Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

40 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
He was already established in Princes Street, in
premises more adapted to his rising fortunes, when
these negotiations were going on. The old books
dropped out, the bookselling altogether became but
an unimportant adjunct to his business, which was
now plainly that of a publisher, and the establishing
of his career in the lines which it was to follow till
the termination of his life was now complete. And
his household was flourishing and multiplying year by
year. Already the eldest son Alexander was suffici-
ently grown to be sent, no doubt a proud messenger,
riding into town upon his pony in the freedom of the
holidays from the house in Newington, or more pro-
bably from the more important dwelling in the coun-
try, to which the family had already begun to migrate
for the summer months. " He will ride out again
with the sheet completed if you give him the manu-
script. Do not mind my sending him out again, for
I can perfectly spare him," writes the father, no doubt
proud of the publisher in bud, on his pony in his holiday
time, making acquaintance with the new author.
The sons who were to carry on the work, so many of
them in succession, were thus brought in early to lend
an ornamental aid, and to cultivate that personal pride
and glory in the work, as of a profession intermediary
between the immortals and the ordinary world, which
distinguished them all in later life.
That Blackwood very early showed the true dis-
crimination of a literary critic is evident from an
accidental letter to Miss Ferrier on the subject of
another novel, evidently sent to him through her
hands, his tone in respect to which is most flatter-
ingly diflerent from that which he used in speaking