I take up pen for this foreword with the fear of one who knows that he cannot do justice to his subject, and the trembling of one who would not, for a good deal, set down words unpleasing to the eye of him who wrote Green Mansions1, The Purple Land, and all those other books which have meant so much to me. For of all living authors — now that Tolstoi has gone I could least dispense2 with W. H. Hudson. Why do I love his writing so? I think because he is, of living writers that I read, the rarest spirit, and has the clearest gift of conveying to me the nature of that spirit. Writers are to their readers little new worlds to be explored; and each traveller in the realms of literature must needs have a favourite hunting-ground, which, in his good will — or perhaps merely in his egoism — he would wish others to share with him.
The great and abiding4 misfortunes of most of us writers are twofold: We are, as worlds, rather common tramping-ground for our readers, rather tame territory; and as guides and dragomans thereto we are too superficial, lacking clear intimacy5 of expression; in fact — like guide or dragoman — we cannot let folk into the real secrets, or show them the spirit, of the land.
Now, Hudson, whether in a pure romance like this Green Mansions, or in that romantic piece of realism The Purple Land, or in books like Idle Days in Patagonia, Afoot in England, The Land’s End, Adventures among Birds, A Shepherd’s Life, and all his other nomadic6 records of communings with men, birds, beasts, and Nature, has a supreme7 gift of disclosing not only the thing he sees but the spirit of his vision. Without apparent effort he takes you with him into a rare, free, natural world, and always you are refreshed, stimulated8, enlarged, by going there.
He is of course a distinguished9 naturalist10, probably the most acute, broad-minded, and understanding observer of Nature living. And this, in an age of specialism, which loves to put men into pigeonholes11 and label them, has been a misfortune to the reading public, who seeing the label Naturalist, pass on, and take down the nearest novel. Hudson has indeed the gifts and knowledge of a Naturalist, but that is a mere3 fraction of his value and interest. A really great writer such as this is no more to be circumscribed12 by a single word than America by the part of it called New York. The expert knowledge which Hudson has of Nature gives to all his work backbone13 and surety of fibre, and to his sense of beauty an intimate actuality. But his real eminence14 and extraordinary attraction lie in his spirit and philosophy. We feel from his writings that he is nearer to Nature than other men, and yet more truly civilized15. The competitive, towny culture, the queer up-to-date commercial knowingness with which we are so busy coating ourselves simply will not stick to him. A passage in his Hampshire Days describes him better than I can: “The blue sky, the brown soil beneath, the grass, the trees, the animals, the wind, and rain, and stars are never strange to me; for I am in and of and am one with them; and my flesh and the soil are one, and the heat in my blood and in the sunshine are one, and the winds and the tempests and my passions are one. I feel the ‘strangeness’ only with regard to my fellow men, especially in towns, where they exist in conditions unnatural16 to me, but congenial to them. . . . In such moments we sometimes feel a kinship with, and are strangely drawn17 to, the dead, who were not as these; the long, long dead, the men who knew not life in towns, and felt no strangeness in sun and wind and rain.” This unspoiled unity18 with Nature pervades19 all his writings; they are remote from the fret20 and dust and pettiness of town life; they are large, direct, free. It is not quite simplicity21, for the mind of this writer is subtle and fastidious, sensitive to each motion of natural and human life; but his sensitiveness is somehow different from, almost inimical to, that of us others, who sit indoors and dip our pens in shades of feeling. Hudson’s fancy is akin22 to the flight of the birds that are his special loves — it never seems to have entered a house, but since birth to have been roaming the air, in rain and sun, or visiting the trees and the grass. I not only disbelieve utterly23, but intensely dislike, the doctrine24 of metempsychosis, which, if I understand it aright, seems the negation25 of the creative impulse, an apotheosis26 of staleness — nothing quite new in the world, never anything quite new — not even the soul of a baby; and so I am not prepared to entertain the whim27 that a bird was one of his remote incarnations; still, in sweep of wing, quickness of eye, and natural sweet strength of song he is not unlike a super-bird — which is a horrid28 image. And that reminds me: This, after all, is a foreword to Green Mansions — the romance of the bird-girl Rima — a story actual yet fantastic, which immortalizes, I think, as passionate29 a love of all beautiful things as ever was in the heart of man. Somewhere Hudson says: “The sense of the beautiful is God’s best gift to the human soul.” So it is: and to pass that gift on to others, in such measure as herein is expressed, must surely have been happiness to him who wrote Green Mansions. In form and spirit the book is unique, a simple romantic narrative30 transmuted31 by sheer glow of beauty into a prose poem. Without ever departing from its quality of a tale, it symbolizes32 the yearning33 of the human soul for the attainment34 of perfect love and beauty in this life — that impossible perfection which we must all learn to see fall from its high tree and be consumed in the flames, as was Rima the bird-girl, but whose fine white ashes we gather that they may be mingled35 at last with our own, when we too have been refined by the fire of death’s resignation. The book is soaked through and through with a strange beauty. I will not go on singing its praises, or trying to make it understood, because I have other words to say of its author.
