CLEMENTINA STIRLING GRAHAM.
Rev. Dr. HANNA to DEAN RAMSAY.
16 Magdala Crescent, 11th January 1872.
Dear Dean Ramsay--I have been touched exceedingly by your kindness in sending me a copy of the twentieth edition of the Reminiscences.
It was a happy thought of Mr. Douglas to present it to the public in such a handsome form--the one in which it will take its place in every good library in the country.
I am especially delighted with the last twenty pages of this edition. Very few had such a right to speak about the strange commotion created by the act of the two English Bishops, and the manner in which they tried to lay the storm, and still fewer could have done it with such effect.
One fruit of your work is sure to abide. As long as Scotland lasts, your name will "be associated with gentle and happy Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character."
Mrs. Hanna joins me in affectionate regard.--With highest respect and esteem, I ever am, yours very truly,
WM. HANNA.
DEAN RAMSAY to Rev. Dr. L. ALEXANDER.
23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh.
January 29, 1872.
My clear Dr. Alexander--Since I had the pleasure of your most agreeable visit, and its accompanying conversation, I have been very unwell and hardly left the house. You mentioned the reference made by Dean Stanley (?) to the story of the semi-idiot boy and his receiving the communion with such heart-felt reality. I forgot to mention that, summer before last, two American gentlemen were announced, who talked very pleasantly before I found who they were--one a Baptist minister at Boston, and the other a professor in a college. I did not know why they had called at all until the minister let on that he did not like to be in Edinburgh without waiting upon the author of Reminiscences, as the book had much interested him in Scottish life, language and character, before he had been a visitor on the Scottish shores. "But chiefly," he added, "I wished to tell you that the day before I sailed I preached in a large store to above two thousand people; that from your book I had to them brought forward the anecdote of the simpleton lad's deep feeling in seeing the 'pretty man' in the communion, and of his being found dead next morning." To which he added, in strong American tones, "I pledge myself to you, sir, there was not a dry eye in the whole assembly."
It is a feature of modern times how anecdotes, sayings, expressions, etc., pass amongst the human race. I have received from Sir Thomas Biddulph an expression of the Queen's pleasure at finding pure Scottish anecdotes have been so popular in England. How fond she is of Scotland!--With much esteem, I am very truly yours,
E.B. RAMSAY.
The Dean was an enthusiastic admirer of Dr. Chalmers, and on the evening of March 4, 1849, he read a memoir of the life and labours of Chalmers at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. That memoir, although it had been to a great extent anticipated by Rev. Dr. Hanna's fine and copious memoir of his father-in-law, was printed in the Society Transactions, and afterwards went through several editions when issued in a separate volume.