to Pevensey, and immediately the ancient wall
25. "CHAPTER III", para. 1. CHAPTER III There were grass-grown tumuli on the hills to which of old I used to walk
26. "CHAPTER III", para. 3. Two thousand years being a second to the soul could not cause its extinction. It was
27. "CHAPTER III", para. 5. It happened once that a man was drowned while bathing, and his body was placed in an
28. "CHAPTER III", para. 6. Sweetly the summer air came up to the tumulus, the grass sighed softly, the butterfli
29. "CHAPTER III", para. 7. Realising that spirit, recognising my own inner consciousness, the psyche, so clearly
30. "CHAPTER III", para. 9. There is no separation-no past; eternity, the Now, is continuous. When all the stars
31. "CHAPTER III", para. 10. The supernatural miscalled, the natural in truth, is the real. To me everything is su
32. "CHAPTER III", para. 11. I can see nothing astonishing in what are called miracles. Only those who are mesmeri
33. "CHAPTER III", para. 12. When I consider that I dwell this moment in the eternal Now that has ever been and wi
34. "CHAPTER III", para. 13. How many words it has taken to describe so briefly the feelings and the thoughts that
35. "CHAPTER III", para. 15. Three things only have been discovered of that which concerns the inner consciousness
36. "CHAPTER III", para. 17. There is so much beyond all that has ever yet been imagined. As I write these words,
37. "CHAPTER III", para. 19. From earth and sea and sun, from night, the stars, from day, the trees, the hills, fr
38. "CHAPTER IV", para. 1. CHAPTER IV The wind sighs through the grass, sighs in the sunshine; it has drifted th
39. "CHAPTER IV", para. 3. The original three ideas of the Cavemen became encumbered with superstition; ritual g
40. "CHAPTER IV", para. 5. There is nothing human in nature. The earth, though loved so dearly, would let me per
41. "CHAPTER IV", para. 6. Water he can drink, but it is not produced for him; how many thousands have perished
42. "CHAPTER IV", para. 8. They have no shape, form, grace, or purpose; they call up a vague sense of chaos, cha
43. "CHAPTER IV", para. 10. Or suddenly there is a rustle like a faint hiss in the grass, and a green snake glide
44. "CHAPTER IV", para. 12. There is nothing human in any living animal. All nature, the universe as far as we se
45. "CHAPTER IV", para. 14. There being nothing human in nature or the universe, and all things being ultra-human
46. "CHAPTER IV", para. 15. Next, in human affairs, in the relations of man with man, in the conduct of life, in
47. "CHAPTER IV", para. 17. I conclude that there is an existence, a something higher than soul—higher, better, a
48. "CHAPTER V", para. 1. CHAPTER V It is not possible to narrate these incidents of the mind in strict order.
49. "CHAPTER V", para. 3. I looked at the hills, at the dewy grass, and then up through the elm branches to the
50. "CHAPTER V", para. 5. Later on I began to have daily pilgrimages to think these things. There was a feeling
51. "CHAPTER V", para. 6. Of the sun I was conscious; I could not look at it, but the boughs held back the beam
52. "CHAPTER V", para. 7. There was a place a mile or so along the road where the hills could be seen much bett
53. "CHAPTER V", para. 9. A time came when, having to live in a town, these pilgrimages had to be suspended. Th
54. "CHAPTER V", para. 10. I was much in London, and, engagements completed, I wandered about in the same way as
55. "CHAPTER V", para. 11. The bright morning sun of summer heated the eastern parapet of London Bridge; I staye
56. "CHAPTER V", para. 12. When, weary of walking on the pavements, I went to rest in the National Gallery, I sa
57. "CHAPTER V", para. 14. Another was to the Greek sculpture galleries in the British Museum. The statues are n
58. "CHAPTER V", para. 16. I always stepped aside, too, to look awhile at the head of Julius Cæsar. The domes of
59. "CHAPTER V", para. 18. The one man filled with mind; the one man without avarice, anger, pettiness, littlene
60. "CHAPTER VI", para. 1. CHAPTER VI There is a place in front of the Royal Exchange where the wide pavement re
61. "CHAPTER VI", para. 3. Blue carts and yellow omnibuses, varnished carriages and brown vans, green omnibuses
62. "CHAPTER VI", para. 5. But it is more sternly real than the very stones, for all these men and women that pa
63. "CHAPTER VI", para. 6. I used to come and stand near the apex of the promontory of pavement which juts out t
