George Douglas Brown, author of "The house with the green shutters" : a biographical memoir

GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

GEORGE DOUGLAS
BROWN

AUTHOR OF
"THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS

A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR BY
CUTHBERT LENNOX

AND

REMINISCENCES BY ANDREW MELROSE

WITH INTRODUCTION BY

ANDREW LANG

LONDON

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

27, PATERNOSTER ROW

1903

[Copyright in the United States of America.]

Printed by Haaell, Watson <S> Viney, Lcf., London and Aylesbury.

PREFACE

/^^VNE of the most notable phenomena of
recent literary chronicle has been
the interest manifested by the reading
public in regard to the personality of the
late George Douglas Brown, ever since
his untimely death in August last. Little
was generally known of the antecedents
of the young Scottish novelist who, but a
few months before, had taken the literary
world by surprise with the publication of
his distinctly epoch-making novel ; and
there was no reason to expect that his
death would arouse any wide desire for
more information. The interest in the

vl PREFACE

personality of George Douglas Brown, how-
ever, has been widespread and persistent ;
and, as a consequence, the little that was
known of the earlier years of the author
of " The House with the Green Shutters "
has been bandied about in newspaper para-
graphs and in slenderly informed magazine
articles, until there has been mingled with
a modicum of truth a great deal that is
misleading and not true. In these cir-
cumstances, the novelist's sisters, Mrs.
Robert Green and Miss Helen Douglas
Brown, have recognised an unexpected call
for an authoritative memoir of their brother ;
and they have responded, notwithstanding
the facts that George Douglas Brown "died
planning his life-work," and that his fame
must depend upon his one novel. They
have responded the more willingly from a
sense that the savage note in his book has

PREFACE vii

given to many people the erroneous idea
that the novelist was a misanthrope. Thus
much for the raison d'etre of the following
pages.

The memoir partakes of a tripartite
character, and consists of an introduction,
a narrative, and an epilogue. Mr. Andrew
Lang, who was one of the earliest to re-
cognise the undoubted literary significance
of "The House with the Green Shutters,"
has contributed an introductory apprecia-
tion of the novelist and his work. Mr.
Andrew Melrose has kindly permitted the
compilers to include in this volume his
convincing and intimate pen-portrait of his
friend (originally contributed to the columns
of The Bookman), thereby enabling them to
furnish the reader with a lifelike present-
ment of the genial personality of George
Douglas Brown. To the present writer

Vlll

PREFACE

has been committed the task of setting
forth, in simple narrative, the outstanding
facts of the novelist's all-too-short life. In
view of the contributions made by Mr.
Lang and Mr. Melrose, he has confined
himself within certain well-defined limits,
but he believes that from his quota the
reader will gain an accurate idea of the
elements of heredity, environment, and
training which combined to make George
Douglas Brown the man that he was.

It only remains to thank, on behalf of the
compilers, the numerous relatives and others
who have given friendly aid in the prepara-
tion of this volume. Particularly, thanks
are due and tendered to Mr. Andrew
Lang for his graceful and characteristic
introduction ; to Mr. Andrew Melrose for
permission to reproduce his delightfully
reminiscent sketch, which he has revised

PREFACE ix

and supplemented for the purpose of the
present volume ; and to Mr. John Dixon,
J.P., late of Cumnock, to whose unwearied
efforts in the interest of the compilers — in
collecting facts, in sifting traditional in-
formation, and in many other ways — this
memoir largely owes its existence. Record
is also made of the grateful appreciation of
help rendered by George Douglas Brown's
teachers at Glasgow University, Professors
Murray, Ramsay, and Jack ; by Professor
Raleigh, the present occupant of the chair of
English Literature at that University ; by the
Master and Senior Dean of Balliol College,
Oxford ; by Mr. W. H. C. Davis, Fellow of
All Souls' College, Oxford ; by Mr. Quentin
Aird, Mr. R. Leggat, Mr. M'Curdie, Mr.
Wilson (Auchencloich), Mr. H. B. M'Lellan,
and several others, all of whom have fur-
nished reminiscences of the novelist's

x PREFACE

parents, and of his boyhood and early
youth ; and by Mr. Howard Spicer, an
intimate friend of his London years. The
compilers' grateful acknowledgments are
also made to the Editor of The Bookman
for permission to reprint Mr. Andrew
Melrose's reminiscences.

CUTHBERT LENNOX.

January, 1903.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 3

CHAPTER I
KINDRED AND PARENTS

An Interesting Stock — A Circumstantial Tradition
— Robert and Margaret Nicholson — The Bent-
head Family of Browns — John Nicholson
Brown — Francis Nicholson Brown — George
Douglas Brown, Senior — The Author's
Mother 25

CHAPTER II
BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS

Birth — Childhood — Schooling — Narrow Circum-
stances— Ayr Academy — Influence of Parents
— Boyish Pastimes and Employment — Physi-
cal Environment — Historic Associations of
District— The Land of Burns .... 45

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER III
STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91

PAGE

Brown Matriculates at Glasgow University —
Bursary — Diversions — " Lodgings " — Employ-
ment in Vacations — Drumsmudden's Way
of Expressing Himself— Amateur Vagrant —
Teaching at Ayr — Attracts the Attention of
Professor Murray — At Castle Howard — The
Eglinton Fellowship — Class Assistant — The
Snell Exhibition 59

CHAPTER IV
SCHOLAR AT OXFORD : 1891-5

Course of Study and Examination at Oxford —
Brown's Tutors — Recreations at Oxford — He
Misses the Inspiration of Oxford — His Views
of the Oxford Man — Story of Froude, Jowett,
and Brown — Reminiscences by Mr. Davis —
Eviction of Drumsmudden — Vacations —
Mother's Death— The Influence of Oxford on
Brown , 83

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER V

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS IN LONDON

PAGE

Brown Settles in London — Called to be a Novelist
— Keeps the Pot Boiling by Means of Jour-
nalistic Work— Father's Death— "The Trium-
virate," and Brown's Share in its Work —
"Study of Kruger" — Financial Struggle —
Cheerful Notwithstanding — No Misanthrope
— Love of London — Pursuit of Purpose in
Literature— Mr. Whibley's Testimony— The
Essentials of Literature — Brown's Literary
Methods — " Love and a Sword " . . .113

CHAPTER VI

"THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN
SHUTTERS."

First a Short Story — Its Development — Publica-
cation— The Plot— Origins of Material for the
Story — Public Criticism of the Book — Its
Relation to the Kailyard School— The Suc-
cess of the Book and Brown's Interest in it —
Fame ........ 141

xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII
GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST

PAGE

Ochiltree Congratulations — Visit to Scotland —
Ochiltree Reunion — Settles at Haslemere —
Desire for Seclusion — Love of the Country
—His Second Novel— Plot for a Third—
11 Hamlet " Essay — Interest in the Drama and
Poetry— " The Unspeakable Scot '. . .157

CHAPTER VIII
DEAD ERE HIS PRIME

Brown's Splendid Physique— His Weak Spot —
Suffers from Lethargy — Illness — Death —
Funeral — Public Shock and Distress — Sense
of Loss — Obituary — Appreciation . . . 175

REMINISCENCES OF A FRIENDSHIP AND

A NOTABLE NOVEL . . 193

INDEX 245

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

T N compliance with a request made by a
friend of the late Mr. George Douglas
Brown, I write a few comments on his life
and work. His life I know only through
the narrative of Mr. Cuthbert Lennox and
an admirable study by Mr. Melrose in The
Bookman. My own acquaintance with the
author of " The House with the Green
Shutters" was, unluckily for me, of the
slightest. Already, in a magazine, the little
that I have to say on this matter has been
said, but it may be repeated, as it leads
up to the only conclusion I had arrived at
about Mr. Brown— namely, that he and his
genius were an interesting enigma. Thanks

3

4 INTRODUCTION

to the records of Mr. Melrose and Mr.
Lennox, one can now understand him better,
or, at least, feel less puzzled.

It occasionally, but rarely, falls to my lot
to review a group of novels. One does not
find many surprises in the course of such
adventures. The romances, in their bright
coloured boards, are found to fall into certain
definite and familiar categories. There is
the large and artless category written for
ladies, by ladies. These probably give to
the fair pillars or caryatides of the circulating
libraries exactly what they desire, but the
male reader they do not over-stimulate.
Then there are the didactic novels. Most
are of various colours of socialism, in some
cases complicated with the problems attending
the ritual of the Anglican communion. The
" love interest " in these romances is rather
perfunctory ; and the hero is usually knocked

INTRODUCTION 5

on the head in a British or foreign strike,
much to my private satisfaction. Other
didactic novels deal with the problems
of Belief, and the inferences to be drawn
from the Higher Criticism, as apprehended
through liberal manuals of devotion and
the monthly magazines. Personally I prefer
to take my Higher Criticism "neat," and
from the fountain heads, rather than from
didactic novels. Then there is the improper
didactic, on the merits of simple and com-
pound adultery, and of any more esoteric
vices which the author may have picked
up in the course of her study or practice.
These fictions, to my private taste, are un-
alluring. Not much more attractive are
most of the historical novels, by persons of
genius, perhaps, but certainly not by experts
in historical research. There are also slum
novels, which are a sub-class of the didactic,

6 INTRODUCTION

and there are novels that "stand in a false
following of" Mr. George Meredith, things
of portentously affected dulness. There are
novels about the vices of Society, which,
as we have the newspapers always with
us, appear rather luxuries than necessaries.
There are detective novels, which, unlike the
other kinds, "are not literature," but com-
pared with the others may occasionally be
readable. There are other kinds. And,
there are, happily, a few novels every year,
by real novelists, of whom I could gratefully
mention at least two dozen, but to name
them might be invidious.

When a man has made his way through
a wilderness of the novels which fall into
the categories already enumerated, when he
has totally rejected some, and conscientiously
said his say about others, and finds one
remaining, signed by a name unknown in

INTRODUCTION 7

literature, though thoroughly familiar in
history — George Douglas — he regards that
work askance, and almost with aversion. In
such a spirit I took up " The House with the
Green Shutters." I knew, as any reviewer
of experience must have known, that behind
the green shutters foul unnatural murder
would be done. However, in the modern
fiction of every day, murder is almost a
virtue ; besides, there might perhaps be
a ghost in the tale ; certainly, I thought,
a detective. So I opened the book.

In five minutes I found myself where
the Jacobite exile of the song desired to
be — "in my ain countrie," benorth Tweed.
This, in itself, is not unusual in novels. I
have not hitherto mentioned "the Kailyard
school." That school, I venture to assert,
has, by dint of a clever nickname, come to
be unduly despised, en masse, by persons of

8 INTRODUCTION

culture ; I mean of the kind of culture that
is the child, not of education, not of ex-
perience, but of casual veerings of opinion.
You may call Burns and Hogg Kailyard
poets. You may call Scott's best passages
of rural life and character and most of Gait
" Kailyard." Nicknames, like blank verse,
are " not argument." Many excellent, some
really admirable, works have been executed
by Kailyarders. Not all of them " wallow
naked in the pathetic," or serve up death-
bed scenes. Were it not for Dickens, one
might say that no great novelist wallows
in the pathetic, or revels in death-beds. If
one must be plain, I think that the Kail-
yarders give us more of actual humanity
than Mr. Brown chose to do in his one
novel ; but to this matter I return.

At all events, though the scene was in
Scotland, the novel had nothing of the Kail-

INTRODUCTION 9

yard. It was urban ; in what an urbs \ A
little Scottish town, with the most fresh and
pleasing nature visible from all the streets,
with blue hills, and those waters which are
the dearest of things to the Scot, with woods
of summer — such was Barbie. It reminded
one of half a dozen such little towns, the
inhabitants whereof, on a Sunday, you may
see congregated at street corners, " wasting
their mercies." " The Devil made the country
town," some one says, and he certainly made
the town of the novel. But the atmosphere,
so to speak, was true Scottish, and one had
seen the shops, the carts, the straggling
irregular houses, the ups and downs of grass-
fringed streets, and the bodies daidling about
them, observant of infinitely minute trifles,
avid of local gossip.

Barbie was just about to be dragged, or
to project herself, into the great cosmic

io INTRODUCTION

movement The railway was coming ; coal-
mines were at hand ; the bodies did not
speak Scots so much as a hideously deformed
English. Then the detestable people took
hold of one, with their naked selfishness —
" Where do I come in ? " is their slogan ;
with their grudgingness, their eTriycupeKaicia
(the Germans have a word for it, the joy in
other people's troubles : Schadenfreude] ; with
their invincible ignorance of good motives ;
their niggling ingenuity in finding bad
motives ; their sleepless envy. I scarcely
know why I should think that these are the
vices of a little Scottish country town :
certainly it is not from personal experience.
But they seemed to be accurately portrayed,
these features of character ; and in contrast
with the peddling devilry of the deacons and
traders, the bold, big bully and king of
Barbie seemed relatively amiable. He rather

INTRODUCTION n

trampled on his neighbours like an elephant,
than tormented them with poisoned pin-
pricks. He was odious in a more lordly
way, and more hated for his success, his green
shutters, his bright poker (here, clearly, was
the tool for the murder), than for his brutality.

