Many thanks for your letter and kind congratulations on my 80th
birthday. I was delighted to be of assistance, and am even more
delighted to learn the successful result of that assistance. You
did the right and only thing in stopping my car. If ever you
are this way and disengaged, I hope you will call and give me
the pleasure of making the further acquaintance of so good and
resourceful a soldier.
Yours truly,
ROBERTS.
After my first meeting with Lord Roberts at the Vagabond Club, I saw
no more of him--except for a mere handshake and “How-do-you-do?” at
a military function--for many years. Then I chanced, in April, 1910,
to contribute to the _London Quarterly Review_ an article on National
Defence. It was addressed specially to Nonconformists, one of the
opening paragraphs being as follows:
I do not for a moment believe that Nonconformists are one whit
less patriotic than any other great religious body, but I
fear there is some misconception on their part--due no doubt
to the intolerance and the exaggeration of some of us who
champion the cause of National Defence--in regard to our aims
and our purposes. It is in the hope of removing some of these
misconceptions that I pen the present paper.
The article I did _not_ send to Lord Roberts, nor did I draw the
attention of anyone connected with the National Service League of
which he was President to it. I did nothing directly or indirectly
to bring it under anyone’s notice. Yet a few days after the _Review_
appeared, I received the following letter from him. The Rev. R. Allen
of whom he speaks, I may say, was, and still is, an entire stranger
to me, and I to him:
ENGLEMERE, ASCOT, BERKS,
_April 4, 1910_.