The illustrations with which the book is embellished are “composition” sketches; but the Author confidently leaves these to introduce themselves.
The idiom of the Scottish language—the dear old Doric—has been to the Author a difficult matter to render, so as to be at once intelligible to ordinary readers and fairly representative of the everyday mother tongue of the common people of Scotland. He hopes that he has succeeded in doing this, as well as in preserving a few of the floating traditions of the passing generation which are so rapidly being swept away by the absorbing whirlpool of these bustling times, and that his readers will follow with kindly interest these homely records of the various subjects he has tried to portray in these “Bits from Blinkbonny.”
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The author is delighted to find you so hurriedly called for, that he has only time to express the hope that you will receive as kindly a welcome as your precursor has done.
February 1882.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The author gladly avails himself of the opportunity you afford him, to express his gratification at the warm reception which Bell and her friends at Blinkbonny have met with on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as to make a few verbal corrections.
“The cleanest corn that e’er was dicht
May ha’e some pyles o’ caff in.”
July 1882.