2110-5-4-10

CRAIGMYLE, TORPHINS, ABERDEENSHIRE.

2 Aug. /29

Dear Mr Buchan,

I have just read, with the keenest enjoyment, your Peterboro' address: I feel moved to think that you won't object to my writing you this line.

In, unhappily, the scraps of leisure, I have for years been working at the perennial theme; & if you will do me the honour of accepting

this little "Darnley" book & reading even the preface, you will get me in tabloid form.

In a word I think that both Mary & Knox, had each a better strain in them than is generally supposed. Knox discerned that strain in her & might have by it eliminated the French wickedness & uplifted her: but Bothwell bedevilled her & Knox failed. Mary discerned, again, a strain in Knox, to which the great world has

been blind - a strain of softness & even sweetness underlying his strength, that very thing - I speak after a long experience - is what gives great men their magnetic power: without it strength is barren.

You will see this view (which I am almost certain Rait, who kindly helped me, shares,) worked out in verse of a kind which I perpetrated in the volume herewith. Pray accept it, with the expression

of my sincere admiration for your work. Your quantity never seems to impair your quality - miraculous.

Yrs

Craigmyle