So one read on, and found none righteous ;
no, not one. The Burns-loving baker seemed
least alien from humanity ; but one conceived
that the author, whoever he might be, had
suffered a good deal from "Burns's blethering
bitches," the wrong set of his admirers.

Every one who glances at this page will
remember the other characters — the helpless,
hapless wife ; the dying daughter, stunted
and plain ; the useless son, with his spark of
genius — a wonderful invention ; the minister,
peerless in his stupidity and conceit ; the
fuddled, whiskyfied laird (in whom, given
the period, I never could believe) ; the

12 INTRODUCTION

mischievous, wanton schoolboys, as envious
as their parents ; the cleverer and meaner
rogue who ruins the town bully — the whole
pack of them without a righteous Lot (Lot's
righteousness is inconspicuous) in the whole
odious hive. There is not a gentleman or
a lady in whatever rank, though among the
poor of Scotland there are many with the
hearts and manners of true gentlemen and
ladies. The vulgar students, "ragging"
their professor, have all the exuberant and
brazen blatancy of the unlicked Scottish
young cub at his worst, without any of
his qualities. There is not a pretty face in
the book : nothing at all of beauty except
the landscape, which affords a momentary
relief. As for the harrowing conclusion,
when nakedly set down in an abstract it
is much less terrible than grotesque. In
brief, the pessimism, the blackness, was all

INTRODUCTION 13

that my soul detests ; yet I read on and on ;
after the clock struck the hour of retiring.
Now, if a book seizes hold of you like
this, there is something not common in
the book. It offended, but conquered, mon
naturel.

The effect was that, knowing " every fellow
likes a hand," as Mr. Henry Foker says,
especially every beginner, I took my courage
in both hands, and wrote a note to Mr. Brown.
It was merely to say that his book had
much interested me, though I had a childish
preference for novels about wigs on the green
and swords in the sun. He replied that he
had it in his mind to do something more
cheerful, and that, whenever he wanted to
relieve the gloom of his first story, the memory
of another writer came across him, and he
determined to portray Scots who were not
like that other author's Caledonian peasantry.

14 INTRODUCTION

We met later, at a club, but then I went
north, and, except for a letter in which
Mr. Brown gave me some news of the pro-
gress of his tale in public favour, I heard
no more of him till the telegram which
was carried by a barefoot little messenger
across Lismore brought the news of his
death.

Thus I cannot speak of him from personal
knowledge. We were both Balliol men ;
both had profited by the endowment of
John Snell, Esq., like better scholars than
either of us — Adam Smith, Lockhart, and
many others. A story is told in Mr.
Lennox's narrative which implies Mr.
Brown's lack of beauty. He was no more
an Adonis than most of the sex ; his brow
appeared to be heavy, as it were, and to
give a somewhat pensive and melancholy
cast to his features. One could not have

INTRODUCTION 15

guessed that his youth had been so much
unlike that of most undergraduates as
Mr. Lennox's narrative tells, but clearly
his life had not been altogether sunny. He
did not show more reserve than is natural
and usual on meeting several strangers,
most of them much his seniors. Two of
the party had been engaged in the Boer
War ; one was returning as chief of Lord
Kitchener's staff, one was a learned historian ;
and, with these and other guests, I could
not have much conversation with Mr. Brown.
The enigma, of course, was, how so young
a man, except in an old Scots phrase, " for
the fashion," could take such a gloomy
view of life — anywhere — as he took in his
novel. The answer which occurs to one,
after reading Mr. Lennox's account of his
roseate view of Bayswater, is that the
blackness of Barbie was a mere artistic

16 INTRODUCTION

convention. All Scots are not humorous,
brave, beautiful, pious, and self-denying, as
they are absurdly said to be represented
by the Kailyarders. Yet, perhaps, these
pleasing characteristics of the race are
rather exaggerated by some Kailyarders,
while the other side — the seamy side— is
comparatively neglected. Now it is true,
and Mr. Brown would not have denied it,
that our Scottish reserve is often tempered
by unexpected and rather unwelcome effu-
siveness. Many of our writers have a sort
of sentiment that utters itself with the
unction of the pulpit There is a kind of
Dr. Chalmers-ish element in the minor
national literature. It corresponds to a
mood, just as Burns's pious Saturday night
of the cottager corresponds to a mood of
Burns's mind. This kind of emotion, so
prevalent in Scotland, is kept out of Barbie,

INTRODUCTION 17

yet it must have been there. It is omitted,
everything not evil is omitted, and this
could only be of set purpose. There is
also a kind of " blethering " humour, by
which the speaker or author lets his mind
meander freely in a tedious, half-jocose,
half-melancholy manner in metaphysics and
human fortunes, apparently hoping to hit
on something good, somewhere. Nobody at
Barbie does that. In short, these minor,
but not wholly unamiable Caledonian foibles
are as much absent as generous deeds or
emotions.

A young man who had the humour,
and good humour, to take pleasure in con-
templating the housewives of Bayswater
must inevitably have found and recognised
still more agreeable things in the neighbour-
hood of Ochiltree. The very name is
agreeable, so charged with memories of the

2

i8 INTRODUCTION

old Stewarts of Ochiltree, the pious old con-
spirator and friend of Knox ; his daughter,
Knox's child-bride ; his son, the great
soldier of fortune, who dragged down Morton,
who was the hammer of the preachers —
of these people, and of the Lollards of
Kyle, the name of Ochiltree reminds a
man. I doubt not that honest men and
bonnie lasses abound ; they do at Ballantrae,
the only place in the shire with which I
am familiar. Mr. Brown, wandering as a
tramp where Louis Stevenson had tramped
before, must have met plenty of good
kind folk, and his black descriptions were
a freak or sport of fancy. " It's ugly, but
is it art?" I think it is art, but freakish,
and, to use a Scots word for our national
characteristic, it is " thrawn." We are not
a gracious people, south of the Highland
line. Mr. Brown's was a " thrawn " picture

INTRODUCTION 19

of his countryside, not like the pictures of
Gait and Scott, which remain the best.

But the pleasant thing to remember is
that his countryside did not resent Barbie.
Mr. Brown returned thither in a halo of
heroism, and enjoyed himself. Compare
the fortunes of Mr. Henry James ! He
drew in " Daisy Miller " a picture of a pretty,
kind, rather trivial, and quite untrained
girl, au fond, a bewitching girl, and was
accused of libelling American maidenhood !
At Barbie they were not so absurdly touchy.
The town band there did not turn out to
welcome young men who got college prizes ;
that we learn from the novel. I dare say
Barbie thought very little of these dis-
tinctions. But the local heart was clearly
in the right place ; and Mr. Brown had
reason to know it.

For the rest, he, like many Scots, went

20 INTRODUCTION

to Oxford too late, and there had to do
the work which he was already weary of,
and he was poor, and he had the rooms
in which another Scot, a friend of mine, was
buried, as a freshman. These rooms ought
to be condemned. Thus I fear that Mr.
Brown's time at Oxford was wasted. He
might have got a first and a fellowship, but
he did not choose to take the trouble. He,
like other young Scots of my acquaintance,
was totally indifferent to money and money-
making. Unlike Mr. Stevenson (who cer-
tainly was no money-grubber), he could
have made himself very comfortable by the
pen of the journalist. As an old pressman,
I confess that I could not write a " leader-
note" without enjoying the doing of it,
whether the public enjoyed the reading of
it or not. But Mr. Brown had not this

INTRODUCTION 21

unusual privilege of nature. Clearly he
liked his own untrammelled way, and the
society of his own thoughts. He even liked
London. Doubtless he was happy enough
in his own fashion. One is not to think
of him as a gloomy misanthrope. Literature
in itself was his constant joy, though he
appears to have been rather exclusive in
his choice of books : a deep, not a wide
reader. He had friends to his heart's desire.
Then he won a triumph, and the Fates,
with shears kind or abhorrent — who can
tell ? — cut his thin-spun thread.

In thinking of him and reading about
him, I am reminded of two others who
never reached success, and of one who did —
Thomas Davidson (the Scottish Probationer) ;
R. F. Murray, the student poet of the
scarlet gown, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

22 INTRODUCTION

It is natural to regret that Mr. Stevenson
never met Mr. Brown : often, on a hundred
occasions, one misses him, and his power
of appreciating interesting things and men.
" They all are gone into the world of

light."

A. LANG.

Kindred and Parents

CHAPTER I

KINDRED AND PARENTS

^EORGE DOUGLAS BROWN sprang
from an interesting stock ; and some
account of his kindred and parents may
fittingly precede the narrative of his life.

The remotest known progenitor of the
subject of this memoir was a certain Susie
Douglas, who, according to a most circum-
stantial tradition, was the child of a member
of a noble Scottish family of ancient renown,
and of a daughter of an old Ayrshire family
of landed proprietors. Begotten outwith the
bounds of the ceremonial law, Susie Douglas
enjoyed the affectionate care and upbringing
25

26 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

bestowed upon her by foster parents, who
belonged to the rank of Scottish yeomen ;
and in due course she was married to one
who occupied the same station in life —
Nicholson by name. Of the descendants of
this union (children or grandchildren, it is
understood) we next hear of Robert Nichol-
son and Margaret Nicholson, brother and
sister. Robert Nicholson was factor to the
Ayrshire laird of Ballochmyle, and tenant
in the farm of Kingencleuch, at Mauchline.
He was evidently a man of considerable
ability, and found scope for literary expres-
sion in writing frequently for the newspapers.
Margaret (or Peggy) Nicholson married
George Brown, tenant of the farm of Bent-
head, in the parish of Sorn, and became
the mother of a family of six sons and one
daughter.

Two sons, Alexander and John, born in

KINDRED AND PARENTS 27

1802 and 1805 respectively, died in infancy.
The other children, in the order of their
birth, were John Nicholson, Mungo, Francis
Nicholson, George Douglas, and Helen Hood.
All have left a reputation for distinctive
ability and character — according to the fire-
side traditions of Kyle, not to speak of
more exact records available. " The Browns
were all clever," and as they belong to the
generation immediately preceding that of
the subject of this memoir, the story
of their achievements may not be out of
place here.

John Nicholson Brown was born in 1806.
His parents' circumstances would appear to
have been somewhat narrow, for he had little
schooling of the ordinary sort, spending only
eighteen short months at Sorn parish school,
acquiring the art of writing — in company
with his brother Frank — by using a charred

28 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

stick for a pencil, and carrying his books
with him when herding his parent's sheep
on Blaksey Den Hill, part of the farm of
Benthead. According to a memorial tablet
in Sorn Kirkyard, he was " a self-taught man."
"He supported himself from the age of
eight," and "devoted his leisure hours from
daily toil to pursuit of self-acquired know-
ledge."

Visiting occasionally at his uncle's house
at Ballochmyle, the eager lad made the
acquaintance of a cook or housekeeper who
had travelled abroad with the Ballochmyle
family. He learned from her a number of
French words, and conceived an ambition
to learn the French language. In this pursuit
he must have been conspicuously successful,
for, in or about 1828, at the early age of
twenty-one, he made his way to Paris, and
found there congenial occupation as a teacher

KINDRED AND PARENTS 29

of the English language. The Sorn tablet
records the fact that he taught in some of
the first families of France, and was eventu-
ally appointed a professor in the College of
St. Barbe, in Paris.

Reputed to have been one of the most
handsome men in Ayrshire, John Nicholson
Brown married his cousin, Susie Nicholson,
to whom tradition accords the possession
of distinctive beauty. Two children were
born of the marriage, but they were left
fatherless at a tender age. Knowledge and
advancement in life had been acquired at
too great an expenditure of vital energy,
and John Nicholson Brown died in 1841,
at the early age of thirty-four.

This eldest son of Benthead combined
literary ambition with his other gifts and
qualities. Years after, his nephew, George
Douglas Brown, rummaging in a box of

30 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

books that had belonged to his uncle, dis-
covered the manuscripts of two works in
an advanced state of preparation for the
press. One was a novel, the plot of which
was based upon the circumstantial tradition
concerning the begetting of Susie Douglas,
already referred to. The other manuscript
work dealt with political and educational
matters, and was found to have advocated
reforms which have only in recent years
approved themselves generally and received
legislative sanction. " This man has seen
a bit before him," said George Douglas
Brown. " Things are coming to pass now
as he had foreseen."

