Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett, by Maurice Hewlett
Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett
London William Heinemann, Ltd
First Published 1924 Second Impression May 1924
Printed in England at The Westminster Press, Harrow Road London, W.9
Lovers of Mr. Hewlett’s work will understand that these Essays have not been subjected to the severe revision which Mr. Hewlett would undoubtedly have given them before publication in this book. In one or two minor points his Executors have felt doubtful about the deletion or insertion of a passage, but in these cases the decision has always been the same—that his readers would prefer to have the Essays in Mr. Hewlett’s original form.
Thanks are due to the editors of “The Times” and “The Evening Standard”; “The London Mercury,” “The Cornhill Magazine,” “The Nineteenth Century,” and other periodicals, for permission to reprint certain of these Essays.

Why it was that my great-grandfather left the village in Somerset in and on which his forefathers, I believe, had lived from the time of Domesday, why he forsook agriculture and cider for the law, married in Shoreditch, settled in Fetter Lane, went back to Somerset to bury his first child, and returned to London to beget my grandfather, be ultimately responsible for me , and break finally with his family cradle, I never understood until the other day when, in good company, I took the road, left the bare hills—how softly contoured, how familiar, and how dear—of South Wilts, topped the great rock on which Shaftesbury lifts, dived down into Blackmore Vale, and so entered my county of origin at its nearest point, namely Wincanton (where I saw, by the by, a palæolithic man alive and walking the world)—to find myself in a land of corn and wine and oil, or so it seemed, such a land as those who love deep loam, handsome women, fine manners and a glut of apples more than most things in this life (and there are few things better), would never leave if they could help it. That is a long sentence with which to begin an essay, but it expresses what I did, and very much how I did it.