I also note that you require a track record of publication. The reason why I have published nothing is very clear. First of all, I am a perfectionist and secondly I am not greatly impressed by the magazines I see on bookstalls. Their stories and poems seem to me to lack a central plan such as I myself have, though I have not put it on paper yet. This vision glimmers before me day and night, and I try in vain to grasp it. It seems to me that these inferior writers have grasped their ideas and put them on paper too soon. Decades, generations, centuries, are not enough for me to grasp this vision. And indeed only my need for financial security – for bread, payment of council tax, payment of new carpet – forces me to frame it in a narrow compass now. It is for visions such as these that you should be paying, intangible, magnificent visions which indeed may come to nothing, but which on the other hand may result in unexpected masterpieces. I often feel that you are lacking in faith, if I may venture a criticism, and that you snatch at the inferior manuscript when you should be supporting the visionary and as yet unwritten text.
However, that is by the bye, and I hope I have not offended you in any way. Beggars such as I cannot be choosers, and great, though as yet unidentified success, leaves a salt taste on the tongue. A pair of trousers, a slice of bread, may be lost by true and sincere criticism. Furthermore, there are many talents born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air. It might be that had your organisation existed in the eighteenth century, Robert Burns might have applied for a bursary and lived to a hale old age, where he would have written companions to such deathless poems as “To a Mouse”. And John Keats might have done the same as well. And Shelley, if he had not been drowned.
If you will bear with me for a moment I will share with you my vision of what an Arts Council should be. Instead of asking for samples and incomes, it should be a source of largesse. It should be the DHSS of the aspiring writer till such time as he can get into print. For he may – and this is where the act of faith comes in – write a masterpiece. Could an early Arts Council have foreseen Paradise Lost or The Divine Comedy? Did even Homer see the Iliad in advance? The logic is irrefutable. The Arts Council should give a bursary to all applicants in case a potential Catullus is neglected.
I return to democracy again. Even one Lucretius or Sir Thomas Wyatt would be a justification of such a policy. Therefore, I appeal to you in the name of such a vision, open your purses: give, give, give, even to those who cannot provide samples, but who have exciting visions of the future. For it may be that by asking for samples you are toadying to the opportunist and the materialist. Is it not in fact in his interests to provide such samples? Are there not inducements for him to do so? But what of the awkward unspeaking one, who is possessed by a vision that he cannot put on paper. What of him? Is he to be ignored in favour of the smooth con-man? Those great inarticulate ones of whom the Statue of Liberty speaks, are they not to be brought to your arms? – I think they are.
I say, think of these things, and I hope also that this letter is not too long, and that what I have said may be taken on board. I know that inflation eats into your budget and I know also that the going rate for a bursary at the moment is £5,000.
Yours in anticipation,,
Murdo Macrae
The Mess of Pottage
Sam Spaid was reading the second chapter of Deuteronomy when there was a timid knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ he shouted, closing his Bible reluctantly.
A small woman, wearing a black hat, black coat, and shoes from Macdonald and Sons, Portree, entered. She stood with her hands folded, her gaze fixed on the floor, away from the great detective. He recognised her at once: she was Annie Macleod who sat three rows behind him in the church every Sunday.
‘You look ill,’ he said, ‘would you like a cup of water? I don’t keep coffee.’
‘No thank you,’ she said.
‘Is there anything wrong?’ he said, drawing out for her the chair he kept for clients, for he knew at once that she was a client.
How can she afford me, he thought, but put the thought away from him at once.
Suddenly she said, ‘It’s my husband Donnie. He’s run away.’
Donnie, he thought, that sinful atheist. Aloud, he said, ‘Run away?’
‘I know he has. He left a note saying, “I’ve had enough”.’
Sam took the note, but not before he had equipped himself with a pair of black woollen gloves, also from Macdonald and Sons, Portree.
‘You are sure this is his handwriting?’
‘Yes I am sure. You will notice his spelling of “enuff”.’
‘I see,’ said Sam. ‘I can tell little from this note except that it is from the edge of a newspaper, and that it is clearly the work of a disturbed man. What is this?’ and he lent forward, scenting a clue. ‘A spot of red.’
‘It might be blood,’ said Annie timidly. ‘He might have cut himself shaving.’
‘Not while he wrote the note,’ said Sam contemptuously. ‘No,
