Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

428 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
be time enough for you to undertake the burthen. And in the
meantime I must beg leave to say that if you cannot send me
anything better than the "English Lakes," it will be quite
unnecessary for you to give yourself any further trouble about
the Magazine.
Next day brought a return In this rapid correspond-
ence. De Quincey, too, was stung to the heart ; but
he was not concise like his opponent, and could not
help reasoning upon the situation :
T. De QuiThcey to W. Blackwood.
—
Tuesday morning, January 9.
You are pleased to doubt whether I was awake when I wrote
my note of yesterday morning. With a good deal more reason
might I doubt whether the person were awake who either read
my note or wrote the answer to it, which I received last night.
I shall not, however, enter into any dispute ; and shall as little
as possible in future—whether our connection be long or short
—trouble you with any notes at all, sleeping or waking.
If I expressed my opinions too freely (as it seems) on your v
Magazine, I did so in the full belief, first, that you must by
this time be perfectly indifferent to the opinions of any one
or any thousand persons on the whole work even, much more
on any single number.
And, secondly, that the relation in which I stood (or fancied
I stood) to the Magazine as a regular contributor elect, entitled
me to any number of comments or jokes on the work (I myself
being at all times tolerant of jokes, whether good or bad, on
my own compositions). In this I might be wrong ; and if I
gave you any pain, I much regret it. On the other hand, it
does not appear to me that if my MS. did not happen to suit
your work, you were therefore entitled to favour me with your
criticism upon it. The Magazine which I criticised was not (I
believe) your own composition ; and according to the usage of
the world, if I took any liberty, and some retort seemed to you
necessary, I believe it would have been quite a sufficient one
to throw back upon my hands the labour of a week.