end, make me anticipate its study with unusual interest. . . . Just lately, and in these days I am pretty busy for Fraser; and well for me that it is so, for I have not earned a penny save from him the whole year. There is more work to do on the Tobacco Duties; and also verse and prose for the Christmas Card, but not so much as last year, nor offering such genial opportunities and associations as Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims.[1] The subject this time is the Pursuit of Diva Nicotina, in imitation of Sir Noel Paton's Pursuit of Pleasure. Paton is a good painter and poet too, but of the ascetic-pietistic school, or with strong leanings to it."
The next quotation is from a letter dated October 19, 1879:—
"I can still but barely manage to keep head above water—sometimes sinking under for a bit. You see what I do for Cope. I have not succeeded in getting any other work except on the Liberal, and this is of small value. . . . I thank you for keeping the Whitman[2] for me: I sold it with other books when hard up. In the meantime I have the latest 2 vol. edition in hand from Fraser, who has requested some articles on him when Tobacco Legislation, &c., will allow. I mean to begin him now in the evenings at home, as the Legislation can be done only in the Museum. He may occupy such intervals in the paper as did the Wilson and Hogg, both done by request: the 'Richard Feverel' was on my
- ↑ This refers to two large coloured plates which were issued with the Tobacco Plant, for which Thomson wrote explanatory and descriptive matter in verse and prose.
- ↑ Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."
