accuracy of Kingsley, united to so vivid an imagination;
consequently his pictures are all of striking quality. Look at this
characteristic bit, when Amyas and his friends walk to the cliffs of
Lundy:--

"As they approached, a raven, who sat upon the topmost stone, black
against the bright blue sky, flapped lazily away, and sunk down
the abysses of the cliff, as if he had scented the corpses beneath
the surge. Below them from the gull-rock rose a thousand birds, and
filled the air with sound; the choughs cackled, the hacklets
wailed, the great black-backs laughed querulous defiance at the
intruders, and a single falcon with an angry bark darted out
beneath their feet, and hung poised high aloft, watching the
sea-fowl which swung slowly round and round below."

In all his books we have these glowing pictures of the natural world,
intense, graven in as it were with a burin, and colored with tropical
magnificence.

Soon after taking orders Charles Kingsley was given the living of
Eversley, which he retained to the end of his life. His work there was
full of hardship; but he was young and strong, and had a superabundant
energy which no toil daunted. Eversley was a democratic parish of "heth
croppers," and there were few gentry within its borders. These peasants
were hereditary poachers on Windsor Forest and other preserves in the
neighborhood, and possessed one and all with a spirit of almost lawless
independence. But it was one of Kingsley's most amiable characteristics
through life to be able to make friends of uncultivated people without
any painful effort of condescension. He visited these poor people of his
parish constantly, until he knew every person intimately, and could
speak to each with a knowledge of his inmost needs; and their needs, in
most cases, were of a very earthly and commonplace kind.

"What is the use," he would say, "of my talking to a lot of hungry
paupers about heaven? Sir, as my clerk said to me yesterday, there is a
weight on their hearts, and they care for no hope and no change, for
they know they can be no worse off than they are." But he did better for
them than to preach far-away sermons above their comprehension. "If a
man or woman were suffering or dying, he would go to them five or six
times a day,--and night as well as day,--for his own heart's sake as
well as for their soul's sake." And he won the respect of these people
for the Church whi