SOURCE: "Where We Should All Be," in Encounter, Vol. XLIII, No. 3, September, 1974, pp. 79-82.

In the following review, Smith praises Muir's letters.

Art is for me the only way of growing, of becoming myself more purely; and I value it for myself, I know it is my good, the only real good for me, and the personal feeling, the personal integration seems to me more and more the thing that really matters. Given that, other things will become right, for one will be alive and have therefore some criticism of life.

One of the pleasures of reading these letters is to observe how steadfastly Edwin Muir held to this faith through a life whose outward circumstances were so often so unpropitious to art.

The earliest letter, tender and understanding, is to a girl Muir had been fond of in his Glasgow days; it is dated March 1919, when he...