LETTER TO SIR T. D. LAUDER. 115 



That content, on the other hand, which is an active en- 

 joyment of one's lot, cannot be recommended too 

 strongly. And it is this latter virtue, if virtue it can be 

 called, that my papers attempt to inculcate. True, it 

 leads to no Whittington and his cat sort of result, but it 

 does better, it leads to happiness, a result decidedly 

 more final than a coach and six/ Mr Chambers once 

 suggests that he might advantageously ' shift the scene ' 

 from his ' dearly beloved Cromarty/ and that the less he 

 introduces of superstition the better. ' I am at the same 

 time very sure/ he adds, ' that whatever be the nature of 

 your subject, you cannot fail to give it that certain yet 

 indescribable interest which so peculiarly characterizes all 

 that comes from your pen/ 



In a letter to Sir T. Dick Lauder, containing much 

 eulogistic criticism of a legendary work, just published 

 by Sir Thomas, Hugh refers 'incidentally to his maniac 

 friend of Conon-side, mentioning a particular or two 

 which he does not elsewhere touch upon. ' She was 

 a McKenzie, some of whose ancestors, as they had re- 

 sided for centuries within less than a mile of the chapel 

 of Killiechrist, might probably have fallen victims to 

 the fiery revenge of the MacDonald. I wish you- could 

 have heard some of her stories. She was, like Christy 

 Ross (one of the personages of Sir Thomas's book), a 

 wild maniac, and used to spend whole nights among 

 the ruins of the chapel, conversing, as she used to say, 

 with her father's spirit ; but her madness was of the 

 kind which, instead of obscuring, seems rather to 

 strengthen the purely intellectual powers (her malady 

 seemed but a wilder kind of genius), and so, mad as 

 she was, I used to deem her conversation equal to that 

 of most women in their senses. I scraped an acquaint- 

 ance with her when working as a mason apprentice, 