Of Mungo Brown, the second of the
Benthead family to reach manhood, there
is less to tell. Born in 1809, ne nad the
same hardships to face as had his brothers,
but his tastes lay in the direction of his

KINDRED AND PARENTS 31

greatest opportunities, and he qualified
himself for the occupation of a farmer ;
becoming eventually the tenant of Bogwood,
near Mauchline, and acting also as factor
for the laird of Nether-Place.

Francis Nicholson Brown, born in 1811,
was more of a mind with his brother John,
and his schooling was of the same rude
sort. With him the thirst for books and
intellectual faring was quite as strong, and
he was able at an early age to undertake
the work of teaching in his native parish.
But he had scarcely attained the age of
twenty-three before he, too, in 1834, made
his way to Paris, in search of occupation
similar to that which his brother had found.
He used to tell a curious story of his first
introduction. Returning at night to the
inn in Paris at which he had taken up his
temporary quarters, when he sought his

32 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

room he found his bed occupied by a
stranger. Rather than disturb the intruder,
he made shift elsewhere for the night, and
in the morning received the grateful thanks
of the abb6, who had mistaken his room.
Learning the object of the young Scot's
journey to Paris, the abbe furnished him
with an introduction to the family of General
the Marquis de Lafayette. " I send you,"
he wrote, " a young Scotsman who carries
his passport upon his forehead." From
that time forth, he found constant and
congenial occupation in teaching English
in seminaries and families in Paris, and in
reading English with literary men. It is
said that he had considerable success in
this work, and "had his pupils speaking
English in a few days." There is also an
unconfirmed tradition that he taught in the
family of Louis Philippe itself. He conceived

KINDRED AND PARENTS 33

a strong sympathy with the educated
Frenchman ; and, notwithstanding the death
of his brother in 1841, and the social and
political unrest which found expression in
the deposition of Charles X. in 1830, and
the subsequent abdication of Louis Philippe
and restoration of the Republic in 1848,
he continued his professional work in Paris
until 1851, when the Coup cTEtat seemed
to forebode further social upheavals altogether
hurtful to his interests. He abandoned
Paris, and returned to Scotland, where he
sought and found in Edinburgh a sphere of
professional activity as a teacher of French.
Within a short time he secured a number of
important engagements, and acted as French
master at George Watson's College, Stewart's
Hospital, the Trades Maidens' Hospital, the
Church of Scotland Training College for
Teachers, and a number of private schools.

3

34 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

During fourteen busy years, Francis Brown
pursued his calling in Edinburgh, finding
domestic happiness in marriage with Miss
Armour, and enjoying intimate social and
intellectual intercourse with many of the
professional men in the city — among others,
the well-known Dr. Lee of Greyfriars and
Dr. Currie, rector of the Church of Scotland
Training College. In 1865, he developed
serious heart disease, and, after a lingering
illness, died on December nth in that
year.

There is a contemporary portrait of Francis
Nicholson Brown in the obituary notice
which Dr. Currie contributed to the columns
of the Scotsman at the time. The following
extracts may be quoted from Dr. Currie's
tribute to his friend : —

" A residence of seventeen years in Paris
and in such circumstances could not fail

KINDRED AND PARENTS 35

to leave a deep impression on the mind of
one endowed with so quick an observation
and so discriminating a judgment in matters
of life, and with so lively an appreciation
of the higher qualities of manhood. But
while it gave him the vivacity, the liberality,
the enlarged sympathies and information,
and the power of clear and pointed conversa-
tion, which belong to a French gentleman,
it did not weaken by one iota the intellectual
muscle and fibre, the perfervidum ingenium,
the mass and momentum of character, which
his native Ayrshire gave him ; so that on
his return to this country, his friends, old
and new, were delighted to find in him so
striking and pleasant a harmony of the best
points in the national character of both
countries. . . . For literature — particularly
poetry — and for history, he had very keen
susceptibilities. To say that he was familiar

36 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

with the masterpieces of both countries is
to say but little ; could we imagine that
by some fatality our own Shakespeare,
Scott, Byron, and Burns, and their counter-
parts in France, from Moliere to Bdranger,
had been lost, few men alive could have
done more to replace them from memory.
A catholic sympathy for letters, a sound
and penetrating critical instinct, a singular
strength and clearness of conception, a never-
failing freshness of feeling, and a power and
propriety in speech such as we commonly
look for in written composition alone,
enabled him to discourse to sympathetic
listeners of literary characteristics with the
insight and, at times, the fervour of a seer ;
and in the sphere of history — of French
history particularly, which he had studied
by the strong light of sympathy and
acquaintance with the current life of the

KINDRED AND PARENTS 37

people — the sweep and essential soundness
of his judgments were not more a source
of instruction to his friends, than the truly
dramatic power of his descriptions was their
delight. But there was a higher charm
for them than even these qualities, in the
nobleness and simplicity of his whole nature.
Ever generous, ever unselfish, alike in the
bloom of his strength and under a severe
malady, which wore out the body but could
not cloud the soul, his first thoughts were
of others, his last of himself. He was of
those rare spirits before whom anything that
was mean, petty, or ambiguous soon came
to feel itself uneasy and abashed. It was
this that made his presence elevating while
he lived, and that will make his memory a
precious possession to many now that he
is gone."

Helen Hood Brown, the only girl in the

38 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

family at Benthead, was born in 1815. For
her, too, mental culture had its fascina-
tion ; as, in her earlier womanhood, she
kept a school, and acquired the reputation
of being an exceptionally clever woman.
Eventually she became the wife of Ivy
Campbell Sloan, a Scotsman who had
amassed a considerable fortune in some
line of business in Australia. Mrs. Sloan
died at Catrine at the age of fifty-four.

GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN, senior, the
father of the subject of this sketch, was
born on July 2nd, 1813, and was thus the
youngest of the sons at Benthead. His
father died while George was still very
young, and the boy was shut in to the
necessity of helping his mother to complete
the tack or lease in Benthead, and there-
after to make a livelihood at the cottage
in the village of Sorn to which she removed

KINDRED AND PARENTS 39

at the expiry of the lease. For a good
many years after he reached manhood, and
after Benthead had been given up, George
kept a horse and cart, and did jobbing
work as a carting contractor. Then Ivy
Campbell Sloan came home with a stout
purse, and did much to alter the situation.
Having built a cottage at Catrine, and
removed thither not only his wife, but his
mother-in-law, he set George free to make
shift for himself, and even advanced him
money towards the stocking of a farm.
In or about 1861 the farm of Drumsmudden,
in the parish of Ochiltree, was taken by
George, and the district of Sorn knew him
no more.

The farm was one of about two hundred
acres. It was worked by a single pair
of horses, as it consisted chiefly of rough
grazing land. With a byre of about thirty

40 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

cows, it was, like many of its neighbours,
principally a dairy farm, producing milk,
butter, and cheese.

As a farmer, " Drumsmudden," or <c 'Smud-
den " for short — as he was colloquially styled
— stood well in the eyes of his neighbours,
and his credit was good. But, over and
above this, he shared in the " cleverness "
with which the Brown family was endowed.
He was reckoned one of the best educated
men in the Ochiltree and Cumnock district
" He gave ample evidence of being well
informed and deeply read," says one who
had intimate business relations with him
over a long period of years. " He was a
clever man," says another, and "clever" is
the word almost uniformly used by those
who knew him well, when they seek to
convey an impression of his alertness of
intellect, breadth of outlook, and wealth of

KINDRED AND PARENTS 41

information on all conceivable topics. His
tastes were not literary, like those of his
brothers John and Frank ; but, if other
proof were lacking, there is circumstantial
evidence that he was no mere clodhopper,
in the fact that in his early years he
visited his brothers in Paris. There his
pranks and pliskies sorely perplexed his
hosts, and they greatly feared that, from
sheer desire to tease them, he would get
himself into some mischief with the civil
authorities. Drumsmudden was of slight
build, and in stature he was below rather
than above the average height ; his features
were small and sharp, his hair was dark,
and his eyes were black and keen, and
full of meaning.

It only remains to speak of the mother
of the subject of this memoir. She was the
daughter of an Irishman of the name of

42 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

Gemmel, who had lived in Ochiltree for a
generation. Quiet in manner, she was above
the average height, had ruddy fair hair,
and bluish eyes. A capable woman, very
managing and very saving, she was an
expert in all the arts of housewifery and
in the craft of the dairy. Possessing mental
qualities of no ordinary kind, brave and
courageous, she was withal kind of heart
and ready of sympathy.

Birth and Early Years

43

CHAPTER II

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS

DOUGLAS BROWN, sec-

undus, " Drumsmudden's " eldest son,
was born at Ochiltree on January 26th,
1869. By general account, he bore a close
resemblance to his father in features, in
build, and in temperament. But in the
natural course of things, it was to his mother
that he was indebted for the earliest forma-
tive influences of his life, and between
mother and son there was founded a strong
and enduring mutual affection and regard.

There is little to record of Geordie's
earliest days, but those who knew him as

45

46 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

a " wee laddie " speak of him as having
been a conspicuously bright-tempered child.
Handy and ready-witted, he was always
the best of company, even for those who
were a good many years his senior.

Geordie laid the foundations of his ele-
mentary education at the village school.
He was willing and eager, and when he
passed on to school in the adjacent parish
of Coylton, his teacher, Mr. Smith, found
no difficulty in stimulating his desire for
learning, and carrying him forward without
hindrance to a pass in the sixth standard,
then the exit qualification in schools under
the Scottish Education Department. His
former schoolmates remember, with a sus-
picion of unconscious envy, that it cost
Geordie no effort to learn his lessons. He
stood well in all his classes, and, in conse-
quence, was never in his teacher's bad books.

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 47

One suggestive reminiscence of those days
is that he seemed to prefer the company
of a " penny dreadful " to that of his play-
mates.

Mr. Smith has put it upon record that
Geordie, even in these early days, distin-
guished himself by the ready facility with
which he overtook the weekly task of written
composition required from his class. His
essays were easily the best in the class.
His schoolmates were the first to acknow-
ledge this, and used to listen with delight
when Geordie's latest effusion was read
aloud. These essays were frequently con-
cluded or supplemented by a short effort
in verse composition, in one or other of the
stanzas in which Burns had proved the
tunefulness of the Scots vernacular.

Most boys arrive at an early decision as
to the vocation in life that they would follow

48 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

by preference, and Geordie seems to have
expressed, at one time or another, a vague
desire to become a school inspector ; but,
when he had passed the sixth standard
with Mr. Smith at Coylton in 1881, and
had later received supplementary tuition
for short periods from Mr. Hyslop at Cron-
berry, and Mr. Andrew at Ochiltree, it
appeared for a time that he had reached
the limit of his proper schooling. His
parents had no margin of income that would
provide for more than bare necessities, and
for a couple of years Geordie earned his
livelihood by the use of his hands, being
employed for some time at the pit-head
at Trabbock, in the uninteresting work of
picking stones and other objectionable
material from among the coal as it came
from the pit.

But one day Geordie heard that a school-

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 49

mate, whose parents were in no better
circumstances than his own, had gone to
the famous secondary school, Ayr Academy,
and his ambition prompted him to suggest
that he should be sent to Ayr also. An
interview with Mr. Maybin, then, and still,
rector of the academy, resulted in an
arrangement that the boy should have his
opportunity. For six months or so after
he had gone to the academy he did little
to justify the parental self-denial and the
generosity of Mr. Maybin that had made
his schooling at Ayr at all possible. At
this time he happened to overhear a con-
versation between the rector and one of
the masters, and learned that they considered
it hopeless to keep him longer at school
unless he showed signs of better work.
When the conversation between the teachers
resulted in his being asked to write an

4

50 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

essay, it was found that the boy's pride
and ambition had received the necessary
stimulus, and he displayed in the execution
of his task so promising a grasp of literature
that all thought of sending him down was
abandoned.

From that date, George " worked like a
trooper," with the result that, among many
talented schoolfellows, he took a conspicu-
ously successful place, and eventually carried
everything before him, only missing the blue
ribbon of the school — the Cowan Gold Medal
— on account of his deficiency in mathematical
scholarship. To-day Mr. Maybin looks back
upon George Douglas Brown as one of his
most brilliant pupils. Mr. Gemmell, now rector
of Greenock Academy, recalls the remarkable
individuality and excellence of his English
essays. These were distinguished by the
sequence and originality of their propositions,

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 51

by their effective and truthful descriptions
of places and people, and by their evidence
of an unusually well-developed faculty for
minute observation. In one of these essays
he displayed a remarkably matured and
original perception of the quality and scope
of the poetry of Burns; and in another,
still remembered by his teacher, he gave
a vivid picture of the High Street of Ayr on
a Saturday night, and particularly of a local
character — an Irish street singer. George
was not slow to acknowledge the value of
the benefits he received in Ayr Academy.
" To it," he afterwards said, " I owe every-
thing that I am."

