_Scots Observer_, then the organ of a group of Scotch Conservatives and
literary men, with W.E. Henley at their head, and received unfriendly
notice from Mrs. Oliphant in _Blackwood_. The two _Quarterlies_ opened
fire upon it, and many lesser guns. A letter from Mr. Meredith Townsend,
the very able, outspoken, and wholly independent colleague of Mr. Hutton
in the editorship of the _Spectator_, gave me some comfort under these
onslaughts!

I have read every word of _David Grieve_. Owing to the unusual and
unaccountable imbecility of the reviewing--(the _Athenaeum_ man, for
example, does not even comprehend that he is reading a
biography!)--it may be three months or so before the public fully
takes hold, but I have no doubt of the ultimate verdict.... The
consistency of the leading characters is wonderful, and there is not
one of the twenty-five, except possibly Dora--who is not human
enough--that is not the perfection of lifelikeness.... Louie is a
vivisection. I have the misfortune to know her well ... and I am
startled page after page by the accuracy of the drawing.

Walter Pater wrote, "It seems to me to have all the forces of its
predecessor at work in it, with perhaps a mellower kind of art." Henry
James reviewed it--so generously!--so subtly!--in the _English
Illustrated_. Stopford Brooke and Bishop Creighton wrote to me with a
warmth and emphasis that soon healed the wounds of the _Scots Observer_;
and that the public was with them, and not with my castigators, was
quickly visible from the wide success of the book.

Some of the most interesting letters that reached me about it were from
men of affairs who were voracious readers, but not makers of books--such
as Mr. Goschen, who "could stand an examination on it"; Sir James,