Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON



WICK, September 5, 1868. MONDAY.



MY DEAR MAMMA, - This morning I got a delightful haul: your letter
of the fourth (surely mis-dated); Papa's of same day; Virgil's
BUCOLICS, very thankfully received; and Aikman's ANNALS, a precious
and most acceptable donation, for which I tender my most ebullient
thanksgivings. I almost forgot to drink my tea and eat mine egg.

It contains more detailed accounts than anything I ever saw, except
Wodrow, without being so portentously tiresome and so desperately
overborne with footnotes, proclamations, acts of Parliament, and
citations as that last history.

I have been reading a good deal of Herbert. He's a clever and a
devout cove; but in places awfully twaddley (if I may use the
word). Oughtn't this to rejoice Papa's heart -


'Carve or discourse; do not a famine fear.
Who carves is kind to two, who talks to all.'