No boy is exactly what his schoolmasters
make him. There are other formative in-
fluences which exercise at least an equal
power in the development of temperament
and character. In George Douglas Brown's

52 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

case, these influences were peculiarly rich
and potent. There was the intercourse with
his parents, both people of marked character,
and with the sons of the soil in his neighbour-
hood ; there was the pleasantly picturesque
environment of the district of Kyle ; there
were the personal and historical associations
which coloured the past of almost every
object upon which the eye could alight for
miles around.

It has been seen how closely knit were
the ties of natural affection between mother
and son. • Of his father, George was very
proud, and once remarked with boyish
finality : "He is the cleverest man I ever met
with." At another time, he said of his parents,
that they were the only two people in the
world for him.

At Drumsmudden, when school vacations
permitted, George occupied a garret as a

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 53

study; but he was more frequently to be
found in the field, lending a hand to Geordie
Miller or " Henry " as they went about their
work. He was companionable with every-
body, and had a fair share of boyish mis-
chievousness. On one occasion, " when he
was a lump of a boy at school," he stood
up on the corn chest in the stable and
delivered a prayer that, in Geordie Miller's
opinion, was equal to anything he had ever
heard from a pulpit. Then he assumed the
role of advocate and judge, and tried Henry
for an imagined murder, found him guilty,
and condemned him to death. And yet,
even in these days, with all his lightness
and cleverness, he was very reticent upon
first acquaintance, until the preliminaries of
conversation had thawed the ice.

In Ayrshire, and, in particular, in the
more immediate neighbourhood of Ochiltree,

54 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

the landscape is charmingly picturesque, both
in its wider prospects and in detail. Moor-
land and pasture, arable land and richly
wooded country, pleasantly diversify the
scenery. The countryside is watered and
drained by streams and rivers whose banks
abound in leafy shades and secluded nooks ;
where the wanderer may enjoy " the dim,
delicious greenness that comes down through
the spring foliage " ; while the undulations
of its surface deliver its roads from the least
impression of monotony. The wayfarer is
enabled at one point to observe the clouds
billowing over a wide expanse of sky, and
note the conspicuous landmarks for many
miles around : farther on, perhaps only half
a mile away, he is shut in to the contempla-
tion of a substantial farm-steading, with
well-filled stackyard, and whitewashed walls,
dazzlingly clean. Fecund nature responds

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 55

to the cheerful rays of the sun, and every-
where the colour note is rich and unstrained.
For a boy with the gift of observation, an
environment like this was bound to afford
artistic education of a generous sort.

This part of the country, too, abounds
in historical and literary associations well
calculated to stir the patriot soul, and fire
the ambition of youth. Ayrshire, doubtless
on account of its fertile land and convenient
seaboard, was one of the earliest anchorages
for civilised and settled habitation in Scotland,
and no square mile is without some ruins
to tell of its long history — tumulus, or castle,
or religious house, or baronial fortalice.
Memories of the earliest Scottish kings, of
Wallace, and of Bruce haunt the district ;
and later centuries have contributed their
share. John Knox and Bloody Grahame of
Claverhouse got their respective wives from

56 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

Ochiltree House ; James Boswell entertained
Dr. Johnson at Auchinleck House ; William
Murdock, the inventor of coal gas as an
illuminant, made his first experiments in
a cave near Auchinleck ; John Gait, the
novelist, was a native of Irvine, and won
fame from his pictures of the circumscribed
life of just such towns and villages as
abound in Ayrshire. But the chiefest interest
of all is doubtless found in the fact that
this is par excellence the land of Burns.
Mossgiel lies above Mauchline, within sight
of "the cornfields of Ochiltree," and the
countryside abounds in associations with
incidents in the everyday life of this most
human of great bards.

In this environment, George Douglas
Brown spent the whole of the first eighteen
years of his life.

Student Days : Glasgow,

1887-91

57

CHAPTER III
STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91

"\yl 7 HEN George Brown matriculated
at Glasgow University in October,
1887, the thoroughness of his previous
education was at once put to the test.
He sat for and passed the Preliminary
Examination, which secured exemption from
the necessity of taking the Junior Greek and
Junior Latin classes in the Arts curriculum ;
and, in the Bursary competition, open to
the whole University, he took sixteenth
place, and was awarded the Cowan bursary
of £35 specially reserved for Ayr Academy
boys, and tenable for two years.

59

60 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

In his first session, 1887-8, Brown took
the Senior Latin and Senior Greek classes.
In the Latin class, under the tuition of
Professor Ramsay, he proved a careful
student, always being well prepared. He
took a fairly good place in his general papers,
but did not do particularly well in Latin
Prose Composition, always the test of scholar-
ship in this subject. His work throughout
was sound, however, and he took the second
prize in the second section of the class,
standing thus among the first twenty-five
or thirty students in his year.

In the Senior Greek class, under Professor
Sir Richard Jebb, Brown proved himself a
better Grecian, taking the fourth place at
the close of the session's work.

The subsidies that he could draw from
home were but slender, and, bursaries not-
withstanding, Brown's circumstances must

STUDENT DAYS : GLASGOW, 1887-91 61

have borne a painful resemblance to those
of the proverbial Scots student who subsisted
throughout the long winter session of six
months upon two bags of oatmeal and two
sacks of potatoes. There is little ground
for surprise, therefore, in the fact that he
took little or no part in the social phases
of aggregate student life. The Dialectic,
the Philosophical, and the Alexandrian
Societies knew him not ; and he rather found
rest and recreation in the feast of reason
and flow of soul provided in a " crack " with
a few college cronies, or in seeking the
homely firesides of kindly Ayrshire folk
exiled in Glasgow In one such home he
spent many " week-ends," and there he was
always ready and anxious to lend a helping
hand in any domestic work that might be
going on — putting in coals, cleaning up the
kitchen, and the like.

62 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

Brown's slender purse must have made
it necessary to be content with very humble
" lodgings," and frequent experiments alone
would secure him in the best accommodation
to be had at his price. It is said that he
changed his lodgings every fortnight ; and
his declaration that he moved so often for
the purpose of " getting information " does
not dissipate the suspicion that he had diffi-
culty in finding quarters where he could be
sure of the necessary minimum of cleanli-
ness and quiet. Of course, he desired to
indicate a purpose to study vagaries of
human society, and herein we have the first
indication of an artistic interest in his en-
vironment.

Throughout his student career, Brown
kept in close touch with his home and his
people. At Drumsmudden a quey (two-year-
old heifer) was fattened and sold for him every

STUDENT DAYS : GLASGOW, 1887-91 63

year, and he got the proceeds ; while frequent
boxes renewed his store of the simple victuals
that were procured on a farm more easily
than money could be. When the vacations
came round, he left the grimy city with great
readiness, and threw himself into the daily
life and work at Drumsmudden. " He could
turn hay with any man," as one has said,
and that he knew the exhaustion of continu-
ous physical labour is made evident in the
following sentences. " Only those who know
the hairst-rig can remember how glad they
have been of any 'haivers' to make them
forget the agony in the shoulders and the
pain of the aching ringers, of any ' claivers '
that would help to ' wear awa' } the long
monotonous hours, on days when the sun
was merciless, and ' raw ' was added to ' raw '
with a slowness and sureness that was
maddening.

64 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

1 Still shearin' and clearin'
The tither stooket raw,
Wi' claivers and haivers
Wearin' the day awaV

When you croon the words over after many
years, you feel once more in memory the
relief that the gossip on the head-rig used
to bring."

If the days were long, the nights were
short. Drumsmudden used to send George
off to bed at ten o'clock ; but, in step
with the sister who used to take him his
candle and bid him an ostensible good-
night, he would return to the kitchen, where
the young people would entertain each
other in games of cards, and long leisurely
" cracks."

The chronicles of Brown's life at this
period point to something like a per-
sistent study of the habits, characteristics,
and eccentricities of the men and women

STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91 65

with whom he came in contact. In
particular, he manifested a keen interest
in the Doric words and expressions used
in the direct and forcible speech of the
countryside. He would purposely irritate
passing vagabonds, so that he might hear
their resentful phrases. He would even
tease his father with the same object, and,
by all accounts, he had there a fertile
field for research and observation.

Drumsmudden had " an uncommon way
of expressing himself." Our informant
illustrates his comment by telling us that
he once heard Drumsmudden say to a man
who was sitting at table with him and
making a manifestly poor meal : " Man,
stick in like a soo in a pratie pit, and
no sit there mumpin' like a rabbit." There
are numerous anecdotes of Drumsmudden's
forcible language, but we limit ourselves

5

66 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

to quoting one that has been given to
the public by Mr. Robert Barr in an
article in M'Clure's Magazine : —

" Brown said that his father was the most
profane man in the district, and yet a man of
sterling good heart. As a little boy he re-
membered listening appalled to a conversation
which took place between his father and an
elder of the Church, who had just risen from
what had been supposed his death-bed, and
now was crawling tremulously out into the
sun, his gaunt hand shaking on the end
of the stick that supported him.

"'Ye auld deevle,' cried the elder Brown,
* hell hasna swallowed ye yet, when we
a' thocht it yawned for ye.'

"' Through the mercy of God,' quavered
the tremulous voice of the convalescent, ' I
have been spared a few days longer on
this earth.'

STUDENT DAYS : GLASGOW, 1887-91 67

" ' Ye dodderin' thief,' roared Brown,
'there's nae mercy aboot it. Grim Satan
simply sees ye're nae ripe yet for perdition,
so he leaves ye in ye'r sins for a while
langer.'

" ' We're a' sinfu' men, Brown/ returned
the elder solemnly, in no way offended
by the harsh greeting, 'and our hope rests
in the benevolence of Heaven.'

" ' Weel, weel, ye auld sinner, I'm

glad to see ye ; glad to see ye on ye'r

feet again. Mony's the time I've looked
at ye'r hoose and feared to see the blinds
doon, curse ye ! '

" ' Thank'ee kindly, thank'ee kindly,
Brown,' said the aged elder, with tears
in his eyes. ' I knew I had ye'r guid
wishes.' "

The literary instinct dictated an ex-
pedition of amateur vagrancy which took

68 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

place in the summer of 1888. Dressing
himself in a flannel shirt and the oldest suit
of clothes he could get hold of, putting on
a pair of worn-out boots, and donning an
old straw hat, destitute of band or other
suspicion of respectability, Brown set out
from his father's farm about twelve o'clock
one night, and succeeded in reaching New
Cumnock, twelve miles off, before daylight.
In this way he escaped the observation
of any who might recognise him : beyond
New Cumnock and throughout Dumfries-
shire— to which he confined his tour — he
was among absolute strangers. Assuming
the role of a professional gangrel, he
associated with other tramps on the road,
and learned from them of places where he
might hope for a good supper and a bed
in the barn. In the towns he found shelter
in " model " lodging-houses.

STUDENT DAYS : GLASGOW, 1887-91 69

The tour extended over three weeks, and
in its course he must have met many strange
specimens of the flotsam and jetsam of
society, as well as fully tested the pleasures
and hardships of tramp life. It furnished
him, besides, with a store of amusing anec-
dotes. One day he had " an awful set-down
from a pair of lassies." Tired and footsore,
he had taken off his boots and lain down
at the roadside, smoking his short clay
pipe. Two girls approaching, he heard the
ejaculation : " There's a tramp ! " They
passed unmolested, and after they imagined
themselves out of earshot one of them said :
" Eh ! He was an awfully ugly one."
Nearing the end of his tour, and feeling
rather done up, he asked for a " lift " from
the driver of an aerated-water manufacturer's
van. This was kindly granted, and he fell
into conversation with his new acquaintance.

70 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

He maintained his "tramp" disguise, but
occasionally he forgot himself, and at last his
friend in need looked at him with suspicion
and said : " I doot, me lad, you have seen
better days." Brown would no doubt rise
to the occasion, but when he told the story
afterwards he confessed that the situation
was the most embarrassing one in his whole
excursion.

In a poem of his later days, Brown re-
called the experiences of this tramp — the
call of the shrilling laverock ; the contempla-
tion of the clouds melting in the summer
sky, and of the lonely sheep feeding on the
hill ; the " happy * sadness," which came
over him as he watched the " waving
shadows " borne over the yellow fields of
corn on a Sabbath morning ; the observa-
tion of " nosin' mousie," " the bits o' wormies,"
the rootlets peeping through " the mools,"

STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91 71

the thud of the ripened acorn as it fell ;
"possessin' nocht," he possessed it all —

"A king may own't, but I've the draw
And better part o't."

