“Only a brief line to thank you for your letter about me and Fiona. Every word you say is true and urgent, and even if I did not know it to be so I would pay the most searching heed to any advice from you, in whose insight and judgment mentally as well as spiritually I have such deep confidence. Although in the main I had come to exactly the same standpoint I was wavering before certain alluring avenues of thought.... If I live to be an elderly man, time enough for one or more of my big philosophical and critical works. Meanwhile—the flame!
The only thing of the kind I will now do—and that not this year—will be the “Introduction to the Study of Celtic Literature”: but for that I have the material to hand, and shall largely use in magazines first.... Well, we shall begin at once! February will be wholly given over to finishing Wives in Exile and The Washer of the Ford.”
On the 1st February he left town and settled down to work at the Pettycur Inn, Kinghorn, Fife. His Diary gives the following record of work:
“Feb. 3rd. Wrote the Preface to The Washer of the Ford.
“Feb. 7th. Dictated (1750 words) article on Modern Romantic Art, for the Glasgow Herald—Also World article.
“Feb. 9th. Wrote ‘The Festival of the Birds.’
“Feb. 10th. Glasgow Herald Article (1500 words) on The Art of the Goldsmith, and wrote ‘The Blessing of the Fishes.’”
In the middle of February William had written to Mr. R. Murray Gilchrist, one of the few friends who then knew the secret of the pseudonym:
My dear Gilchrist,