_To S. R. Crockett_
[SARANAC LAKE, Spring, 1888.]
DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK,—For O, man, I
cannae read your name!—That I have been so long in answering
your delightful letter sits on my conscience badly. The fact
is I let my correspondence accumulate until I am going to
leave a place; and then I pitch in, overhaul the pile, and my
cries of penitence might be heard a mile about. Yesterday I
despatched thirty-five belated letters; conceive the state of
my conscience, above all the Sins of Omission (see boyhood's
guide, the Shorter Catechism) are in my view the only serious
ones; I call it my view, but it cannot have escaped you that
it was also Christ's. However, all that is not to the purpose,
which is to thank you for the sincere pleasure afforded by
your charming letter. I get a good few such; how few that
please me at all, you would be surprised to learn—or have a
singularly just idea of the dulness of our race; how few that
please me as yours did, I can tell you in one word—_None_.
I am no great kirkgoer, for many reasons—and the sermon's
one of them, and the first prayer another, but the chief and
effectual reason is the stuffiness. I am no great kirkgoer,
says I, but when I read yon letter of yours, I thought I would
like to sit under ye. And then I saw ye were to send me a bit
buik, and says I, I'll wait for the bit buik, and then I'll
mebbe can read the man's name, and anyway I'll can kill twa
birds wi' ae stane. And, man! the buik was ne'er heard tell
o'!
That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay.
And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks to you,
and greeting to your wife, and may you have good guidance in
your difficult labors, and a blessing on your life.