64. "CHAPTER VI", para. 7. Consider, is there anything slowly painted on the once mystic and now commonplace pap
65. "CHAPTER VI", para. 9. Turn, then, to the calm reasoning of Aristotle; is there anything in that? Can the ha
66. "CHAPTER VI", para. 11. To prepare for such an effort, first the mind must be cleared of the conceit that, be
67. "CHAPTER VI", para. 12. From my home near London I made a pilgrimage almost daily to an aspen by a brook. It
68. "CHAPTER VI", para. 13. In summer the leaves of the aspen rustled pleasantly, there was the tinkle of falling
69. "CHAPTER VI", para. 15. Experience of life, instead of curtailing and checking my prayer, led me to reject ex
70. "CHAPTER VI", para. 17. These memories cannot be placed in exact chronological order. There was a time when a
71. "CHAPTER VI", para. 18. There, alone, I went down to the sea. I stood where the foam came to my feet, and loo
72. "CHAPTER VI", para. 20. With all the greater existence I drew from them I prayed for a bodily life equal to i
73. "CHAPTER VI", para. 22. There mystery has been placed, but realising the vast hollow yonder makes me feel tha
74. "CHAPTER VII", para. 1. CHAPTER VII My strength is not enough to fulfil my desire; if I had the strength of t
75. "CHAPTER VII", para. 4. I live by the sea now; I can see nothing of it in a day; why, I do but get a breath o
76. "CHAPTER VII", para. 5. Wine is pleasant and meat refreshing; but though I own with absolute honesty that I l
77. "CHAPTER VII", para. 7. Splendid it is to feel the boat rise to the roller, or forced through by the sail to
78. "CHAPTER VII", para. 9. It is in myself that I desire increase, profit, and exaltation of body, mind, and sou
79. "CHAPTER VII", para. 11. I want to be always in company with these, with earth, and sun, and sea, and stars by
80. "CHAPTER VII", para. 13. I would submit to a severe discipline, and to go without many things cheerfully, for
81. "CHAPTER VII", para. 14. No science of modern times has yet discovered a plan to meet the requirements of the
82. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 1. CHAPTER VIII An enumeration of the useless would almost be an enumeration of everythi
83. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 3. There is a mass of knowledge so called at the present day equally useless, and nothin
84. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 5. Nothing is of any use unless it gives me a stronger body and mind, a more beautiful b
85. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 7. But it may be argued the world must have been created, or it must have been made of e
86. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 8. Whenever the mind obtains a wider view we may find that origin. For instance, is not
87. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 9. In this “must”—“it must follow”—lies my objection to the logic of science. The argume
88. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 11. Let this thought now be carried into the realms of thought. The mind, or circle, or s
89. "CHAPTER VIII", para. 12. The problem of my own existence also convinces me that there is much more. The questi
90. "CHAPTER IX", para. 1. CHAPTER IX In human affairs everything happens by chance—that is, in defiance of huma
91. "CHAPTER IX", para. 3. How can I adequately express my contempt for the assertion that all things occur for
92. "CHAPTER IX", para. 4. The credit given by the unthinking to the statement that all affairs are directed has
93. "CHAPTER IX", para. 5. But that which is thoughtlessly credited to a non-existent intelligence should really
94. "CHAPTER IX", para. 7. It is perfectly certain that all diseases without exception are preventable, or, if n
95. "CHAPTER IX", para. 8. Our bodies are full of unsuspected flaws, handed down it may be for thousands of year
96. "CHAPTER IX", para. 10. If we consider ourselves by the analogy of animals, trees, and other living creatures
97. "CHAPTER IX", para. 12. I myself maintain that the mind of man is practically infinite. It can understand any
98. "CHAPTER IX", para. 13. Considering these things I am obliged by facts and incontrovertible argument to concl
99. "CHAPTER IX", para. 14. The truth is, we die through our ancestors; we are murdered by our ancestors. Their d
100. "CHAPTER X", para. 1. CHAPTER X United effort through geological time in front is but the beginning of an i