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R. F. Murray-His Poems with a Memoir-Part4_ANDREW LANG(1844-1912)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Politics often inspire the electors; occasionally (I have heard)

grave seniors use their influence, mainly for reasons of academic



policy.

In December 1887 Murray writes about an election in which Mr. Lowell



was a candidate. `A pitiful protest was entered by an' (epithets

followed by a proper name) `against Lowell, on the score of his



being an alien. Mallock, as you learn, was withdrawn, for which I

am truly thankful.' Unlucky Mr. Mallock! `Lowell polled 100 and



Gibson 92 . . . The intrigues and corruption appear to be almost

worthy of an American Presidential election.' Mr. Lowell could not



accept a compliment which pleased him, because of his official

position, and the misfortune of his birth!



Murray was already doing a very little `miniature journalism,' in

the form of University Notes for a local paper. He complains of the



ultra Caledonian frankness with which men told him that they were

very bad. A needless, if friendly, outspokenness was a feature in



Scottish character which he did not easily endure. He wrote a good

deal of verse in the little University paper, now called College



Echoes.

If Murray ever had any definite idea of being ordained for the



ministry in any `denomination,' he abandoned it. His `bursaries'

(scholarships or exhibitions), on which he had been passing rich,



expired, and he had to earn a livelihood. It seems plain to myself

that he might easily have done so with his pen. A young friend of



my own (who will excuse me for thinking that his bright verses are

not BETTER than Murray's) promptly made, by these alone, an income



which to Murray would have been affluence. But this could not be

done at St. Andrews. Again, Murray was not in contact with people



in the centre of newspapers and magazines. He went very little into

general society, even at St. Andrews, and thus failed, perhaps, to



make acquaintances who might have been `useful.' He would have

scorned the idea of making useful acquaintances. But without



seeking them, why should we reject any friendliness when it offers

itself? We are all members one of another. Murray speaks of his



experience of human beings, as rich in examples of kindness and

good-will. His shyness, his reserve, his extreme unselfishness,--



carried to the point of diffidence,--made him rather shun than seek

older people who were dangerously likely to be serviceable. His



manner, when once he could be induced to meet strangers, was

extremely frank and pleasant, but from meeting strangers he shrunk,



in his inveterate modesty.

In 1886 Murray had the misfortune to lose is father, and it became,



perhaps, more prominently needful that he should find a profession.

He now assisted Professor Meiklejohn of St. Andrews in various kinds



of literary and academic work, and in him found a friend, with whom

he remained in close intercourse to the last. He began the weary



path, which all literary beginners must tread, of sending

contributions to magazines. He seldom read magazine articles. `I



do not greatly care for "Problems" and "vexed questions." I am so

much of a problem and a vexed question that I have quite enough to



do in searching for a solution of my own personality.' He tried a

story, based on `a midnight experience' of his own; unluckily he



does not tell us what that experience was. Had he encountered one

of the local ghosts?



`My blood-curdling romance I offered to the editor of Longman's

Magazine, but that misguided person was so ill-advised as to return



it, accompanied with one of these abominable lithographed forms

conveying his hypocritical regrets.' Murray sent a directed



envelope with a twopenny-halfpenny stamp. The paper came back for

three-halfpence by book-post. `I have serious thoughts of sueing



him for the odd penny!' `Why should people be fools enough to read

my rot when they have twenty volumes of Scott at their command?' He



confesses to `a Scott-mania almost as intense as if he were the last

new sensation.' `I was always fond of him, but I am fonder than



ever now.' This plunge into the immortalromances seems really to

have discouraged Murray; at all events he says very little more



about attempts in fiction of his own. `I am a barren rascal,' he

writes, quoting Johnson on Fielding. Like other men, Murray felt



extreme difficulty in writing articles or tales which have an

infinitesimal chance of being accepted. It needs a stout heart to



face this almost fixed certainty of rejection: a man is weakened by

his apprehensions of a lithographed form, and of his old manuscript



coming home to roost, like the Graces of Theocritus, to pine in the

dusty chest where is their chill abode. If the Alexandrian poets



knew this ill-fortune, so do all beginners in letters. There is




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