Some might be worse, and then
I must reject them, to the injury of the feelings of the writer,
or else insert them, to make my own darkness yet more opaque and
palpable. "Let every herring," says our old-fashioned proverb,
"hang by his own head."
One person, however, I may distinguish, as she is now no more,
who, living to the utmost term of human life, honoured me with a
great share of her friendship--as, indeed, we were blood-
relatives in the Scottish sense--Heaven knows how many degrees
removed--and friends in the sense of Old England. I mean the
late excellent and regretted Mrs. Bethune Baliol. But as I
design this admirable picture of the olden time for a principal
character in my work, I will only say here that she knew and
approved of my present purpose; and though she declined to
contribute to it while she lived, from a sense of dignified
retirement, which she thought became her age, sex, and condition
in life, she left me some materials for carrying on my proposed
work which I coveted when I heard her detail them in
conversation, and which now, when I have their substance in her
own handwriting, I account far more valuable than anything I have
myself to offer.
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