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DIAL |
NOVEMBER 1923
LETTERS FROM W. H. HUDSON
TO EDWARD GARNETT[1]
Martin
by Salisbury,
17th. [April 1903]
Dear Garnett
There will be another Tuesday when I shall not see you as I don't think of returning just yet. The loneliness of this little downland village suits my nerves. We are 3 miles from a telegraph office, 7 miles from a butcher, a doctor and a newspaper, and there is no public house so it is all dark and still after 8 o'clock and everyone goes to bed. The only light is from the stars and the only sound the faint far off tinkle of sheep-bells. It is a land of great open downs, sheep-walks, and with no sheep on them yet, as it is early in the year and the weather cold, and the sheep are still kept down in the valleys feeding on "turmots" and such things. Peewits, magpies, rabbits and such creatures are the only people I meet in my long rambles on the hills. In spite of the cold winds and frosts by night the furze is now in full bloom—a chaos of shining yellow blossoms, and the mossy turf below blue with dog violets. Before coming this way I was at Salisbury and almost lived in the Cathedral for two or three days because it was the only comfortable sheltered place I could find. One warm day we had, and that was on Good Friday, and that day I spent in the prehistoric Cathedral
- ↑ These seven letters are selected from a correspondence stretching over twenty years: 1901-1922.—E. G.
Note: We print the letters exactly as W. H. Hudson wrote them, although the spelling and punctuation occasionally do not conform to our usage.
