This letter is contemporary with the much-debated Cornhill essay _On
some Aspects of Burns_, afterwards published in _Familiar Studies of
Men and Books_. "Meredith's story" is probably the _Tragic
Comedians_.
_Swanston, July 24, 1879._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have greatly enjoyed your article, which seems to me
handsome in tone, and written like a fine old English gentleman. But is
there not a hitch in the sentence at foot of page 153? I get lost in it.
Chapters VIII. and IX. of Meredith's story are very good, I think. But
who wrote the review of my book? Whoever he was, he cannot write; he is
humane, but a duffer; I could weep when I think of him; for surely to be
virtuous and incompetent is a hard lot. I should prefer to be a bold
pirate, the gay sailor-boy of immorality, and a publisher at once. My
mind is extinct; my appetite is expiring; I have fallen altogether into
a hollow-eyed, yawning way of life, like the parties in Burne Jones's
pictures.... Talking of Burns. (Is this not sad, Weg? I use the term of
reproach not because I am angry with you this time, but because I am
angry with myself and desire to give pain.) Talking, I say, of Robert
Burns, the inspired poet is a very gay subject for study. I made a kind
of chronological table of his various loves and lusts, and have been
comparatively speechless ever since. I am sorry to say it, but there was
something in him of the vulgar, bagmanlike, professional
seducer.--Oblige me by taking down and reading, for the hundredth time,
I hope, his _Twa Dogs_ and his _Address to the Unco Guid_. I am only a
Scotchman, after all, you see; and when I have beaten Burns, I am driven
at once, by my parental feelings, to console him with a sugar-plum. But
hang me if I know anything I like so well as the _Twa Dogs_. Even a
common Englishman may have a glimpse, as it were from Pisgah, of its
extraordinary merits.
"_English, The_:--a dull people, incapable of comprehending the Scottish
tongue. Their history is so intimately connected with that of Scotland,
that we must refer our readers to that heading. Their literature is
principally the work of venal Scots."--Stevenson's _Handy Cyclopaedia_.
Glescow: Blaikie & Bannock.
Remember me in suitable fashion to Mrs. Gosse, the offspring, and the
cat.--And believe me ever yours,