In the autumn of 1888 and of one or two
succeeding years, Brown returned to Ayr
Academy and rendered some assistance to
the rector, during the period of six weeks
between the beginning of the school session
and that of the University classes. His
initiation of the boys into the real spirit of
Homer was masterly and complete. In
point of exact scholarship his teaching may
have lacked in didactic quality, but he trans-
lated with such sympathy and verve that
none could escape the infection of his
enthusiasm.

During the session 1888-9, Brown took
out the Logic and English classes in the
Arts course, and also attended the Honours

72 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

class in Greek. Logic and Philosophy
never had much attraction for him, and his
work in the Logic class, under Professor
Veitch, calls for no comment. In the
Senior English class, under Professor Nichol,
he stood well in class exercises and examina-
tions, and he ran a Mr. A. D. Blacklock
very hard for the first place. At the end of
the session he carried off the second prize.
In everything, except verse compositions,
he secured the highest marks possible.

In this session, the Greek chair was
occupied by Professor Murray, in succession
to Professor Sir Richard Jebb, and when
Brown took up his work in the Honours
class, he at once attracted the attention of
his new teacher. "George Douglas Brown,"
writes Professor Murray, " was not essentially,
I think, a scholar ; his mind was of another
type. Yet such was the general force and

STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91 73

artistic power of his intellect, he was certainly
the best or second best of the classical
undergraduates in Glasgow at the time of
my first arrival there as professor. If I
may characterise his work more particularly,
I should say it was marked by very re-
markable vigour of mind, together with a
sort of impatience and irregularity — the
qualities that often accompany an artistic
temperament. He was the reverse of plod-
ding or punctilious. He worked furiously
hard for long spells ; sat up late, read fast
and voraciously, and remembered what he had
read. I recollect once thinking it impossible
that he could have read through a certain
book — Harrison's 'Mythology and Monu-
ments of Ancient Athens ' —in the time that
he had had it, amounting to a few hours. I
asked him some questions, and found he
remembered it as accurately as I did. I

74 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

had spent several days over it. At other
times, when the mood changed, he was
startlingly lazy."

Part of the long vacation in 1889 was spent
with Professor Murray at Castle Howard,
in Yorkshire. " On the occasion when Brown
stayed with us in Yorkshire, during the
summer vacation, to work up his classical
composition," continues Professor Murray,
" I was at first greatly disappointed in his
work. I had expected him to work extra
hard, and he seemed hardly to work at all.
He was a charming companion, with his
straight look and sunny smile, and vigorous
and original views on all manner of things,
'here was something manly and truth-lov-
ig about his intellect. Every one liked
him in the house. But just at the moment
lle seemed unable to work ! He was in-
toxicated with the summer, and used to lie

STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91 75

for hours in a boat, sometimes with books,
and sometimes without. I have no doubt
whatever that his mind was really hard at
work, thinking and recuperating all the
while."

At Castle Howard, the social atmosphere
was an entirely new one for Brown, and
his " intoxication " may have been the
partial result of finding himself in the lap
of luxury for a spell. There was humour
and ingenuousness in his writing home at
the time, in description of his novel sur-
roundings, that he had to take " shameless
hussies " in to dinner : there was the dogged
self-satisfaction of the Scot in his declara-
tion that he would " as soon have his kail
through the reek at Drumsmudden."

At the opening of the session 1889-90,
Brown obtained the Stewart Bursary of £1 5,
tenable during the gown course, and in

;6 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

that year he completed the Arts curri-
culum by taking out the classes in Moral
Philosophy, under Professor Edward Caird
(now Master of Balliol) and in Natural
Philosophy, under Professor Sir William
Thomson — now Lord Kelvin. As has been
noted already, philosophy had no great
attraction for Brown, but throughout the
session there was a steady improvement in
the quality of his work in Moral Philosophy,
both in examinations and class exercises,
with the result that he attained a position
near the top of the second division of
the class. Of his work for Lord Kelvin's
class, no record has been traced, but it
is not likely that pure science would fare
any better than did metaphysical science,
in the interest of one whose instincts
were wholly biassed towards the artistic in
literature.

STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91 77

Having reached the conclusion of his
gown course in 1890, Brown presented
himself for examination in Arts, and
graduated Master of Arts, with first-class
honours in Classics.

In the same year Brown carried off the
Eglinton Fellowship of £100 per annum,
tenable for three years, after examination
open to deserving students who had taken
the degree of Master of Arts at the im-
mediately preceding term. This fellowship
made it obligatory upon him to follow a
course of study in the University, or give
assistance in the teaching work there. He
also carried off the Cowan Gold Medal for
excellence in Greek, as the result of success
in the quaint ceremonial ordeal of the
Blackstone Examination.

In conformity with the conditions of his
Fellowship, Brown returned to Glasgow

78 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

University for the session 18901, and took
up an Honours course in Greek as well as
a special course in Latin Prose Composition,
which had always been the weakest point
in his classical scholarship.

For part of the session, too, Brown acted
as assistant to Professor Murray, in conse-
quence of the death of the regular class
assistant. " He of course did his teaching
work well," writes Professor Murray, "but
one felt that he was not cut out for any-
thing in the shape of a schoolmaster. The
clock-like regularity that comes naturally
to some men, and is so necessary in the
teaching of a Scottish University, was
evidently a matter of considerable effort
to him."

In 1891 the Luke Historical Prize of £10
fell to Brown in a biennial competitive
examination upon general subjects connected

STUDENT DAYS: GLASGOW, 1887-91 79

with ancient Greek and Roman history and
literature. In that year, also, he won the
blue ribbon of Glasgow University, the
Snell Exhibition.

" The Snell," as it is called, is a foundation
dating from the seventeenth century, and
carries with its £130 a year for three years
an obligation upon the holder to reside
and study at Balliol College, Oxford. The
original intention of the founder was that
intelligent young Scotsmen should be drafted
from Glasgow University to Oxford for
the purpose of being indoctrinated in the
teachings and practice of the Episcopal
form of the Christian religion. Snell scholars
were bound over to enter Holy Orders, and
thereafter to return to Scotland, where they
should remain as Episcopalian priests during
the rest of their natural life — " to propagate
Episcopacy," as an old account has it. The

8o GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

pious, if proselytising, intentions of the
founder have been abrogated in our more
catholic times, but the exhibition remains,
and the exhibitioner must still go to Oxford
to enjoy its benefits. Brown surrendered
his Eglinton Fellowship, set out for Oxford,
and Glasgow University knew him no more.

Scholar at Oxford, 1891-5

CHAPTER IV
SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5

^EORGE BROWN matriculated at
^~* Balliol College, Oxford, on October
2Oth, 1891, and for the next four years —
that is, until 1895 — Oxford was the official
centre of his scholastic life.

As is pretty generally known, students
at Oxford qualify for the degree of Bachelor
of Arts by reading, with tutors and in-
dependently, in preparation for two principal
examinations — " Moderations," usually taken
in the second year, and " Greats " or " Final
Schools," at the close of the curriculum.

Mr. J. L. Strachan Davidson, Senior Dean
83

84 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

of Balliol College, and the late Mr. Evelyn
Abbott were the tutors who supervised the
greater part of Brown's studies. In the
eyes of his teachers, the general quality of
Brown's work displayed "good sense and
intelligence." One of his tutors reported
at first that he was rather " dull," but after-
wards came to entertain a more favourable
opinion. Another tutor's report characterised
him as "ambitious, but lacking knowledge
of his books." In Classical Moderations in
1893 Brown took a high place in the first
class. When the Final Schools, Literce
Humaniores, came on in May, 1895, he was
unwell on the day of examination, and did
not present himself in the morning. The
Master, however, sent for him, and pressed
him to sit for examination in the after-
noon. This he did, and his work qualified
him for a third class; had he sat for the

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 85

whole examination, he might, in the Master's
opinion, have taken a good second class.

Brown did not take much interest in
athletics in general, and his near-sightedness
prevented his enjoying many games. He
played hockey sometimes at Oxford, but
he considered walking to be the best exercise
in the world. Many a day when he felt
depressed or had an attack of indigestion,
he would set his face towards the country,
and tramp hour after hour, until he felt
that he had regained tone.

A favourite recreation of Brown's at Ox-
ford was the reading of trashy books. " For
days he would lie on his sofa, when the
weather was bad, reading all the yellow-
backs he could lay hands on. Suddenly
he would rouse himself, and go in for a
tremendous bout of work, or take part in
University life by joining fiercely in some

86 GEOkGE DOtJGLAS BROWti

debate at one of the societies to which he
belonged."

For many men Oxford life and collegiate
study is a source of indefinable stimulus
and inspiration. The classic traditions of
the place, with its twenty-five colleges,
many of them hoary with the weathering of
centuries, and persisting witnesses to the
intellectual strivings of countless generations
of students and scholars, provide an ideal
environment for work. The intimate aca-
demic relations of dons and undergraduates
foster the continuity of the traditional Oxford
point of view and Oxford manner, worth
little in themselves, perhaps, but correspond-
ing in the intellectual world to the "good
breeding " that we like to meet with in the
social sphere. Not least potent of Oxford
privileges, the collegiate life of the under-
graduates— with its unique facilities for the

SCHOLAR At OXFORD, 1891-5 ty

formation of congenial friendships, for the
development of well-balanced ideas of life
" and things," as well as for its physical
value on the athletic side — does much to
make men of the raw boys who come up
in their hundreds as "freshmen" in succes-
sive years.

Much of this inspiration seems to have
been missed by Brown ; partly because he
was four years ahead of most of his fellow-
students, both in age and in scholarship ;
principally, we fear, because his Snell Ex-
hibition of £130 did not cover the somewhat
expensive "battels" and other dues, and he
had little else to rely upon financially. A
note from Professor Murray is pertinent to
these two points. " I was not surprised
when he once complained to me bitterly
of the weariness he felt in the classical work
at Oxford. He had been so many years

88 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWM

at what seemed to him just the same old
subjects, always taking in, always learning
old lessons. He wanted to be at real work,
to give out or create. . . . One little thing
I remember, which was rather characteristic.
When he went to Oxford, I offered to
supplement his scholarship by a small sum:
he had told me something of his circum-
stances at the time. He looked me straight
in the eyes, rather sternly, and said, ' I'll
pay ye back ! ' No word of thanks, and
no hesitation ; just a straight, manly look,
and a friendly acceptance."

When Brown first went up to Oxford,
he lived in residence at college for three
or four terms. His rooms were in the
Garden Quadrangle, on a staircase which
at the time was almost monopolised by
scholars and exhibitioners. Brown's set
was on the ground floor. " They were

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 89

perhaps the most inconvenient rooms in
Balliol, but they had the advantage of being
cheap. From sheer poverty, he moved out
of college into lodgings in his second
year," and there is a further evidence of
his narrow circumstances in the fact that he
left Oxford without graduating, although he
had passed all the examinations qualifying
for the Bachelor of Arts degree.

In any aggregation of thoughtless youths
there are always those who do not under-
stand, and affect to disdain a " rough and
ready sort of chap" like Brown, especially
when he has the impertinence to be poor
and live in their neighbourhood. A gang
of these youngsters proceeded to Brown's
rooms one day, purposing to " rag " them.
They thought better of their intention,
however, when they found Brown within,
and he threw off his coat and threatened

f96 GEORGE DOUGLAS BBOWtt

to treat the foremost aggressor to a round
of fisticuffs, Ayrshire fashion.

Of Brown's relations with his fellow-
students at Oxford, an intimate friend of
later days writes as follows : —

" While he hardly ever spoke of them by
name, several figures stand out vividly in my
mind as he would describe their narrowness,
their mincing way of approaching their sub-
ject, or the blatant yet healthy 'cockiness'
of the freshman. It must always be
remembered that Brown was older than
the average of these men. He had already
come into his manhood. He knew human
nature pretty well — as far as men were
concerned— and no doubt his quick, biting
retorts and speeches would make him un-
popular with young, intellectual men. Had
they been able to get within the outer
barrier of his nature, they would have

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 9^

found in him sympathetic and congenial
comradeship."

Brown used to tell against himself a
good story of his Oxford days. Dr. Jowett
was still Master of Balliol when the young
exhibitioner first went up to Oxford, and
one day he asked him to a breakfast to
which James Anthony Froude, among others,
had been invited. Brown had not taken
much part in the conversation, when Froude
turned to Jowett and said : " Our young
friend over there is strangely like our old

friend ." Then, after eating several

mouthfuls, he again glanced at Brown

with a reflective air, and added : " You

know, Jowett, we always used to say that

— was the ugliest man we knew."

