Yours truly,
J. F. CAMPBELL.
Niddry Lodge, Kensington,
March 28, 1871.
My Dear Sir,
I have been too busy about festivities and work to be able to get the book which I promised to seek for you. I got your letter of the 20th, yesterday, and I am much obliged by your promise to put some one to write for me. If he writes from dictation will you kindly beg him to follow the words spoken without regard to his own opinion, or to what they ought to be. I speak English, but when I come to read Chaucer I find words that I am not used to. So it is when men who speak Gaelic begin to write old stories. Our argument is an illustration. You speak Gaelic and you believe that Sàil means heel and nothing else. You told me that Sàil Dhiarmaid ought to be Sìol.
Now I speak Gaelic, but I profess to be a scholar, not a teacher. I happen to know that the man who signed Sàil Dhiarmaid, which was printed Sàil didn’t mean Sìol. I have the following quotation,—
“Eisdibh beag ma ’s àill leibh laoidh
Chaidh am bior nimh’ bu mhòr cràdh