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Alfred Russel Wallace : Alfred Wallace : A. R. Wallace :
Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)

 
 
Letter to Robert Blatchford (S521c: 1896)

 
Editor Charles H. Smith’s Note: A more-revealing-than-one-might-initially-think letter to "Nunquam" (pseudn. of Editor Robert Blatchford) concerning the writings of Clarion columnist "The Bounder." Printed on page 5 of The Clarion issue of 22 February 1896. To link directly to this page, connect with: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S521C.htm


    "Dear Nunquam,--I see that the Bounder’s style and good taste are severely criticised by some of your readers. An opinion on the other side may not be out of place.

    "To my mind, the Bounder's articles furnish the salt and the spice to the logic and wisdom, the satire and pathos of the Clarion. I enjoy his free, unstudied, joyous, overflowing, rollicking humour, which I would not have him modify or restrain to please those who cannot appreciate him, and who are not obliged to read him. I myself am an abstainer from alcohol and tobacco, but I enjoy the Bounder’s allusions to his enjoyment of good meat and good liquor, and would not wish them curtailed by a word. Like all the rest of his writings, they show that, to him, life is worth living, and they form a part of his thorough enjoyment of all the good things of life, including those often under-valued charms of simple nature--air and sunshine, the sea and the river, the wild moor and rugged mountain, of which he gives us such delightful glimpses. I admire his love and respect for human nature, and his hearty appreciation of all that is good in man, and of the kindness and good-humour to be found even among the most downtrodden or degraded. I admire, too, his scathing denunciations of all that is mean and cruel and selfish; and I especially thank him for that one kind word he has said in the last Clarion for that most cruelly persecuted and unjustly maligned woman--Mary Queen of Scots. Therefore I give honour to the Bounder, with hearty thanks for many a hearty laugh and for hours of innocent and wise and mirthful enjoyment. Long may he live to hold the mirror up to nature in his own inimitable way. --Your (and his) sincere friend and well-wisher,

"Alfred R. Wallace."


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