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This blog makes liberal use of AB's journals, letters, travel notes, and other sources.


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Wednesday 8 January 2014

An apology

Friday, January 8th., Hotel Belvedere, Vevey.

I wrote the first chapter of my new humorous novel, "The Card", (5,200 words) on Sunday and Monday. Spent Tuesday and Wednesday in bed with a consequent migraine. Was very feeble on Thursday, and managed to write  New Age article and a lot of correspondence, and to do a drawing for an illustrated article today.

After my row with 'Claudius Clear' I find in today's British Weekly an apology from him, and a signed review by Prof. John Adams of "The Human Machine" - I think the first regular review of a book of mine that has ever appeared in the B.W. C.C. once based an article on "Fame and Fiction" but it was not a review. It was merely an insolence.

Sir William Robertson Nicoll CH (1851 – 1923) was a Scottish Free Church minister, journalisteditor, and man of letters. He founded the British Weekly, a Nonconformist newspaper, which also gained great influence over opinion in the churches in Scotland. Nicoll secured many writers of exceptional talent for his paper to which he added his own considerable talents as a contributor. He began a highly popular feature, "Correspondence of Claudius Clear", which enabled him to share his interests and his reading with his readers. He was also the founding editor of The Bookman from 1891, and acted as chief literary adviser to Hodder & Stoughton.

Miss Sains told me that she had known Rhoda Broughton, who had sisters who didn't treat her properly, and that the ill-used sister in the early books was herself. Miss Sains had also met Mrs. Humphrey Ward. "A charming woman. So nice. Always took two years over a novel. So particular. Always began by making a lot of extracts from other books, which she used in her own books. Her own books were largely made up of ideas collected from other books" In short the usual clumsy, crude account of a writer by a person ignorant of composition, and yet giving a rough notion of the truth, unconsciously.

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