Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

APPLAUSE AND SUCCESS. 223
they cannot be said to have given their author any-
distinct standing-ground as a writer of fiction. Gait,
with much less power, was infinitely more popular.
Lockhart's chief Scottish story, ' Adam Blair,' was not
of the kailyard by any means, but a strange and
terrible study of passion. There is a curious refer-
ence in one of his notes to his own timidity in respect
to original composition, and want of confidence in his
genius, which are scarcely sentiments we should have
expected from Lockhart.
" I am so subject to being disheartened, that I
suspect I shall never do anything without the Famu-
lus Typographicus to help me on. I have therefore
some thoughts of sending you a little bit of the novel
immediately, to try that way. But the truth is, I
scarcely have the courage." Some time later he continues
: "I send you the manuscript of the commencement.
Have it copied and set up in common
novel style by James Ballantyne, and if I like it
sufficiently when I see it printed, I will go on speedily
—at present I want courage."
A correspondence between an author and publisher,
even when so fragmentary as this, would scarcely be
complete without a discussion about money, and ac-
cordingly it is no surprise to find some letters in which
this subject is taken up with all the warmth and
baffled helplessness of a man fighting in the dark
a mood perhaps characteristic of an author's frame of
mind in every such discussion. There is something,
I cannot tell why, which is exasperating beyond
measure in the constantly recurring contrast between
literary applause and substantial success. A man
finds himself praised on all sides, even perhaps with a
—