and tended, and cherished. A man must labour till he finds his
vein, and himself. Again, if literature is an art, it is also a
profession. A man's very first duty is to support himself and
those, if any, who are dependent on him. If he cannot do it by
epics, tragedies, lyrics, he must do it by articles, essays, tales,
or how he honestly can. He must win his leisure by his labour, and
give his leisure to his art. Murray, at this time, was diligent in
helping to compile and correct educational works. He might, but for
the various conditions of reserve, hatred of towns, and the rest,
have been earning his leisure by work more brilliant and more
congenial to most men. But his theory of literature was so lofty
that he probably found the other, the harder, the less remunerative,
the less attractive work, more congenial to his tastes.
He describes, to Mrs. Murray, various notable visitors to St.
Andrews: Professor Butcher, who lectured on Lucian, and is `very
handsome,' Mr. Arthur Balfour, the Lord Rector, who is `rather
handsome,' and delights the listener by his eloquence; Mr.
Chamberlain, who pleases him too, though he finds Mr. Chamberlain
rather acrimonious in his political reflections. About Lucian, the
subject of Mr. Butcher's lecture, Murray says nothing. That
brilliant man of letters in general, the Alcibiades of literature,
the wittiest, and, rarely, the most tender, and, always, the most
graceful, was a model who does not seem to have attracted Murray.
Lucian amused, and amuses, and lived by amusing: the vein of
romance and poetry that was his he worked but rarely: perhaps the
Samosatene did not take himself too seriously, yet he lives through
the ages, an example, in many ways to be followed, of a man who
obviously delighted in all that he wrought. He was no model to
Murray, who only delighted in his moments of inspiration, and could
not make himself happy even in the trifles which are demanded from
the professional pen.
He did, at last, endeavour to ply that servile engine of which
Pendennis conceived so exalted an opinion. Certainly a false pride
did not stand in his way when, on May 5, 1889, he announced that he
was about to leave St. Andrews, and attempt to get work at proof-
correcting and in the humblest sorts of journalism in Edinburgh.
The chapter is honourable to his resolution, but most melancholy.
There were competence and ease waiting for him, probably, in London,
if he would but let his pen have its way in bright comment and
occasional verse. But he chose the other course. With letters of
introduction from Mr. Meiklejohn, he consulted the houses of Messrs.
Clark and Messrs. Constable in Edinburgh. He did not find that his
knowledge of Greek was adequate to the higher and more remunerative
branches of proof-reading, that weary meticulous toil, so fatiguing
to the eyesight. The hours, too, were very long; he could do more
and better work in fewer hours. No time, no strength, were left for
reading and writing. He did, while in Edinburgh, send a few things
to magazines, but he did not actually `bombard' editors. He is `to
live in one room, and dine, if not on a red herring, on the next
cheapest article of diet.' These months of privation, at which he
laughed, and some weeks of reading proofs, appear to have quite
undermined health which was never strong, and which had been sorely
tried by `the wind of a cursed to-day, the curse of a windy to-
morrow,' at St. Andrews. If a reader observes in Murray a lack of
strenuous diligence, he must attribute it less to lack of