Do we realize how far our town life and culture have got away from things that really matter; how instead of making civilization our handmaid to freedom we have set her heel on our necks, and under it bite dust all the time? Hudson, whether he knows it or not, is now the chief standard-bearer of another faith. Thus he spake in The Purple Land: “Ah, yes, we are all vainly seeking after happiness in the wrong way. It was with us once and ours, but we despised it, for it was only the old common happiness which Nature gives to all her children, and we went away from it in search of another grander kind of happiness which some dreamer — Bacon or another — assured us we should find. We had only to conquer Nature, find out her secrets, make her our obedient slave, then the Earth would be Eden, and every man Adam and every woman Eve. We are still marching bravely on, conquering Nature, but how weary and sad we are getting! The old joy in life and gaiety of heart have vanished, though we do sometimes pause for a few moments in our long forced march to watch the labours of some pale mechanician, seeking after perpetual motion, and indulge in a little, dry, cackling laugh at his expense.” And again: “For here the religion that languishes36 in crowded cities or steals shamefaced to hide itself in dim churches flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?
“Out of his heart God shall not pass
His image stamped is on every grass.”
All Hudson’s books breathe this spirit of revolt against our new enslavement by towns and machinery37, and are true oases38 in an age so dreadfully resigned to the “pale mechanician.”
But Hudson is not, as Tolstoi was, a conscious prophet; his spirit is freer, more willful, whimsical — almost perverse39 — and far more steeped in love of beauty. If you called him a prophet he would stamp his foot at you — as he will at me if he reads these words; but his voice is prophetic, for all that, crying in a wilderness40, out of which, at the call, will spring up roses here and there, and the sweet-smelling grass. I would that every man, woman, and child in England were made to read him; and I would that you in America would take him to heart. He is a tonic41, a deep refreshing42 drink, with a strange and wonderful flavour; he is a mine of new interests, and ways of thought instinctively43 right. As a simple narrator he is well-nigh unsurpassed; as a stylist he has few, if any, living equals. And in all his work there is an indefinable freedom from any thought of after — benefit — — even from the desire that we should read him. He puts down what he sees and feels, out of sheer love of the thing seen, and the emotion felt; the smell of the lamp has not touched a single page that he ever wrote. That alone is a marvel44 to us who know that to write well, even to write clearly, is a wound business, long to learn, hard to learn, and no gift of the angels. Style should not obtrude45 between a writer and his reader; it should be servant, not master. To use words so true and simple that they oppose no obstacle to the flow of thought and feeling from mind to mind, and yet by juxtaposition46 of word-sounds set up in the recipient47 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 scarlet48 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 gossamer49, blacker than jet and shining like spun50 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, joyous51, frolicsome52 spirit, with such grace and fleetness, one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile53 mammal — a squirrel or a spider-monkey of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate54 mountain slopes; the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy, and most vocal55 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 descant56 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 our age possesses.
John Galsworthy
September 1915 Manaton: Devon
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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pigeonholes
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| n.鸽舍出入口( pigeonhole的名词复数 )；小房间；文件架上的小间隔v.把…搁在分类架上( pigeonhole的第三人称单数 )；把…留在记忆中；缓办；把…隔成小格 | |
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circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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apotheosis
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| n.神圣之理想；美化；颂扬 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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symbolizes
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的第三人称单数 ) | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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languishes
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| 长期受苦( languish的第三人称单数 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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oases
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲( oasis的名词复数 )；（困苦中）令人快慰的地方（或时刻）；乐土；乐事 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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obtrude
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| v.闯入；侵入；打扰 | |
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juxtaposition
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| n.毗邻，并置，并列 | |
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recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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frolicsome
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| adj.嬉戏的，闹着玩的 | |
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volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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descant
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| v.详论，絮说；n.高音部 | |
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