I've always found this a touching story. A man actively considering suicide – even to the point of carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket – meets another writer for the first time, who never knew what was being considered. The latter's friendly professional advice turns out to be momentous, for not only does he unwittingly dissuade – indeed save – the depressed writer, but sets him off onto the path of poetry, which was in time to make him famous. A deep friendship resulted, alongside a body of important poems from the one who had possibly been about to kill himself. True, our unhappy newly-made poet was soon enough to find an early end – if not exactly suicide, then arguably a deliberate taking the road towards almost certain death. But before that, the two poets had walked together happily in a productive companionship, which helped generate many of those much-loved poems. So here is the indecisive Edward Thomas, the author who Robert Frost told he should reca