“I said to Andrew that I thought of going to Edinburgh on Monday, to see a few things, and he said he would be there and would show me Holyrood. He said in his resigned voice, ‘I’ll meet you anywhere you like.’ ... I am going to write to Mr. Blackwood, who has asked me to go to see him. I will ask him if he would like the ‘Beggars.’ Andrew L. wants to go there too, so we may go together. Now you must be sick of A. L. and I will mention only two or three more things about him.
“He put a notice of Charlotte into some American magazine for which he writes, before he knew me. I believe it is a good one, but am rather shy of asking about it. You will be glad that she is getting a lift in America. I hope some of your artist friends will see it. He told me that Charlotte treated of quite a new phase, and seemed to think that was its chiefest merit. He would prefer our writing in future more of the sort of people one is likely to meet in everyday life. He put his name in the Mark Twain Birthday Book, and I told him you had compiled it. Lastly, I may remark that when he leaves St. Andrews to-morrow, all other men go with him, as far as I am concerned, or rather they stay, and they seem bourgeois and commonplace (which is ungrateful, and not strictly true, and of course there are exceptions, and, chief among them, my nice host, and Father A., who are always what one likes).... Post has come, bringing a most unexpected tribute to the Real C. from T. P. O’Connor in the Weekly Sun. It is really one of the best, and best-written notices we have ever had. I read it with high gratification, in spite of his calling us ‘Shoneens’—(whatever they may be).... The Editor of Black and White has written asking for something about St. Andrews, from an Irish point of view. ‘But what about the artist?’ says he. What indeed? And I don’t know what to write about. Everyone has written about St. Andrews.... I saw them play the game of ‘Curling,’ which was funny, like bowls played on ice, with big round stones that slide. The friends of a stone tear in front of it as it slides, sweeping the ice with twigs so as to further its progress. When a good bowl is made they say ‘Fine stone!’ It is in many ways absurd....”
St. Andrews, Jan. 29. ’95.
“...The dissipations have raged, and I have been much courted by the ladies of St. Andrews. I shall not come back here again. Having created an impression I shall retire on it before they begin to find me out. It will be your turn next.... Mrs. Lang wrote to say that the B——s, with whom the Langs were staying in Edinburgh, wanted me to lunch there, being ‘proud to be my compatriots.’ Professor B. is Irish, and is professor of Greek at Edinburgh University, and Mrs. B. is also Irish.... Accordingly, yesterday I hied me forth alone. It was a lovely hard frost here, but by the time I was half way—(it is about two hours by train)—the snow began. I drove to the B——s, along Princes Street, all horrible with snow, but my breath was taken away by the beauty of it. There is a deep fall of ground along one side, where once there was a lake, then with one incredible lep, up towers the crag, three hundred feet, and the Castle, and the ramparts all along the top. It was foggy, with sun struggling through, and to see that thing hump its great shoulder into the haze was fine. You know what I think of Scott. You would think the same if you once saw Edinburgh. It was almost overwhelming to think of all that has happened there—However, to resume, before you are bored.
“Andhrew he resaved me,
So dacent and so pleasant,
He’s as nice a man in fayture
As I ever seen before.”
(vide Jimmy and the Song of Ross). He is indeed, and he has a most correct and rather effeminate profile. No one else was in. He was as miserable about the snow as a cat, and huddled into a huge coat lined with sable. In state we drove up to the Castle by a long round, and how the horse got up that slippery hill I don’t know. The Castle was very grand; snowy courtyards with grey old walls, and chapels, and dining-halls, most infinitely preferable to Frederiksborg. The view should have been noble; as the weather was, one could only see Scott’s monument—a very fine thing—and a very hazy town. It is an awful thing to look over those parapets! A company of the Black Watch was drilling in the outer courtyard, very grand, and a piper went strutting like a turkeycock, and skirling. It was wild, and I stood up by ‘Mons Meg’ and was thrilled. Is it an insult to mention that Mons Meg is the huge, historic old gun, and crouches like a she-mastiff on the topmost crag, glaring forth over Edinburgh with the most concentrated defiance? You couldn’t believe the expression of that gun. I asked Andrew L. whether it was the same as ‘Muckle-mouthed Meg,’ having vague memories of the name. He said in a dying gasp that Muckle-mouthed Meg was his great-great-grandmother! That was a bad miss, but I preserved my head just enough to enquire what had become of the ‘Muckle mouth.’ (I may add that his own is admirable.) He could only say with some
slight embarrassment that it must have gone in the other line.
“We solemnly viewed the Regalia, of which he knew the history of every stone, and the room where James VI was born, a place about as big as a dinner-table, and so on, and his information on all was petrifying. Then it was all but lunch time, but we flew into St. Giles’ on the way home to see Montrose’s tomb. A more beautiful and charming face than Montrose’s you couldn’t see, and the church is a very fine one. An old verger caught sight of us, and instantly flung to the winds a party he was taking round, and endeavoured to show us everything, in spite of A. L.’s protests. At length I firmly said, ‘Please show us the door.’ He smiled darkly, and led us to a door, which, when opened, led into an oaken and carven little room. He then snatched a book from a shelf—and a pen and ink from somewhere else.
“‘I know distinguished visitors when I see them!’ says he, showing us the signatures of all the Royalties and distinguished people, about two on each page. ‘Please write your names.’