Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

358 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
any difference, and who never learned what things
could be done and said, and what could not. " By
the way, why do the young Blackwoods never write
to me or visit me ? " he says in his answer to a letter
from Mr Grieve, who had called upon him to sign a
statement contradicting certain calumnious assertions
he had made against the young men's father. " He
is still standing out, as you see," says Mr Grieve,
enclosing the letter to Mr Blackwood, " and has
brought forward some new charges against you. The
touch about your sons is very characteristic," adds
the Shepherd's faithful friend. It is a pleasure, how-
ever, to find that this storm too blew over. In a
letter to Professor Wilson, written in the year of
Mr Blackwood's death, we have the Shepherd's last
utterance in respect to his lifelong friend. The Pro-
fessor and other friends had been much occupied in
patching up the breach between Hogg and the
publisher :
—
James Hogg to Professor Wilson.
I will [would] be very sorry to object to any arrangement
that so kind a friend has made manifestly for my benefit. It
was what I wished and proposed last year, that all bygones
should be bygones, and never once more mentioned. It is the
far best way of settling a difference when so many alternate
kindnesses have passed between the parties. For though Mr
Blackwood often hurt my literary pride, I have always confessed,
and will confess to my dying day, that I know no man
who wished me better, or was more interested in my success.
It will be a great relief of mind to Mrs Hogg, whose spirit was
grieved at our break : for though terrified for the ' Noctes,' she
always loved the Blackwoods as well as your family — nay,
loved not only as benefactors, but as sisters and brothers.
These last words give us a curious glimpse of that