X INTRODUCTION
at Balmoral would probably be searched in vain for this
work of art. At the same time he painted some Saints in
the mediaeval style, which he offered to the Aberdeen
Municipality in quaint terms: "I venture, my Lord Pro-
vost, to suggest their appropriateness as a gift in connection
with the Royal Wedding, especially as they are the work
of an artist who has settled in Aberdeen because of its
exquisite suitability for his work/' In the end the only
work he was able to obtain among the Scots was at a
photographic works for 123. 6d. a week, which reduced
him to making application to be certified insane in order
that he might enjoy free lodging at least in the Asylum at
the cost of the community! He never lost his underlying
belief that the Artist should be supported by the unartistic.
At another time he was retained to write on the uncon-
genial subject of South African Irrigation which led to
the usual lawsuit. At another he was appealing to the Duke
of Norfolk in terms of detailed expostulation: "I cannot
think, my Lord Duke, that you have felt the reality of my
condition, but when I tell you that I have eaten nothing
but four biscuits since Friday last (Sunday 4 a. m.) and
that I have no chance of getting any food, it may give you
some idea of what I suffer."
For a time he was rescued by the Labour Leader, H. H.
Champion, whose secretary he became, and which accounts
for his ferodous presentment of Socialism and Socialists
in Hadrian VII. Then he sank, sank. . . . Debt and
difficulty closed and clogged the scholar's path. He changed
publishers and pseudonyms. He felt thwarted and pur-
sued. He disguised himself with wig and paint, and walked
only at night. How deeply he was reduced appears from
a fantastic adventure, which he was fain to publish in the
Wide World Magazine for November, 1898, which was
then introducing another minor writer of fiction to the
British public in M. de Rougemont (R. I. P.). Rolfe's tale
was entitled "How I was buried alive by Baron Corvo,"