SOURCE: A review of The Story of My Heart: My Autobiography, in The Academy, No. 600, November 3, 1883, p. 294.

Here, Purves appraises The Story of My Heart, calling the book "a contribution to the ideal in life."

This book is decidedly clever, though very unsatisfactory. Mr. Jefferies has not told the story of his own heart so well as he told the stories of The Gamekeeper at Home and The Amateur Poacher. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer; let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." So said Thoreau in Walden; and Mr. Jefferies for the first time seems to step out to the music of the American, and follow in his wake. To appreciate the real value of the book before us the reader should take up Walden first, and...