But you will have already wearied of so long a letter. My excuse is ... that you are Anatole Le Braz, and I am your far-away but true comrade,
Fiona Macleod.
On the 30th Dec. W. S. wrote to Mr. Frank Rinder:
Just a line, dear Frank, both as dear friend and literary comrade, to greet you on New Year’s morning, and to wish you health and prosperity in 1900. I would like you very much to read some of this new Fiona work, especially the opening pages of “Iona,” for they contain a very deep and potent spiritual faith and hope, that has been with me ever since, as there told, as a child of seven, old Seumas Macleod (who taught me so much—was indeed the father of Fiona)—took me on his knees one sundown on the island of Eigg, and made me pray to “Her.” I have never written anything mentally so spiritually autobiographical. Strange as it may seem it is almost all literal reproduction of actuality with only some dates and names altered.
But enough about that troublesome F. M.!...
And to Mr. Gilchrist, “It was written de profundis, partly because of a compelling spirit, partly to help others passionately eager to obtain some light on this most complex and intimate spiritual destiny.”
Some months previously William had written to an unknown correspondent, Dr. John Goodchild, poet, mystic and archeologist:
The Outlook Tower,
Edinburgh,
1898.