Far off things

In Short

This memoir serves as a deeply atmospheric bridge between two worlds: the secluded, mythic valleys of rural Gwent and the cold, literary ambition of Victorian London. Through a series of reflective vignettes, the narrative explores the development of an authorial sensibility, the profound influence of early reading, and the bittersweet realization that the reality of adulthood rarely matches the vibrant, imaginative landscape of youth. It has endured as a classic of the genre because it captures the universal, melancholic ache of looking back at one’s formative years with both affection and clear-eyed honesty.

The Story

The narrative begins not in the city, but in the deep, rainy valleys of Gwent. As an only child raised in a rectory, the narrator finds his primary companionship in the landscape itself—the shadowy lanes, the secret woods, and the ancient, brooding hills of his native land. This solitude fosters an intense, almost spiritual connection to books. He recounts how, as a young boy, he discovered Don Quixote in a neighbor’s bookcase and De Quincey’s Confessions on a train platform, experiences that become inextricably linked to the physical places where he first encountered them. His education is a scattered affair, mostly defined by his own voracious, undirected reading and an abhorrence for the structured, communal games of school life.

As he matures, the "call of London" grows undeniable. Propelled by a romanticized vision of the capital found in old magazines, he leaves his quiet rectory for the city. His arrival is not a triumph but a series of disorienting, often grim encounters. He finds work as a "clurk" for a publisher of stationery and school books—a job he despises, particularly for the triviality of the tasks assigned to him, such as verifying the name of King Alfred’s grandmother. He lives in a state of near-destitution, wandering the city’s streets and finding that his rural sensibilities are constantly jarred by the harshness of urban life, including a recurring, morbid obsession with the Kensal Green cemetery.

Throughout these struggles, his primary sanctuary remains the search for books. He haunts secondhand shops, buying works of metaphysics and poetry that provide the intellectual fuel for his own burgeoning writing. Yet, he is haunted by a recurring disappointment: the failure of his own written work to capture the radiant, "real" ideas that glow in his heart. He describes the painful, fundamental gulf between the dream of creation and the "sorry page of print."

Eventually, his circumstances collapse, and he returns to the Welsh countryside. The homecoming is a sensory relief, a return to the "brave breath from the mountain" after his time in the "hell" of the city. He resumes a quieter life, working on translations and reflecting on his past. The narrative circles back to his younger self at the stile, waiting for the postman to carry his manuscript into the world. The memoir ends in the twilight of that memory, with the figure of the young writer vanishing into the gathering darkness, leaving the narrator to contemplate the long, vanished road of his own youth.

How It Unfolds

The sanctuary of solitude The narrator establishes his childhood as a self-imposed exile from other children, defined by roaming the Welsh countryside. He describes the visceral comfort of the hearth against the wild winter weather and the singular, quiet culture of the rural gentry.

The discovery of literature Books become the defining landmarks of his early life, each tied to a specific location or memory. He describes the "dumpy" edition of Don Quixote that captivated him as a child and the transformative power of De Quincey’s writing.

The migration to London The narrative shifts from the slow, ancient pace of Gwent to the frenetic, mechanical noise of Fleet Street. The narrator details the shock of transitioning from the solitude of the woods to the "frantic haste" and cold, gray streets of the city.

The struggle of the clerk Work life is presented as a tedious, soul-crushing experience in a firm focused on calendars and copybooks. He voices his disdain for modern, pedantic education and the "clurk" status that leaves him feeling alienated from his own ambitions.

The search for the word Between bouts of poverty, he finds solace in the back-street bookshops of the Strand, hunting for rare volumes. He grapples with the philosophical question of "realism" and the inherent sorrow of the artist who finds his work is merely "clay" compared to his original fire.

The return to the landscape After his pupils disappear and his funds vanish, the narrator retreats to the land of his birth. The cycle closes as he balances the memory of his young, hopeful self with the reality of his own aging, finding a final, quiet peace in the rhythm of the postman's horn.

The People

The narrator acts as the primary lens, a man who consistently values the "eternal, inner realities" over the surface of life. He begins as a boy defined by intense, solitary curiosity and grows into an author who is keenly aware of his own limitations, viewing his younger self with both protective warmth and critical detachment.

His father, the rector, represents the stable, quiet anchor of his early life. While the narrator frames his own path as one of wandering and literary obsession, his father remains a constant, smoking his pipe by the rectory fire, providing a silent, steady contrast to the chaotic, changing world the narrator eventually pursues.

The "kindly gentleman" and fellow employees at the publishing house serve as symbols of the professional world’s mundane, soul-stifling nature. These figures, while often characterized as well-meaning, stand in direct opposition to the narrator’s internal, creative life, representing the "hard bondage" of societal expectation and the triviality of academic life.

Finally, the figures of his youth—like the squire Mr. James and the farmer Mr. Williams—serve as representatives of an older, vanishing social order. Their intense, irrational feuds and unexpected acts of charity illustrate a "fellowship and brotherhood" that the narrator fears has been lost in the modern, hurried world of city commerce and popular tea-shops.

In Its Own Voice

"I passed the term as a sort of interlude amongst strangers, and came home to my friendly lanes, to my deep and shadowy and secret valleys, as a man returns to his dear ones and his dear native fields after exile amongst aliens and outlanders."

The narrator describes his feeling of alienation whenever he is forced to leave his home for school.

"He dreamed in fire; he has worked in clay."

This line encapsulates the narrator's lifelong frustration with the inability of language to capture the true depth of his imagination.

"The green shutters are close fastened without the window, the settle is curved about the hearth, and that great cavern is ablaze and glorious with heaped wood and coals, and the white walls golden with the light of the leaping flames."

In this passage, the narrator evokes the comforting, protective atmosphere of his childhood home during a storm.

What It's Really About

The central theme is the disparity between expectation and reality. The narrator explores the "melancholy sweetness" of youth, where the mind builds elaborate, beautiful castles out of dreams and literature, only to find the actual world—and the actual practice of writing—far more mundane, difficult, and fragmentary. He argues that "realism" is not the description of external surfaces, but the pursuit of these inner, eternal truths. The book serves as a meditation on the cost of the writer’s life: the sacrifice of comfort, the endurance of isolation, and the inevitable, lingering sorrow that comes from knowing the masterpiece one intended to write will forever remain just out of reach, translated into the "sorry" print of the actual.

Why Read It Today

This book is a profound choice for those who feel the pull of their own pasts or who harbor a romantic, perhaps slightly dangerous, ambition for the writing life. It feels like a long, fireside conversation with a man who has lived long enough to view his own failures with a sense of humor and grace. The prose is rich, rhythmic, and deeply evocative of a lost, pre-industrial England and Wales, making it a joy to read for anyone who appreciates the sound of well-crafted sentences.

Readers should be aware that the narrative is not a conventional biography; it does not follow a linear, external path of success. Instead, it is highly digressive, moving at the slow, contemplative pace of a walk through the countryside. At times, the narrator’s period-specific attitudes—including his disdain for the modern education system and his idiosyncratic views on what constitutes a "gentleman"—may feel dated or curmudgeonly to a contemporary audience. Furthermore, his intense, unabashed love for "mooning and loafing" and his loathing for team sports may alienate those who value the virtues of communal, active living. However, for the reader who values atmosphere over plot, this memoir offers a beautiful, haunting meditation on the places that make us and the books that haunt us.