Autograph letter signed : Glasgow, to William Angus Knight, 1894 March 18.

Apologizing for not writing sooner; saying "I saw you were rather depressed but did not find your companionship less pleasant. I am sorry that you w'd say what you do of yourself, & hope if you can give yourself a summer's rest, you may get a new view of [illegible] & find new resources in yourself. Life is sad at the best as one gets older & has the ranks thinned around one by the loss of old friends. Nichol has been here for a few days. He is still like a man stunned by his loss, & I do not wonder : for his wife was as you know a woman of rare beauty of character & breadth of sympathies - & she had a kind of atmosphere of peace around her wh was everything for a man of his temperament;" thanking him for his good wishes on his "new beginning. I am sometimes afraid of my own daring in taking up such a task at my age;" encouraging him to take some time to rest so that he may find renewed joy in his work; concluding "We are both of us getting close to the evening shadows, & the years cannot be many at the best - but something may be done ere 'the gulfs wash us down!'