As a sequel to the foregoing record of

the outstanding facts of Brown's curriculum,

the reader will welcome an intimate sketch

92 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

of his personal student life at Oxford. Mr.
H. W. C. Davis writes : —

" Brown bore his poverty with a light
heart, and during his first year he had a
good deal of such society as attracted him.
He did not by any means confine himself
to the company of the scholars. The reading
man, as such, bored him ; and although he
was never tired of discussing literature with
any one who had a real interest in it, he
was almost equally fond of finding his way
into a card-party or some such gathering.
He would not play cards if he could help
it, but established himself in a corner of
the room, from which he hurled jokes and
anecdotes broadcast among his company.
His means prevented him from entertaining
much, but at tea-time one would often find
his room full to overflowing, and Brown
engaged in a wordy duel with a bosom

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 93

friend, while the others listened. When he
was launched on a discussion, he sooner or
later fell into one of his two characteristic
attitudes. Either he would stand on the
hearthrug, with his legs far apart, gesticulat-
ing strenuously, and perhaps wielding a teapot
or a poker ; or he would ensconce himself
in the inmost recesses of his armchair, place
his feet on the mantelpiece, and argue
over his shoulder to any one who challenged
him.

" His conversation was discursive. He
had no taste for close discussion at that
time, whatever may have been the case in
his later life. I imagine that he had never
been bitten with the taste for dialectic. At
all events, he had shaken it off before he
appeared in Balliol. If his verdict on an
author was questioned, he would reply by
quoting a sentence or a phrase which had

94 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

struck him as particularly good, or irre-
trievably inept. Of philosophical subjects
he was rather impatient. They did not
appeal to him, and, being considerably older
than most of us, he realised the emptiness
of the discussions in which we indulged,
and on which, I believe, we rather prided
ourselves at that time. He thought that
Oxford philosophy was a matter of technical
terms, and altogether divorced from reality.
He often intimated to me that his real
ambition was to apprehend and to describe
things as they seem, not to speculate about
their ultimate nature.

"So far as I know, he wrote very little
while he was in Oxford ; but he showed
me one or two prose sketches of which he
was rather proud, and with good reason.
They were descriptive, for the most part ;
and, oddly enough, showed no trace of the

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 95

dramatic faculty. That he had a keen eye
for character, and could produce brilliant
dialogue if he liked, was well known to his
friends. But he showed this faculty chiefly
in anecdotes which he improvised with
extraordinary ease. I remember that the
speakers in these anecdotes always talked
broad Ayrshire.

" There were two societies to which Brown
and I belonged for a good while. The
one was a College literary debating club
called the Arnold. It contained from thirty
to forty members, and met once a week
after the College Hall. Brown attended
it with some regularity for his first two
years. Afterwards, he was rarely to be
seen, unless there was an opportunity of
making fun out of private business. He
was President for one term, and his speeches
were brilliant, when he chose that they

96 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

should be. But he was troubled by a throat
affection which made speaking difficult to
him, and he detested the trouble of prepara-
tion. He was more at home in the Milton,
a University literary society composed of
senior men, which was at that time largely
recruited from Balliol. In both societies
his views on literature brought him into
violent conflict with other members. Im-
pressionism was not in fashion, and I
remember that a paper which he read on
Keats gave rise to a stormy debate in the
Arnold. I had the misfortune to collide
with him in both societies ; but it was not
the least of his good qualities that he never
bore malice for an attack upon his opinions,
however much he may have been irritated
at the time. I have known him get up
and go out in the course of a debate,
slamming the door after him with unnecessary

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 97

emphasis. But these ebullitions occurred
at a time when his nerves were unsettled,
and they never lasted long. He suffered
greatly from sleeplessness, and it was no
uncommon thing for us, coming back late
at night from some convivial reunion, to
find him tramping up and down the quad-
rangle in the hope of inducing drowsiness.
To this cause were chiefly due the fits of
apathy and depression from which he suffered
with increasing frequency as his college
course went on.

"But there were other causes. He had
little sympathy with the curriculum to which
he found himself tied down. The man who
reads for Literce Humaniores in Oxford is
expected to spend the first eighteen months
of his time over pure scholarship. To
Brown, classical composition was an in-
tolerable nuisance ; and he resented the

7

98 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

necessity of treating the classics as an
exercise in grammar. He had read widely
before he came up, and had a genuine
enthusiasm for one or two classical poets :
Homer, Catullus, and Juvenal are three
whom he used to quote. On the rare
occasions when he showed himself inside a
lecture-room, he considered that his time
had been well spent if he picked up a happy
rendering for a line or phrase which he
admired. But he could not bring himself
to read unlimited quantities of Cicero and
Demosthenes. He made up his mind as
to the minimum amount of reading which
would get him a First in Moderations, and
ploughed through it in seven or eight weeks.
It was a great feat. He worked almost
continuously the whole day and every day,
only submitting occasionally to be dragged
out for a hurried walk.

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 99

" After he had obtained his First, his
friends expected that he would settle down
to the study of Plato and Aristotle for his
Final Examination. But he never did so.
Plato appealed to him as literature, and I
fancy that in a discursive way he read rather
more modern philosophy than he allowed
his friends to know. But he was a sworn
enemy to systems, and what reading he did
in his third and fourth years was chiefly
in English poetry and novels.

" He used to maintain at this time, with
great vigour of language, that he was wasting
his time, and ought never to have come to
Oxford. As to the course which he ought to
have taken he was less definite. He some-
times expressed a wish to write ; but if he
formed any definite literary plans, or made
up his mind what form of literature would
best suit his powers, I never heard of it.

ioo GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

The sketches which I have mentioned above
were avowedly experiments. It may, how-
ever, be worth noticing that he expressed
an intense admiration for Tourguenieff as a
literary artist. There is a certain resem-
blance between Brown's best-known novel
and those in which Tourguenieff analyses
the Russian national character in the course
of telling a simple and realistic story.

"Even allowing that Brown's last two years
in Oxford were a period of incubation, I
think it is true that they would have been
better spent elsewhere. The climate did
not suit him. He was prevented from
working on the lines to which he was
naturally drawn, by the feeling that his first
duty was to take a good degree, and so
justify his position as an exhibitioner. At
the same time, he could not bring himself to
take any interest in the ' Greats ' curriculum.

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 101

Possibly he might have roused himself in
the last three months before his examination,
as he had done for Moderations. But his
mother's death, occurring in his last vacation,
was a severe blow to him. He was terribly
depressed during his last few weeks in
Oxford, suffered from insomnia, and could
only with difficulty be induced to finish his
examination. He omitted at least one
paper, and only obtained a third class.

;< When one looks back on this part of
Brown's life, there is little to remember with
pleasure. He was in the depths, and I for
one could quite believe him when he said,
as he sometimes did, that it was on the
whole the most miserable part of his life.
A successful Oxford career would not have
done much to develop his genius ; but the
sense of failure and inability to accommodate
himself to the conditions of Oxford work

102 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

was a continual clog upon his mind. At
this time, just as much as in his first two
years, he gave the impression of being a
man who had it in him to do great things.
And, however depressed he might be, there
was in him a native geniality and kindliness
which made him the best of friends and
companions. A stranger might think him
rough and brusque ; and he was decidedly
the opposite of expansive, to those whom
he was meeting for the first or second time.
But in essentials he was the most courteous
of men, and I have often been struck by
the respect which he showed for scruples,
prejudices, and beliefs for which he had
little sympathy. He never hurt a man's
feelings in cold blood, though in fits of
irritation he sometimes said things for which
he was afterwards sorry. His humour was
delightful, because it was never ill-natured.

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 103

Some people might have found his con-
versation too Rabelaisian for their taste.
But there was nothing morbid, unhealthy,
or prurient, in his talk at any time. And
one felt that he was at bottom high-minded
and chivalrous, with a good deal of the old
Puritanic leaven in his composition. He
judged his own conduct and that of others
by a singularly high standard."

Before closing the present chapter, we
may deal shortly with events which occurred
in Brown's family circle during his Oxford
years. First of these, in point of time, was
the eviction of his father from Drumsmudden
in 1892.

The sub-factor put old Brown out of
his farm, on the plea that he was too old
to keep it in order, but, Drumsmudden
and others believed that his action was not
entirely disinterested. It is conceded on

104 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

all hands that it was a libel to say that
Drumsmudden was not a good farmer.
When he got his farm in 1861, it was "like
a field of rashes," and during the thirty-two
years of his tenancy he gradually brought
the whole of it under cultivation ; yet at
the age of eighty-two he had to go out.
The action of the factor Mr. Reid was most
unpopular, and on March i8th, 1892, a large
gathering of people assembled at the farm by
torchlight, " carrying ;the effigy of a gentle-
man whom they named a ' Scots Landlord's
Evicting Machine.' " A bonfire was built,
and the effigy was ignominiously burned in it.
Drumsmudden had a mind of his own —
one that would sway for no one ; and the
origin of his difference with the factor had
been his refusal to vote Tory. Reid was
a Tory, and arrived one day at the time
of a General Election to secure Drum-

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 105

smudden's vote for the candidate whom he
himself favoured. The two men met in the
farmyard, and Reid stated his errand.
Drumsmudden looked at him keenly for
a moment, his wrath kindling the while.
Then he said : " Come this way, Geordie,
man," taking him to a point whence he
could get a full view of the country
from Drumsmudden to Ochiltree, where the
polling was to take place. There he con-
tinued : " You see the road the craw flees
to Ochiltree ; I will go by that way, and
vote according to my opinion : for no landlord
nor his bit of clay would I sell my opinion."
The factor retired discomfited ; but Drum-
smudden's eviction must have given him
some satisfaction.

George Brown took up the cudgels for his
father, and inspired several letters to the
Ayrshire Post on the subject ; but there

106 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

was no redress, and the old man had to
realise his stock and quij the farm when
the term day came. He took the farm of
West Newton, in the parish of Loudoun.
But the untimely death of his son James
made it inconvenient for him to continue
his farming operations, and he retired, after
two years, first to Cumnock, and latterly
to Ochiltree.

At some period of each of the long
vacations, George Brown found his way
from Oxford to his native place. There,
at many a farmer's fireside, "he made
heartsome company, with his stories and
experiences." Ever the same kindly, homely
fellow, he would put on his shabbiest suit
of clothes, and turn his hand to any
odd job in which his help would be
acceptable. One of his oldest friends in
Ochiltree tells of his once dropping in

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 107

at her house in a most untidy condition
of dress, having just quitted some work
on his mother's potato patch. She told
him never to come to her house again
in that garb. Next day he called at
the same house dressed point-device, with
straw hat, gloves, and cane. Ringing the
bell, and asking for the lady of the house
in Oxford English, he made a formal
call, and at first completely mystified
mistress and maid as to his identity.

With his former school companions and
cronies, Brown was ever on the same good
terms, affecting no superior airs by reason
of his University experiences. One who
knew him well in these days writes :

" Many happy days we spent together at
his father's farm in our native parish. Had
'Geordie/ as he was familiarly called, not
been fortunate enough to have had a

io8 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

University education, he would still have
been a genius. He was born one. He was
certainly the best conversationalist it has
been my lot to meet, and in manner and
action he was nothing if not original ; he
was originality personified. He was void
of pride, and detested it in another ; fops
kept clear of him, for he was down on
them straight ; his sarcasm was truly
withering. One never tired of his com-
pany, and, if you could talk of books and
authors, he never tired of yours. He could
quote Burns and Shakespeare for any
length of time ; and I have heard him
giving a sermon out of nothing that
would have done credit to the ablest
divine.

" Geordie was never exactly sure what
profession he would turn to after his college
career was over, but I think he had always

SCHOLAR AT OXFORD, 1891-5 109

a great desire to be what he ultimately
became — a great writer."

Brown kept up a correspondence with
home, too, throughout his University career.
On one occasion he sent a small present
from Oxford to his sister Maggie, and, the
better to secure its safe delivery, he wrote
upon the outside cover the following injunc-
tion to the Ochiltree letter-carrier, who had
more than once betrayed a suspiciously inti-
mate knowledge of village correspondence : —

" Noo, Jamie lad, keep mind and tak' it,
And dinnie ye a blister mak' o't,
Or, by the Lord, I'll raise a racket

That may surprise ye ;
So tentily guide and guard this packet,

As I advise ye."

Brown closed his Oxford days under the
shadow of a great bereavement. His be-
loved mother's health gave way in the
spring of 1895, and he spent the Easter
vacation in faithfully and tenderly assisting

no GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

in nursing her during the mortal course of
her illness, returning to Oxford for his
" Greats " a few days after her death and
funeral. Little wonder that he was sick
in body and mind when the final ordeal
of his Oxford days came upon him.

In his later days, Brown was wont to
maintain that his years at Oxford had been
thrown away. " I played the fool," he said
more than once. None the less, Oxford
had left its impress upon him. It was not
inconsistent with his dissatisfaction with the
educational drudgery of Oxford that he yet
entertained a warm side to his Southron
Alma Mater : she had left her mark on
his heart. She had left her mark on his
manner as well, although its tokens — ease,
elegance, and moderation in statement — were
not, on the surface, outstanding character-
istics of the man.

