Simon Russell Beale reads Richard Jefferies

Currently in lockdown in the town, the actor Simon Russell Beale has recorded some readings for the Marlborough Literary Festival.

The first is taken from Richard Jefferies and his essay Wild Flowers, which you will find collected in the anthology The Open Air::

"If we had never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man or woman grown, set down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us a radiant vision? 

"The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind would be filled with its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such things could be mere matter and no more.

"Like a dream of some spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit to be touched lest it should fall to pieces, too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away."