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19 MORAY PLACE EDINBURGH
6.11.13.
My dear John,
You have as near as possible achieved the impossible, given us the whole Ardwall. As that could not be, & there were to be 2 sets of readers, the initiated & the others, & you had to take thought what & how much to give the latter, let me sing a paean in your praise. I can fill in the blanks of the book but I haven't
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too much slag or other fertiliser, too much political feeling, too many oaths, too much Kirk (you went near peril there but I read and didn't yawn) too many stories to confuse me so that I draw an exaggerated disproportioned Andrew. There he stood more real than my peat fire or my biscuits & milk (at 7.30 p.m. but like our hero I have a thrawn wame whiles) with all the reality that Goethe draws in the last 2 lines of the
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Zueignung to Faust
Was ich besitze sehe ich wie ein Weiten Was mir verschwand wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten
The power of the absent, & the absent dead still more - to be more present than the present - is a strange thing.
You couldn't have done that without the touch of the artist. The preservation of the significant, the suppression of that which might be misinterpreted.
You have steered through the shoals of recent politics & present politicians with great tact & absence of bias.
Altogether, you have succeeded where I thought even you would fail. You have written a readable book; I couldn't lay it down. You have written a wee but truthful chapter of Scottish history. And you have painted a Raeburn! But for us who knew & loved him you have given us the man himself.
Ever yours Stair [Gillon]
