_Wick, September 5, 1868. Monday._
MY DEAR MAMMA,--This morning I got a delightful haul: your letter of the
fourth (surely mis-dated); papa's of same day; Virgil's _Bucolics_,
very thankfully received; and Aikman's _Annals_,[5] a precious and most
acceptable donation, for which I tender my most ebullient thanksgivings.
I almost forgot to drink my tea and eat mine egg.
It contains more detailed accounts than anything I ever saw, except
Wodrow, without being so portentously tiresome and so desperately
overborne with footnotes, proclamations, acts of Parliament, and
citations as that last history.
I have been reading a good deal of Herbert. He's a clever and a devout
cove; but in places awfully twaddley (if I may use the word). Oughtn't
this to rejoice papa's heart--
"Carve or discourse; do not a famine fear.
Who carves is kind to two, who talks to all."
You understand? The "fearing a famine" is applied to people gulping down
solid vivers without a word, as if the ten lean kine began to-morrow.
Do you remember condemning something of mine for being too obtrusively
didactic. Listen to Herbert--
"Is it not verse except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
_Must all be veiled, while he that reads divines
Catching the sense at two removes_?"
You see, "except" was used for "unless" before 1630.
_Tuesday._--The riots were a hum. No more has been heard; and one of the
war-steamers has deserted in disgust.
The _Moonstone_ is frightfully interesting: isn't the detective prime?
Don't say anything about the plot; for I have only read on to the end of
Betteredge's narrative, so don't know anything about it yet.
I thought to have gone on to Thurso to-night, but the coach was full;
so I go to-morrow instead.
To-day I had a grouse: great glorification.
There is a drunken brute in the house who disturbed my rest last night.
He's a very respectable man in general, but when on the "spree" a most
consummate fool. When he came in he stood on the top of the stairs and
preached in the dark with great solemnity and no audience from 12 P.M.
to half-past one. At last I opened my door. "Are we to have no sleep at
all for that _drunken brute?_" I said. As I hoped, it had the desired
effect. "Drunken brute!" he howled, in much indignation; then after a
pause, in a voice of some contrition, "Well, if I am a drunken brute,
it's only once in the twelvemonth!" And that was the end of him; the
insult rankled in his mind; and he retired to rest. He is a fish-curer,
a man over fifty, and pretty rich too. He's as bad again to-day; but
I'll be shot if he keeps me awake, I'll douse him with water if he makes
a row.--Ever your affectionate son,