e
to the flow of thought and feeling from mind to mind, and yet by
juxtaposition of word-sounds set up in the recipient continuing emotion
or gratification--this is the essence of style; and Hudson's writing has
pre-eminently this double quality. From almost any page of his books an
example might be taken. Here is one no better than a thousand others, a
description of two little girls on a beach: "They were dressed in black
frocks and scarlet blouses, which set off their beautiful small dark
faces; their eyes sparkled like black diamonds, and their loose hair
was a wonder to see, a black mist or cloud about their heads and necks
composed of threads fine as gossamer, blacker than jet and shining like
spun glass--hair that looked as if no comb or brush could ever tame its
beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what they seemed: such a
wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit, with such grace and fleetness, one
does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small
bird-like volatile mammal--a squirrel or a spider-monkey of the tropical
forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes; the swiftest,
wildest, loveliest, most airy, and most vocal of small beauties." Or
this, as the quintessence of a sly remark: "After that Mantel got on to
his horse and rode away. It was black and rainy, but he had never needed
moon or lantern to find what he sought by night, whether his own
house, or a fat cow--also his own, perhaps." So one might go on quoting
felicity for ever from this writer. He seems to touch every string with
fresh and uninked fingers; and the secret of his power lies, I suspect,
in the fact that his words: "Life being more than all else to me. . ."
are so utterly true.

I do not descant on his love for simple folk and simple things, his
championship of the weak, and the revolt against the cagings and
cruelties of life, whether to men or birds or beasts, that springs out
of him as if against his will; because, having spoken of him as one with
a vital philosophy or faith, I don't wish to draw red herrings across
the main trail of his worth to the world. His work is a vision of
natural beauty and of human life as it might be, quickened and sweetened
by the sun and the wind and the rain, and by fellowship with all the
other forms of life--the truest vision now being given to us, who are
more in want of it than any generation has ever been. A very great
writer; and--to my thinking--the most valuable ou