REFLECTIONS is the title Richard Jefferies gave to his undated thoughts (purchased by Samuel Looker on two sheets of paper) written in his own hand. It is likely that Jefferies wrote the following whilst living in the bleak cottage called 'The Downs' in Crowborough (Sussex). The family lived there from July 1885 to November 1886.
As I was starting out it came on to spot raining and being susceptible to moisture (not as a drinking but a rheumatic way) I had to go back and put on my coat. When my boy came to me with a pitiful story of an injury to his tricycle and might he take it to the blacksmiths and get it repaired? At the foot of the steps I met the postman with a letter that had to be answered and while I was scrawling it a friend arrived.
After we had been in this twelve-month
we found that it was too much exposed—the wind came round the corner furiously;
the upper rooms were uninhabitable from cold; basement cold. Just when I wanted
money most in order to move, the oldest firm in the trade stopped payment--there were assets but it would require 12 months to realise. A tremendous jerk
of the elephant. A capital appointment was offered to me but, as I could not
move, I could not take it.
Nothing
runs like the express—that is the least part of the journey—the real travelling
is in the starting and the end: eternal worries to start, all directions, and
the one thing forgotten. At the end the cob, dirty, enters the wrong road, refuses
to go further, bribery, got a man to show the way, find a box dropped off half
a mile back, weary, rheumatic twinges and shaken.
