Jefferies Reading Response

There are many points in Jefferies writings that really stand out to me: first, in "Out Doors in February", when he talks about birds and animals always returning to where their original home. That section made me think about the day we were bird-banding, and how surprised I was to learn that most of the birds at Merry Lea return year after year. Jefferies also brings a new light to what we might refer to as "the dead of winter" , when he says that "there is never a time when there is not a flower of some kind out.......There is life always, even in the dry fir-cone that looks so brown and sapless." Later, when he says "I think the moments when we forget the mire of the world are the most precious." really resound for me. Jefferies adoration and respect of nature is most evident in this first selection.

The next writing, "Absence of Design", is more somber and melancholy. I read a bit about Jefferies, and this writing really made a lot more sense. Jefferies struggled with both poverty and tuberculosis (which ended up killing him early in life), and his negative commentary on the human-constructed world I think must have reflected what he was going through. There must have been a thought of his own mortality when he wrote ".....I dislike the word economy: I detest the word thrift; I hate the thought of saving." What good is not enjoying the present when you might not be around in the future? Lastly, his comment on the fact that there are more than enough food in the world for all its human children really brings his writing into the present moment- with the general overall poverty that the world is battling today.