l Freyberg).

Those men of whom I have been speaking as the kind to fill the fife
could all be light-hearted on occasion. I remember Scott by
Highland streams trying to rouse me by maintaining that haggis
is boiled bagpipes; Henley in dispute as to whether, say, Turgenieff
or Tolstoi could hang the other on his watch-chain; he sometimes
clenched the argument by casting his crutch at you; Stevenson
responded in the same gay spirit by giving that crutch to
John Silver; you remember with what adequate results. You must
cultivate this light-heartedness if you are to hang your
betters on your watch-chains. Dr. Johnson--let us have him again--
does not seem to have discovered in his travels that the Scots
are a light-hearted nation. Boswell took him to task for saying
that the death of Garrick had eclipsed the gaiety of nations.
'Well, sir,' Johnson said, 'there may be occasions when it is
permissible to,' etc. But Boswell would not let go. 'I cannot
see, sir, how it could in any case have eclipsed the gaiety of
nations, as England was the only nation before whom he had ever
played.' Johnson was really stymied, but you would never have
known it. 'Well, sir,' he said, holing out, 'I understand
that Garrick once played in Scotland, and if Scotland has any
gaiety to eclipse, which, sir, I deny----'

Prove Johnson wrong for once at the Students' Union and in your
other societies. I much regret that there was no Students' Union
at Edinburgh in my time. I hope you are fairly noisy and that
members are sometimes let out. Do you keep to the old topics?
King Charles's head; and Bacon wrote Shakespeare, or if he did
not he missed the opportunity of his life. Don't forget to speak
scornfully of the Victorian age; there will be time for meekness
when you try to better it. Very soon you will be Victorian or that
sort of thing yourselves; next session probably, when the freshmen
come up. Afterwards, if you go in for my sort of calling, don't
begin by thinking you are the last word in art; quite possibly you
are not; steady yourself by remembering that there were great men
before William K. Smith. Make merry while you may. Yet
light-heartedness is not for ever and a day. At its best it is
the gay companion of innocence; and when innocence goes--
as it must go--they soon trip off together, looking for something
younger. But courage comes all the way:

'Fight on, my men, says Sir Andrew Barton,
I am hurt, but I a