2110-5-11-9

The Manse, Cunningsburgh Shetland

March 16th. 1932.

My dear John,

This is most thrilling! It is nearly thirty-nine years since you and I first travelled together through "the Scott country," and you pointed out to me Ashestiel, which I had never seen before . My recollections of those days are as vivid and minute as if they belonged to a few months ago.

I have been looking forward to your book on Sir Walter with great eagerness, knowing that a great subject would be dealt with in a worthy way, and I am proud to be the owner of an author's autographed copy. The reading of it has been a great delight, and I am sure that you will have great satisfaction from the reception with which it must meet on every hand as well as from the completion of so devout an undertaking. Your presentation of the personality of Sir Walter is most life-like and charming , and it is most interesting and instructive to have from an expert craftsman your estimates of the novels and romances. It happens that I recently began a rereading of the Waverley

Novels, and I shall frequently return to your pages. Very many thanks both for writing so satisfying a book and for sending me a copy!

I do trust that you have all had a good winter and that you are not overworking.

I am greatly obliged to Mrs. John for the periodical literature that she so kindly sends. I was much interested in a recent number of Life and Letters, especially in an article on Flaubert.

I wish I could have been at the meeting of the Church Congress at which you spoke on the relations of Kirk and State. It would, I am sure, have been worth a great deal. I expect that you aroused a good deal of envy in Anglican breasts.

There is a lull in the local union battle. I imagine that the recalcitrant Presbytery Clerk thinks that I am satisfied to have union in immediate prospect and that I have nothing more to say. I have, however, in preparation a bomb which is likely to be thrown when union has taken place with a view to discouraging for the future such malpractices as have agitated this community for the better part of a year and have made union far more difficult than it need have been.

Ever yours affectionately, C.H. Dick

[ST - The Reverend Charles Dick old friend]