Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

300 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
absolutely true ; I do not believe I could do it to save my life.
I have lost as many hours in Tiot doing anything as I might
have done the articles in. I feel it impossible—out of my
power—and I have done all I could to do them. I therefore
shall go home. For misery it is to sit here impotent.
You must just put Wrest in place of the 'Noctes,'—and
either Beddoes or anything else that is tolerable in place of
Dalton.
There is no use in saying more : absolute incapacity prevents
me, and for five hundred pounds I could not do what I wished
to do most earnestly and truly.
Here follows an exchange of compliments in respect
to money, that fruitful source of misunderstandings,
in which all is amiable, honourable, and magnanimous.
The letter is endorsed by Mr Blackwood, "Received
14th December 1826, in answer to my note telling
him I had been disappointed of Kobinson's [a political
writer] article, begging of him to do something, and
enclosing him a draft on the Royal Bank for £50."
John Wilson to W. Blackwood.
I return the order, for although to all men with families,
&c., money is most desirable, yet under present circumstances
I cannot accept this order. It is returned, however, merely
from a feeling ; and no thought of your being wrong in sending
it. Sending money to me can never be wrong—it must
always be extremely right and pleasant, but just now I cannot
but return it.
I am distressed, too, about Robinson ; and yet, perhaps,
although such articles are necessary at times, and frequently,
they are not necessary always. All last night was I forced to
lose in an idiotic Inquest, with that accident on Windermere
—and am this moment up, having been wearied to death. I
must evidently do something at this pinch, and perhaps four or
five pleasant articles without much pretence may do. I dine
out at six, but shall begin to something in a quarter of an
hour.