[_24 Nov. '10_]
I suppose that there are few writers less "literary" than Mr. W.H. Hudson,
and few among the living more likely to be regarded, a hundred years
hence, as having produced "literature." He is so unassuming, so mild, so
intensely and unconsciously original in the expression of his naïve
emotions before the spectacle of life, that a hasty inquirer into his
idiosyncrasy might be excused for entirely missing the point of him. His
new book (which helps to redeem the enormous vulgarity of a booming
season), "A Shepherd's Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs"
(Methuen), is soberly of a piece with his long and deliberate career. A
large volume, yet one arrives at the end of it with surprising quickness,
because the pages seem to slip over of themselves. Everything connected
with the Wiltshire downs is in it, together with a good deal not
immediately therewith connected. For example, Mr. Hudson's views on
primary education, which are not as mature as his views about shepherds
and wild beasts of the downs. He seldom omits to describe the
individualities of the wild beasts of his acquaintance. For him a mole is
not any mole, but a particular mole. He will tell you about a mole that
did not dig like other moles but had a method of its own, and he will give
you the reason why this singular mole lived to a great age. As a rule, he
remarks with a certain sadness, wild animals die prematurely, their
existence being exciting and dangerous. How many men know England--I mean
the actual earth and flesh that make England--as Mr. Hudson knows it? This
is his twelfth book, and four or five of the dozen are already classics.
Probably no literary dining club or association of authors or journalists
male or female will ever give a banquet in Mr. Hudson's honour. It would
not occur to the busy organizers of these affairs to do so. And yet--But,
after all, it is well that he should be spared such an ordeal.