Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

142 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
to profess and assume equal incapacity. I fear, I greatly fear,
you have now virtually acknowledged a libel. That we should
get rid of all suspicious we never expected ; and now, in addi-
tion to the original sin, we are to be lugged into the charge
of pusillanimity, and of being bamboozled by Dalyell and his
friends. I trust you have not proceeded any length in the
matter. If you have, God grant your game may not be up.
If you have committed us in the way we fear, whatever our
feelings are, and always must be towards you, it will become
a subject of serious consideration what further part we are to
take in the concerns of the Magazine.
This, in its clear small incisive handw^riting, but
underlined like a (proverbial) lady's letter, in nervous
anger and alarm, is supplemented in the larger scrawly
careless hand of Wilson, with a sort of bigger but
softer echo of the tone of the other. Lockhart's voice
is rarely without a certain sharpness.
Dear Sir [writes Wilson], (this letter is most friendly but
absolute). I am dining out, and have no time to say much.
All the above I approve. Have nothing to do with D. or anybody
else till we see you. We are your staunch friends. Be
true to yourself and us, and fear nothing. The Vision is not
actionable. Be that as it may, if you follow your own opinions
or those of any other man after your solemn engagements with
us to the contrary, how can you expect anything but confusion
and disgrace ? Any kind of submission or parley with him is
death.
AH this apparently concerns the action of Mr
Dalyell. There is a sort of schoolboy vehemence
in the tremendous assertion of the '* solemn engage-
ments " and the underscoring of every emphatic word.
Blackwood was but moderately moved by these adjura-
tions. He wrote no laments nor outcries of alarm,
but stood fast in his steady way, keeping their youth-