Susan Edmonstone Ferrier Ferrier visited Walter Scott at Ashiestiel Farm and House on the banks of the River Tweed, near Clovenfords in the Scottish Borders, and again in 1829 and 1831 at his new house, Abbotsford. They enjoyed each other's company and he wrote of her: "This gifted personage besides having great talents has conversation the least exigeant of any author, female at least..., simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee, and all this without the least affectation of the blue stocking." He mentioned her in the same sentence as Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney in 1825. Ferrier's account of the
The Shame of the Cities not the first author of "Tweed Days in St. Louis", the "McClure’s" piece detailing Folk's investigation of Butler's machine; he initially commissioned Claude Wetmore, a St. Louis author, to write the piece. Wetmore, according to Steffens biographer Justin Kaplan, "was an honest reporter, but he happened to live in St. Louis and he wanted to continue to live there. And so Wetmore steered a middle course, left out crucial names and facts, went easy on prominent citizens went easy even on Butler, who was to come to trial that summer". Steffens rewrote the article from scratch, adding all of the