20 Coleman O.Parsons
notice given. But the beams held better dian the dedicated collec¬
tor, who died in September 1981 in a hospital bed.
Recognizing a fellow magpie, Pat gave me a duplicate copy of
a typescript on Scott by "an itinerant nvagic-lantern lecturer who
Ashestiel House on the Tweed, Scott's residence before he moved to
Abbotsford in 1812.
worked the Border coimtry and the «cst, about the beginning of
the century. I bought his lantern and stock of slides recently . . .
The lantern [was] surprisingly small. . . . ."Although we have a
huge collection of such slides, texts are cxtraordinarly difficult
to acquire: indeed, I doubt if we have more than a dozen" (letter
of April 14, 1965). Both the slides and diat magical lantern have
long since dissolved, though diligently sought among the Murray
effects. AA^hat survives is the lecture alone.
Let us start out with the magic lanterns, which ranged from
shilling toys to elegant triunials or triple-deckers selling for a