Undesired Tokens

[W. H. Hudson to Morley Roberts]

40 St. Luke's Road, W.,

Xmas Day, 1900.

Dear Roberts,

Thanks for your letter: I envy you at having escaped from this unlovely place for these unlovely festivities.

I don't know how it is with you with regard to Xmas greetings--cards and all that--but in spite of all I have done to break free of these most irksome conventions I still find myself cursed with them. For years past I have made it a point to inform every person I knew that I do not send cards and have even broken off acquaintance with a good number of good people just to give myself more liberty. And yet here I am, with a shower of these undesired tokens falling upon me at every post. And having no tokens to send in return I must at least write, and for days past I have been occupied with useless letters about nothing, and wishing the people I write to were all at the devil. I don't mean you--you have sent me no card, thank God, or whoever it is that presides over this department.

I have a good many things out--articles, a book or two etc.--but with the exception of some very small things the stuff does not go, and so I must wait and wait before the blessed time comes when I too can shake off the mud of the metropolis and go away towards and past Hindhead and see and breathe again.

With kind regards to Mrs. Roberts,

Yours ever,

W. H. Hudson

Shall look in at the Club one day after your return. Have you got my room at the Royal Huts? Chort is a sweet village--Thursley too.

-from Men, Books and Birds by W. H. Hudson; with notes, some letters, and an introduction by Morley Roberts (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928) p.28-29.