Journalism and Letters in
London

CHAPTER V

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS IN LONDON

QUITTING Oxford in the summer
of 1895, Brown settled almost im-
mediately in London, with the determination
to make a livelihood by his pen. Various
paragraphists will have it that he took steps
towards qualifying for the English Bar,
but there is not the slightest justification for
the statement. Circumstances over which
he had no control had put from him all
idea of adopting the teaching profession —
an idea that he had certainly entertained
nebulously for a time — and in view of
Professor Murray's skilled opinion, quoted
us 8

ii4 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

in a previous chapter, there is no reason
for regret that he abandoned the project.
As a matter of fact, offers of work as a
teacher were declined by him at the time
that he first came to London. No, he had
made up his mind to devote his life to the
pursuits of a man of letters, and by the
love he bore for literature he was called
to be a novelist.

There was imagination and a vaulting
ambition in Brown's purpose, for his ex-
ternal advantages and opportunities were
nil. When a man comes to London from
Oxford, he has usually a well-defined path
along which he has only to pursue his
ideal and reach his goal. If he is going
to the Bar, he enters one of the inns of
court, eats his dinners, devils for a qualified
barrister, and in due course he arrives — or
fails. If he seeks a livelihood in journalism,

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 115

he has usually a place secured for him by
influence on one of the numerous important
journals of the metropolis, and makes a
beginning that is many removes nearer to
the editorial chair than is that of the
practical journalist who has started at the
reporter's desk. He, too, arrives — or fails.
If he covets the more elusive fortunes and
more subtle delights of " literature," he has
at his back a decent income derived from
independent sources ; he may take his time,
and feel his way to the particular metier that
will most suit his tastes and his intellectual
inclinations and gifts ; and in due course,
if he has it in him, he finds his publisher
and his public and " arrives." But for
George Brown there was no assured path-
way to qualifications and success, Oxford
man though he was.

Deprived of the advantages enjoyed by

n6 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

his more fortunate Oxford friends, Brown
set himself to keep the pot boiling by
means of journalism. He would not tie
himself down to the routine of a salaried
appointment upon any particular journal,
but chose to adopt the more untrammelled
if precarious occupation of free-lance jour-
nalism— here an article, there a poem, here
a short story, there a book review. It is
not proposed to trace here with any exact-
ness the story of Brown's journalistic life,
but a few facts are cited to enable the
reader to comprehend more vividly the
nature of the struggle to which he addressed
himself.

At the outset, Brown's college acquaint-
ance with Mr. J. D. Symon provided an
entree into actual journalism. As sub-editor
of The Illustrated London News, Mr. Symon
was able to put him in the way of book-

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 117

reviewing and similar work. Later, when
Mr. Symon became editor of this journal,
it began to be a sort of stand-by. Not
only did Brown review pretty constantly
for it, but for a number of years he went
to the News office on one day in the
week, and wrote any paragraphs that might
be required as " fill-ups."

In 1898 Brown had the fortune to have
an article on Burns accepted by Black-
wood's Magazine. Mr. Black wood was so
favourably impressed by the quality of the
paper that he wrote to Brown asking him
to go and see him in Edinburgh. But he
had no journalistic ambition, and he never
availed himself of this opportunity to obtain
a footing among the contributors to a
periodical of the premier quality of Maga.
The acceptance of his first story by The
Success was more fruitful, for through the

ii8 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

introduction of the editor of this short-lived
venture he ultimately obtained the post of
reader to the publishing house by which
his novel was afterwards brought out.

In 1899 a powerful short story, written
over the pen-name of " Kennedy King,"
and entitled " How Janet Goudie came
Home," was accepted by Sir Wemyss Reid
for The Speaker. One of the finest things
Brown ever wrote, it attracted the attention
of the British representative of one of the
great American monthlies, who invited him
to submit contributions of the same kind.
There is an example of Brown's unpractical-
ness in the fact that, in response, he sent a
poem instead of a story. The poem was
not accepted, and he made no further effort
to take advantage of the opportunity offered
to him. In 1899, also, Brown undertook
regular employment as sub-editor as well

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 119

as contributor to Sandow's Magazine. He
was responsible for several articles that
appeared in its columns on such subjects
as "Walt Whitman," "The Strong Man in
Dumas's Fiction," " The Strength of Porthos,"
and the like.

The incidents that we have just quoted
go to show that Brown could have found
a wide market for the fruit of his journalistic
efforts •; but, as Mr. Charles Whibley has said,
" though from the first he depended upon
his pen for support, he never confused
literature and journalism. Journalism was
to him a trade to be quietly followed
for the profit it might bring. He took
no more pride than that of the honest
craftsman in what he wrote for the papers,
and he did not desire, like the most of
his colleagues, to win fame for his journey
work."

120 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

On September 28th, 1897, Brown's father
died. It is interesting to know that in
discussing the terms of his will with an
intimate friend shortly before his death,
and before, as yet, George Brown had
achieved any marked success in his calling,
the old man said : " I'm not going to leave
anything to George. I gave him a good
education, and spent more on him than I
shall be able to leave to each of the girls.
I saw there was something in him ; he
carries the fortune I have given him. He'll
make a mark some day."

In the course of an article in The Bookman,
reprinted in the present volume, by his kind
permission, Mr. Andrew Melrose has given
the story of a literary partnership into
which Brown entered with two friends, some
time after he came to London. Of the
more intimate side of the relations of

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 121

" The Triumvirate " Mr. Melrose has told
all that it is expedient to tell. But some
account of the more public manifestations
of this brotherhood of three may be of
biographical value.

An interest in literature as literature was
the original bond of sympathy and union,
and this found expression in other ways
than mere discussion. A firm of publishers
and literary agents was started, and its
concerns cost Brown many an anxious
thought, and stimulated him to formulate
half a dozen projects for the production of
"essential stuff." Some of these came off,
and some did not. He wrote, for instance,
a shilling volume entitled " Famous Fighting
Regiments," under the pen-name of " George
Hood," and this was duly published. He
projected, but never carried into execution,
a scheme for the publication of inexpensive

122 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

but tasteful reprints of such classics as
Lamb's " Tales from Shakespeare," desider-
ating for each of these volumes the addition
of distinctive and illuminative introductions —
" one packed and pregnant paragraph would
do the trick." He projected a translation of
the " Lettres d'un Innocent " by Dreyfus, but
that, too, never appeared. He projected—
and would that he had gone on with the
project ! — " A Guide to the Burns Country,"
written " with a literary flavour," and rilled
with much local anecdote and reminiscences
of interesting literary figures who have been
in the Burns country. He suggested the
commissioning of a book upon a subject
relating to the " intensification " of the
British Empire. He desiderated that this
should be written with the informing idea
of a lofty conception of the British {Empire
as a great intellectual and material force;

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 123

and that the writing must be touched with
a noble emotion for the Empire, and be
vivid and stirring, so as to " get home." The
work should be illuminated by a large and
generous philosophy. Its topics should not
be discussed meanly, as subjects entirely
by themselves, but should be related to first
principles and pregnant generalisations on
life and history, above them and subtending
them. By this treatment he designed to
secure depth, and richness, and philosophy,
and, consequently, a permanent value for
the book.

From our point of view, perhaps the most
important manifestation of " The Trium-
virate " was the biographical study of
Mr. Kruger. The receipt of certain ex-
clusive matter, as journalists would call it,
suggested the idea of a " Life " of Mr. Kruger.
It was agreed that " George Douglas " and

124 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

another of " The Triumvirate " should write
and work in collaboration, and a commission
was secured from a morning newspaper, who
purchased the book and serial rights for a
round sum down. The crux was that the
work was wanted at once, for serial issue
in the feuilleton of the paper. Of the col-
laborators, Brown alone could command the
time and detachment necessary, and in the
end he wrote the whole book, only discussing
the subject-matter in sections with his col-
laborator, as the work progressed.

Although the author found his "saliences"
ham-strung by the squeamish press correc-
tions of an editor over careful for the sus-
ceptibilities of his readers, the " Kruger "
still possesses vital interest as a biographical
study of a man whose psychal phenomena
have puzzled many people. Brown was so
thorough-going an Imperialist that he had

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 125

no fear of being branded as a pro-Boer,
and spoke quite recently of having the
work brought out in book form.

We fear that these earlier years in London
brought for Brown little less financial struggle
than he had already experienced during his
student days. Putting everything together,
journalism and minor literary work afforded
him a sufficient average income to tide
him over the immediate necessities of life.
This quite satisfied him ; but owing to the
irregularity of payment for his work, he
was often without a penny or a postage
stamp in his pocket. When he had money,
it was ever at the service of those whose
need was, for the moment, more urgent than
his own. An old friend, who had known
him from his earliest years, " often told him
that he would never make money, as he
always gave away what he had." During

126 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

the period dealt with in the present chapter,
most of Brown's acquaintances, realising
that he had been away from Oxford for
a number of years, and was still " loafing "
without any settled position, and without
ever having done anything to justify him-
self, had a feeling that he was not going
to " come off." For many such people he
was always " poor Brown."

Pressure of circumstances notwithstand-
ing, Brown's bright nature rose above all
obstacles. " He literally bubbled over with
cheerfulness. He was the life and soul of
a company." He could subscribe his letters
with such facetious pen-names as " Goggles,"
"Giglamps," or "The Budding Author."
And yet there was a certain impatience
and even irritability in his temperament ;
he inherited his father's volcanic temper.
He could not bear restraint of any kind,

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 127

and, for instance, he hated to be questioned
as to where he had been or what he had
been doing.

A hard life, with an element of retarded
success in it, sometimes makes a man
misanthropic. But Brown's heart throbbed
with a full sympathy, and he entered into
the joys and sorrows of others in a most
unaffected manner. " Dreyfus," he once
said, " is a man of very strong family
affection — did you see the telegram of
yesterday, addressed to his wife ? ' I await
with joy the moment of kissing you.' What
a moment it will be to the two ! He used
to write to his little boy to be sure to teach
his baby sister how to build ' those card
houses which you and I built together, and
which used to come tumbling down so
gloriously.' " That touch in itself, he con-
tinued, was enough to show that Dreyfus

128 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

had a kind and simple heart. Brown himself
was greatly interested in children. He did
not play with them, but their little ways
did not bore him, and they were always
fond of him.

Even when he contemplated his fellow-
creatures in the mass, Brown's outlook was
optimistic and gentle. While he stayed
at Bayswater, for instance, he took pleasure
in observing women of the middle class,
as they moved about, doing their daily
shopping. They suggested to him the idea
of cheerful family circles — of affectionate
daughters and strapping sons. He was
always on the watch for the vision of true
homes, and maintained that the world was
much better than people thought it. One
of his intimates puts it : —

" One could almost imagine two Browns
— the country Brown and the town Brown.

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 129

The town Brown knew nothing of women.
They were an unexplored land to him,
but the country Brown knew something of
womanhood, as represented by the healthy
country lass — the incarnation of mother-
hood to come — placid, pure, strong to suffer,
and content to grant man his superiority."

Before passing from the subject of Brown's
attitude to his fellows, we may note that
there was a certain intense quality in the
intimacy he sought and gave when he had
taken a friend to his heart. One writes
of " the long talk by the firelight, the dogs
curled up around us. Every now and then
his hand would be stretched out and grasp
mine, and his somewhat harsh voice would
become tender, as he said : ' It's great ;
it's great,' or, ' It's worth everything else.' "

Bachelor life in London depends very
much upon the landlady for its comfort.

9

130 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

" During Brown's London life, he had a
varied experience of landladies, an ex-
perience that would take a lot of beating,
but they all seem to have treated him
well, according to their lights. His peasant
life in Scotland had made him familiar with
all sides of household work, and he was
able to talk to them interestedly and sym-
pathetically of their troubles. While some
stood in awe of him, they were all genuinely
sorry when he left." A contributor to a
Scottish periodical tells of a call at Brown's
lodgings in London. Brown was absent,
but the visitor "got into conversation with
his landlady, and she was literally brimming
over with his praises. She said that the
like of him never sat at a landlady's table —
so cheery, so considerate, and so much of
a gentleman."

London, as London, made a distinct appeal

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 131

to Brown. He "felt the call of London
tingling through his veins." (< Many a time,"
writes Mr. Howard Spicer, " after a glorious
day of perfect contentment in the woods
and the meadows, on gaining once again
the top of a 'bus, his eyes have lighted up,
the dull roar of the traffic coming as music
to him as he would exclaim : * Ah, there is
only one place in the world to live in ! "
He took a special delight in the public
parks. He knew of spots of absolute se-
clusion, green glades with no fear of
disturbance — and all around the roar of
London. He would wander there at all
hours of the day and night, and he once
mentioned incidentally that one night he
had jumped into the Regent's Park Canal,
at twelve o'clock, in the effort to rescue a
young girl who had thrown herself into the
water with suicidal purpose.

