Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

UNGRACIOUS AND UNCIVIL. 305
could have been any promise. I offered to review the pamphlet,
but not surely in the face of sense or reason, and I gave you the
day before, Thursday, my impressions on one point of diffi-
culty, in which you perfectly agreed with me. I told you if
that difficulty could be removed or got over in any way, the
article should be written, and yet in the midst of all this, which
you felt as much to be a difficulty as I did, and acquiesced in
all I said about it, you kept looking dissatisfied, and saying
something or other which was to me unintelligible. There was
nothing further for me to say or do. I explained clearly a
certain difficulty which you clearly saw, and for you to write
to Philpotts telling him that I thought so or felt so at present,
but would write to him by-and-by, was said by me from the
very beginning. In such a case to call by the name of promise,
and to seem to think that promise violated or rejected by me,
what was merely a proposal to do that which might be useful
to the Magazine, but which had turned out to be the reverse
(till the difficulty was removed), did annoy me very much and
justly ; for allow me to say there was something exceedingly
disagreeable in your whole manner, and what I will not on any
future occasion endure. . . .
It is true that I curbed but did not conceal my displeasure.
I spoke to you about the Magazine, and I wrote the paragraph
to Philpotts. There was no reason why I should not. But I
take credit rather than otherwise for that; because, having
determined to tell you my mind, I felt no inclination to be
unkind or indifferent about the Magazine or any other matter.
That you consciously or positively intended any slight or insult
to me in the matter of the latter I did not and do not say ; but
I did and do say that your manner was not only ungracious
but uncivil, and I question if any man was ever called back
ten times unceremoniously from the street and given a letter to
read, and then allowed to depart, with such perfect nonchalance
and indifference.
As for the stoppage of the Magazine, I said in my letter to
you that the occurrence of that measure at present, and in
connection with what had occurred, seemed to arise possibly
from that cause ; whether it did or not is best known to yourself.
I believe it did not exactly, as you withheld it from Mr
VOL. I. U