[17 _Heriot Row_, _Edinburgh_, _April_ 16, 1879]. _Pool of Siloam_, _by El Dorado_, _Delectable Mountains_, _Arcadia_
MY DEAR GOSSE,—Herewith of the dibbs—a homely fiver. How, and why, do you continue to exist? I do so ill, but for a variety of reasons. First, I wait an angel to come down and trouble the waters; second, more angels; third—well, more angels. The waters are sluggish; the angels—well, the angels won’t come, that’s about all. But I sit waiting and waiting, and people bring me meals, which help to pass time (I’m sure it’s very kind of them), and sometimes I whistle to myself; and as there’s a very pretty echo at my pool of Siloam, the thing’s agreeable to hear. The sun continues to rise every day, to my growing wonder. ‘The moon by night thee shall not smite.’ And the stars are all doing as well as can be expected. The air of Arcady is very brisk and pure, and we command many enchanting prospects in space and time. I do not yet know much about my situation; for, to tell the truth, I only came here by the run since I began to write this letter; I had to go back to date it; and I am grateful to you for having been the occasion of this little outing. What good travellers we are, if we had only faith; no man need stay in Edinburgh but by unbelief; my religious organ has been ailing for a while past, and I have lain a great deal in Edinburgh, a sheer hulk in consequence. But I got out my wings, and have taken a change of air.
I read your book with great interest, and ought long ago to have told you so. An ordinary man would say that he had been waiting till he could pay his debts. . . . The book is good reading. Your personal notes of those you saw struck me as perhaps most sharp and ‘best held.’ See as many people as you can, and make a book of them before you die. That will be a living book, upon my word. You have the touch required. I ask you to put hands to it in private already. Think of what Carlyle’s caricature of old Coleridge is to us who never saw S. T. C. With that and Kubla Khan, we have the man in the fact. Carlyle’s picture, of course, is not of the author of _Kubla_, but of the author of that surprising _Friend_ which has knocked the breath out of two generations of hopeful youth. Your portraits would be milder, sweeter, more true perhaps, and perhaps not so truth-_telling_—if you will take my meaning.