Sincerely and gratefully yours,
Fiona Macleod.
St. Andrews, 1894.
Dear Mr. Grant Allen,
How generous you are! If it were not for fear of what you say about my Gaelic phrases I should quote one to the effect that the wild bees that make the beautiful thoughts in your brain also leave their honey on your lips.
Your Westminster review has given me keen pleasure—and for everything in it, and for all the kind interest behind it, I thank you cordially.
What you say about the survival of folklore as a living heritage is absolutely true—how true perhaps few know, except those who have lived among the Gaels, of their blood, and speaking the ancient language. The Celtic paganism lies profound and potent still beneath the fugitive drift of Christianity and Civilisation, as the deep sea beneath the coming and going of the tides. No one can understand the islander and remote Alban Gael who ignores or is oblivious of the potent pagan and indeed elementally barbaric forces behind all exterior appearances. (This will be more clearly shown in my next published book, a vol. of ten Celtic tales and episodes—with, I suppose, a more wide and varied outlook on life, tho’ narrow at that!—than either of its predecessors.) But excuse this rambling. Your review is all the more welcome to me as it comes to me during a visit to friends at St. Andrews, and to me, alas, the East Coast of Scotland is as foreign and remote in all respects as though it were Jutland or Finland....
Again with thanks, dear Mr. Allen,
Most sincerely yours,
Fiona Macleod.