Edinbro 28th Dec.
1869
My Dear Father
Many thanks for all you have done & are to do.
There is to be no notice in the papers till the Presby. meets. Then it is hoped full reports will be got into various papers e.g. thro’ McDonell[2] into the Scotsman.
Lindsay is now in Glasgow. I sent him copies of Campbell & Thomson[3] today.
I send a Courant[4] with a somewhat unfair reply by Stirling to my Hegel. I write deferring an answer till the part is published.[5] I ought not in fact to have got my private copies until then.
I have today a very nice note from Ritschl expressing pleasure at my having applied to him & hoping for my success. Enclosed was a testimonial as follows:
Mr W R S attended my lectures … and I have had the pleasure in repeated conversations with him of learning to know in him a man of the most lively zeal for Science, of many sided knowledge & of unusual readiness of Spirit (versatility?) [ausserordentlicher Gewandtheit des Geistes]
I am sorry to say that I still feel rather knocked up & called on to rest. Dr Cr[um] Brown tells me to read a novel & not work for a few days. There is not much the matter I think.
My paper[6] sent to the Academy came back today the book being “engaged elsewhere”. I may try some other paper but the great thing will be my longer essay. I got on well with [R. S.] Candlish on Friday & we all enjoyed Saturday.
WRS
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C129 MS
[2] Obscure: perhaps Macdonnell or MacDowall.
[3] Campbell and Thomson: the reference may be to testimonials from Professors Lewis Campbell (St Andrews) and David Thomson (Aberdeen) but there is no independent corroboration of this.
[4] The Edinburgh Courant, which carried letters from both Stirling and WRS on the topic.
[5] That is, in the Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society.
[6] Presumably a book review offered to The Academy. Apart from those papers read by Tait for the Edinburgh Royal Society, Smith’s first published work was his paper “Prophecy in the Critical Schools of the Continent”, in the British Quarterly Review for April, 1870, just in time to boost his prospects for the Hebrew chair at Aberdeen. See L&E, pp.163–203 for the text and B&C, pp.120f. for the suggestion that “the good offices” of his new acquaintance, J. F. McLennan, helped secure its publication.