Morley Roberts' First Meeting with W. H. Hudson

36 MORLEY ROBERTS' FIRST MEETING WITH W. H. HUDSON By O. M. Brack, Jr. and James J. Hill, Jr. (Arizona State University and Towson State College) Morley Roberts in his W. H. Hudsonι A Portrait (1924) describes his first meeting with~Hu3son» "It happened in 1880 that I went to see a friend who then lived in a Bayswater boarding-house, kept by a Mrs. Hudson. It was late summer and darkness was falling as I entered the square. When I rang the bell the door was opened to me by a stranger, whom I,could see but dimly against the light of the inner-hall lamp." In a letter addressed to Edward Garnett, Esq., 19 Pond Place, Chelsea, S. W. 3, Roberts suggests that his first meeting with Hudson may have occurred six months earlier. The letter is also interesting because it shows on the very day of Hudson's funeral Roberts felt that Hudson deserved a more suitable grave. 5 Manor Mansions Belsize Park Gardens 22.8.22 Dear Garnett, I want to thank you for being there, for you - you really loved him & there were many chattering fools & busybodies who didn't. If you - I & just 2 more of those who were there could have laid him to-rest on the wild heights of Exmoor I could have borne it easier.-7 Now I've been thinking & if I can presently write of him I will ask you to look at i*. what I do. He had so great a trust in your judgment that I feel I must have it tee. And I'd like oju to have a word on it & perhaps, if you will write it, someTng I could put in from you - though it were but a little thing. As I saw - I know I talked too much to-day. But I've been utterly to pieces since last Xmas & this has broken me again. I keep thinking of a dark evening in the winter of 1879 when I rang a bell & the door was opened to me by the big strange man who walked straight into my life & heart. I can see him now against the light in the hall. I had come back from the wild plains of Australia; he carried the breath of the pampa with him & so we became comrades. My salutations Morley Roberts 37 NOTES 1 (NYi Dutton, 1924), p. 21. 2 © Mrs. Helena Ward, 1974. For permission to publish the letter we are grateful to the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas (Austin) and to Mrs. Ward. Also we wish to thank Professor T. E. M. Boll for checking our transcription of Roberts' difficult handwriting. 3 Compare with Roberts' more romantic statement in A. Portrait ι "I wished to take him out on the open pampa, with a long wide view beyond the sight of man even on horsback, with the great clear sky above. So I would have digged a grave and put him to rest in his blanket just as he had fallen asleep, without disturbing his attitude of quiet peace. To have the wild winds sing about him and the wilder beasts crop herbage from his lonely grave, while noble-voiced birds trumpeted high choruses above one who loved them - that is the grave I would have chosen for him. It was not to be" (p. 305). INDEX The fifteen-year cumulative index to ELT is being compiled by Mary Ellen and Bernard Quint, with an introduction on the history of ELT by H. E. Gerber. See further notices for more details. ...