
The good ship 'Crystal' landed me safe at Leith a fortnight & more ago, after a voyage of 14½ days, which I relished greatly. I was the only passenger on board, & so there was nothing to spoil the native sea-sentiment. For reading I had Hugo's "Les Miserables" & Chapman's Homer, & I read all the sea-poems in Leaves of Grass with a fresh zest. After so many months in your new world, you can imagine how Edinburgh (Leith is the port of Edinburgh) affected me with its fine antiquity, its Walter-Scott-like atmosphere of old Scotch city life, & all the rest of it. From the Castle, which overlooks the whole place, I had an inspiring vision of the past on my first afternoon.
By this time I have fallen into the old routine again more or less. One day passes
very much like another, & unluckily the weather has been of the proverbial British
kind,—wet, cold & austere, six days out of seven. Within easy reach of
this house is a great stretch of grassy land,—called the Town Moor, whence one
gets a superb sweep of sky, & there I often go & ramble about, sometimes
with a book for company. I shall very probably be here for another fortnight, &
then go to London for a week or two before going on to Wales where I may spend the
autumn.
I was troubled to hear on reaching this side that you had been more than usually unwell, but Walter Scott's people tell me that they have had better news, which relieves my mind again.
The Democratic Vistas vol. is getting many first rate reviews. I will send some of these on presently. Meanwhile how goes the new book? Let me know if I can be of use in circulating it over here. Remember me to Traubel. Also to Mrs. Davis & other friends
With much love,— Ernest Rhys10th. July:—Since finishing this so far, I have had a note from Gilchrist. He speaks of paying another visit to America in the autumn,—"to paint portraits. At present he is painting Mrs. Costelloe