INTRODUCTION xxxi 



of enthusiasm that he can account for remissness in answering 



letters on two grounds only, little is done, and the less said 



about it the better, or ' as I write seldom you think you need 



neither be in haste in going on nor in writing, but drone on 



trifling away the season properest of all the year for business.' 



He forgets that the gardener, after his day's manual labour, 



and with but a modest share of clerkly skill, might find 



composition unkindly under such conditions as Burns has 



sketched : — 



' the spewing reek. 

 That filled, wi' hoast-provoking smeek, 



The auld, clay biggin'. 

 An' heard the restless rottons squeak 

 About the riggin'.' 



Behind all this arbitrariness, however, there must have been 

 a real regard for Bell. He is at great pains in planning ways 

 and means for improving BelFs position and prospects by 

 market-gardening. The remarkable No. VIII. letter is almost 

 entirely devoted to this. In a dark passage (p. 28), after 

 such excellent advice as this — 'Never grudge laying out a 

 penny when you see a probability of 2d. returning' — he thus 

 hints, ' When I see you next I shall possibly propose to you 

 what may make you incline to reside there and do my business 

 and push your own on strongly at the same time.' As he had 

 been discussing how to cultivate a market in Edinburgh, the 

 'there' may refer to some scheme for doing business in the 

 capital in which Bell and the village might share, 'for my 

 chief view in the many advices I give to people at Orm. is to 

 advance their own thriving.' 



Language and Style 



If the truest art is always that which comes nearest to self- 

 revelation, then these letters come under the category, all the 

 more that they are the artless outpouring of mind and heart 

 full to overflowing with the subject. We have got far 



