The dining-room.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
"The Highlanders wanted a Celtic Chair of Literature, and I was asked to undertake the task. Now, I am not accustomed to begging. I was told if I didn't beg the thing would go to the wall. Well, I said I would try. During that four years of begging I got a great insight into human nature. In a word, the art of begging is simply this—if you want the Duke you must first get the Duchess. There is more sympathy in women in these matters. When I had got about £5,000 Her Majesty at Inverary Castle subscribed £200. The Princess Louise said to me, 'How do you expect to get the rest of the money?'
"'Oh, some way or other, your Royal Highness,' I replied.
"'But how?' the Princess insisted.
"'Faith removes mountains,' I replied," and the enthusiastic Professor might have added "Scotch mountains," for it was no easy task to move the pockets of the people ere the £10,000 was obtained, and the Celtic Chair was an accomplished fact. His great fervour of Celtic enthusiasm led to the drawing of a caricature by his brother-in-law, which is shown in the adjoining cut.
Professor Blackie loves the Germans. All the books he has in his library, implying thought and learning, have the names of German writers on their backs. He doesn't care for the French, for the natural reason that he is so fond of the Germans. Neither does he like the French language—"It is too snippy," he says, "scrappy and polished. French is a polite corruption of Latin, whilst Italian, though a variation of Latin, has much dignity and sweetness about it." He regards the Baron Von Bunsen as the finest type of a human being he ever met, whilst Max Müller is the only German he knows who can write perfectly good English, and has the rare threefold gift of learning, piety, and common sense.
When I left the study, in response to the sound of the gong in the hall, it was not without a half-sheet of notepaper, on which were written a few lines specially for these pages, and entitled "Men, and What to Think of Them."
In the dining-room I met Mrs. Blackie, a woman of great culture and rare kindness. She has been a wifely help to her husband for nearly fifty years, for the morning of their golden wedding will dawn in April. Even to-day when her husband writes her a letter, he calls her "Oke," a Greek word which means "swift." It was a happy quartette at the luncheon table—Professor Blackie and his wife, Dr. Stodart Walker and myself. The Professor's milk was in a glass, keeping warm by the fire, but to-day—to-day, owing to the presence of "visitors,"—port wine was substituted for the creamy fluid. Such was his repast, with a little Scotch home-made gingerbread, Delicious!