132 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

In these years, Brown's journalistic and
other occupations were all kept subordinate
to one principal purpose in life — "he kept
steadily in view his fixed determination to
do well in literature." " He was always a
sedulous reader," Mr. Whibley has told us.
" ' I can read anything I ever came across,'
he said, * except algebra, the " Elements of
Logic," and the speeches of the late Mr.
Gladstone.' Thus, in Lord Bacon's phrase,
he became 'a full man.' But, above all, he
husbanded his talent. He did not fritter
away his abilities in temporary and uncon-
genial toil. Though he possessed great
energy of mind, he was at the same time a
man of stern restraint. There was scarcely
a subject upon which he did not hold a
headstrong opinion, and, while in talk he
would adorn the opinion with many em-
broideries, he never wished to dissipate his

•

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 133

energies by giving it expression in print.
In other words, he was an artist, not a
prophet. He preferred fitting himself for
the real calling of letters to improving
the taste or shaping the morals of his
contemporaries."

Brown was ever ready to discuss the
essentials of literature with those who were
of like tastes. Of every vital book he de-
manded that it should abound in saliences,
things that "leap at you from out the
page." He laid great stress, too, upon an
author's need to possess the power of
automatic visualisation. He maintained that
it was impossible to write essential stuff
without the writer's having seen what he
sought to describe. His main theory was
that in novels (and it should be remembered
that his expressed ambition, from the be-
ginning, was to be a novelist) the characters

134 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

should be true to life. Notwithstanding this,
he could enjoy pure romance, and spoke,
for instance, of Maurice Hewlett's " Forest
Lovers " with enthusiasm. He laid it down
as a fundamental principle that, both in
the drama represented on the stage and in
that depicted in novels, characters should
explain themselves in their actions, and
not by explanatory "jawing."

Another article of Brown's literary creed
was that before one can write the big
book one must have the big thought ; and
he conceived that the big thought was
inseparable from the spiritual conception
of life and a belief in eternity. It is only
when you get into the region of eternity
that the " bands of circumstance " and the
limitations of life are lost, and everything
falls into proper and relative place, he might
have put it. His definition of style had

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 135

the same idea. Great style he defined as
" supernal thought, supernally expressed."
There could be no great style without the
great thought first.

In dealing with Brown's high ideal, it is
perhaps pertinent to speak of his religion.
That was decidedly of a pantheistic order.
The idea of the personality of God may
not have been objectionable to him, but the
idea of God's immanence, in nature especially,
had a fascination for him. As a matter of
fact, he spoke commonly of certain emotions
which nature's manifestations arouse as
" physical pantheism."

Of Brown's literary method it may be
said that he was an inveterate phrasemaker.
He always carried a notebook, and kept
constant record of phrases and ideas that
occurred to him. His methods of work
were irregular in the extreme. He would

136 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

not tie himself down to certain hours of
work. He spent days and even weeks, in
the summer, loafing in the London parks,
doing absolutely nothing, so far as direct
work was concerned. But although a loafer,
he .was not a mooner. He could not lie
for a day on the hillside with a perfectly
vacuous mind. He was constantly thinking
on definite subjects. Often, after a day of
loafing of this kind, he would come in at
night to see a friend, and, almost without
fail, his conversation would have some re-
lation to a train of thought that had been
started, or that he had been following that
day, or on some other day. Every idea that
came to Brown was surveyed by him with
intellectual curiosity. He developed it into
a theory. When he had got the theory
complete, he put it down in his notebook.
In 1901 Brown took it into his head to

JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 137

learn Italian, and within a month he was
able to read an Italian novel. It is not
known what his immediate incentive was.
It could hardly have been foreign travel, for
he only crossed the Channel twice, and his
absences on the Continent did not extend
beyond a grand total of five weeks. He
did, however, occasionally express a hazy
ambition to reside in Italy.

In 1899, under the pseudonym of
"Kennedy King," Brown published his first
work of fiction, a boys' book entitled " Love
and a Sword." Written as a pot-boiler and
to order, it attracted no notice, and its
author evidently desired that it should be
reckoned among his immature essays when
he adopted his later pen-name of "George
Douglas," in giving "The House with the
Green Shutters" to the world. The ex-
istence of the earlier book has been made

138 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

public, however, and it is only right to record
the fact here, in passing.

Having described Brown's journalistic
and minor literary work, as well as his
outlook upon life and literature in general,
we proceed to some account of the novel
by which he attained fame and distinction
with meteoric suddenness.

"The House with the Green
Shutters "

CHAPTER VI

"THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN
SHUTTERS "

TV /T ANY months before it appeared in
public, Brown read over the original
" House with the Green Shutters " to two
friends. At that time the story would run
to about twenty thousand words. Both his
friends were strongly of opinion that there
were in the story the potential plot and
material for a proper novel. Upon their
advice he withheld it from publication in its
original form, and set to work to develop
it. Gourlay and the Deacon were among
the characters from the outset, and the plot
141

142 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

was never much changed. He worked at
his book very leisurely, and from time to
time reported progress to his friends,
although he declined to accept any criticism
— even of its title, which was thought un-
suited to anything but a short story.

With a dedication to his old schoolmaster
and lifelong friend, Mr. William Maybin,
rector of the Ayr Academy, the book was
published in Great Britain in October, 1901,
and in America by Messrs. M'Clure, for whom
it had been read by Mr. Charles Whibley.

By this time, most people are familiar
with the plot of the novel. It depicts a
small rural community in Scotland, in which
John Gourlay, " a resolute dullard," the
dominant character in the book, has suc-
ceeded in aggrandising himself by riding
rough-shod over his neighbours, overreaching
them in unscrupulous fashion, and " downing "

"THE HOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS" 143

every one who stands between him and any
enterprise from which he can hope to add
even a few pounds to his pile of ill-gotten
gain. He is the best-hated man in a place
where all are good haters. Nemesis ulti-
mately overtakes him. A newcomer es-
tablishes a rival business, and, by methods
as reprehensible as those of Gourlay, and
pursued with a cunning which Gourlay does
not possess, gradually ruins him. Disap-
pointed in his ambitions, and grim in his
determination to play the game, he is driven
in on his family, and finds no comfort in
the last ditch. His wife is a " feckless "
creature, and the two children whom she
has borne him are weaklings. The daughter
is " thowless," and far gone in consumption ;
the son is destitute of moral self-control, and
has become a nervous wreck and a crapulous
drunkard. From beginning to end, Gourlay

144 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

has a manner of speech that bites like
vitriol. In the last phase, he baits his
drunken son— who has run through a mint
of money at college and then been igno-
miniously expelled for drunken insubordina-
tion— until his boy turns on him and murders
him. The criminal cause of John Gourlay's
death is concealed by his wife and daughter.
But, before many days have expired, the
murderer commits suicide, with the tacit
consent of his mother ; and finally, by the
double suicide of mother and daughter, the
name of Gourlay is cut off. The most
gruesome feature of the whole tragic record
is that there is not a soul in Barbie to
lament its sequent disasters. The malignant
village gossips and " bodies " only giggle and
tee-hee as they note each stage in the
collapse of John Gourlay's house of cards :
it is a black terrible story.

"THE HOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS" 145

The present writer does not find it
necessary to make any attempt at criticism
of the book, but he offers a few notes
upon the origins of the author's materials.
With some success, people have endeavoured
to localise the scenes in the story, and to
identify the characters ; but part of the
skill of the novelist has lain in the con-
summate manner in which he has constructed
places and characters from material derived
from very various sources.

There is no such community of lost souls
and incarnate fiends as was Barbie, but
Brown once acknowledged that the external
features of the place were made up of a
combination of New Cumnock, Sanquhar,
and Ochiltree ; while, for the name itself,
it may be suggested that he adopted a
modification of the name of his uncle's
college in Paris.

10

146 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

In the same way, Brown drew upon an
extensive and intimate knowledge of Scots
south-country people, without reproducing
any of them with photographic accuracy.
In some features, the character of Gourlay
corresponds with that of a man who was
at one time called the "village king" of
Ochiltree ; but in many respects it does
not correspond with the story concerning
this person, and there have been other
individuals who possessed one or more of
Gourlay's unenviable idiosyncrasies. So it
is with all the characters. The power of
the book lies partly in the fact that, up
and down Scotland, people recognise the
savage qualities of Barbie as existent in
this or the other country town of whose
inner life they happen to have some familiar
knowledge.

For the emphatic vocabularies of his

"THE HOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS" 147

characters, Brown drew largely upon that of
his own father. Such words as "splurge,"
"browdened," "bluff," "spume and surge,"
such phrases as "a fuff in the pan," and
" a child on the brisket," are recognised
as having been distinctively Drumsmudden's,
while the ejaculation " I'll gar your brains
jaup red to the heavens" was a verbatim
quotation from one of his outbursts of verbal
wrath. In the same way an individual who
used the irritating phrase, " Maybe, I
dare say," with wearisome iteration, was an
inhabitant of Ochiltree.

The weak spots which have most pro-
voked unfavourable criticism of the book
on the part of the reviewers and others
are the impossibility of Barbie in all its
blackness, the shaky tectonics incident to
the introduction of awkward and arid
patches of moralising commentary — the very

148 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

"jawing" that Brown himself condemned
when he discussed the theory of novel-
writing — and the anachronism of a good
deal of the slang used by the characters.
In all other respects, " The House with the
Green Shutters" has won unstinted praise
for its author. The vivid word-painting of
scenes and scenery, the convincing and
distinctive delineation of character, and the
dramatic intensity and impetus of the
narrative have marked the book as one
that stands apart from the common crowd
of novels, and takes a foremost place among
the fiction of artistic quality.

The author was quite well aware of the
ferocity of his book. More than once, while
he was still writing it, he expressed a fear
that the story was taking too strong a hold
upon him. a It's becoming terribly brutal,"
he would say. " People will get a false

"THE HOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS" 149

impression of my point of view. I wonder
if it's not a shame to write such a savage
book ? " Many hailed Brown's novel as
a shrewd blow at the " Kailyard School."
" I love the book for just this, it sticks
the Kailyarders like pigs," says Professor
Raleigh, for instance. The " Kailyard
School " made the Scots appear as a race
of sentimentalists, and men of deep and
general piety, and indirectly Brown's book
did give the lie to this one-sided present-
ment ; but the real aim of its savage and
grim picture of Scottish life and character
was somewhat different. This aim has
been put very tersely by a correspondent
of the Ayr Advertiser, who writes on the
matter from the intimate point of view.
He says : —

"It was not written because he hated the
Kailyard School, though all cheap pathos

150 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

was most distasteful to him ; not because
he had a ' distorted view of humanity,' as
I have seen it said somewhere ; not because
his outlook on life was gloomy. He viewed
life with absolutely hopeful eyes, seeing
good in everything and every one, though
never blind to flaws. And ' The House
with the Green Shutters ' was written as
it was, partly because he considered the
ordinary cut-and-dried style of fiction wrong
— that a book should be a living thing, not
a mechanism, stiffly moving and hampered
by the garments of convention ; he wrote
the end first, and became enamoured of
his figures— and, alas! he knew that in
some lives there is an inevitableness of
disaster. These are some reasons, and in
his own words : ' I wrote it so cruelly,
because I hate the cruel scandal that mis-
interprets poor human beings. I'd rather

"THE HOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS » i$t

have the sinner at all times than the
man who mocks at his infirmity.' And
surely he did show, in telling fashion,
the ghastliness of lives without saving
charity. The book hurts but is alive —
vibrant, gruesome, cruel — but clever, the
characters written from inside ; therefore it
is more than mere talent."

At first the book took the market slowly,
and we were content that it should achieve
at least a succes destime. Even the Southron
reviewers, to whom the Doric Scots was
an almost impassable barrier, were not
content to class it as one more Kailyard
book and throw it aside ; but The Glasgow
Herald was the first to detect the true
keynote, and appraised the book at some-
thing like its value. The people most
qualified to judge of the worth of an artistic
bit of work are not numerous items in the

i§2 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

crowd who anxiously await the newest
novel ; but by-and-by an appreciative re-
view by Mr. Andrew Lang brought this
book within the purview of the inner circle,
and then it began to go off more briskly.
Not to make too long a story of that
which is within the knowledge of every-
body, " The House with the Green Shutters "
became the most talked of book in literary
circles, both in this country and in America ;
later, the provincial papers heard of it, and
many who had ignored their first review copies
had to write ignominiously for second copies
to enable them to swell the chorus of praise.
Last of all, the great public that waits for
the newest and the most sensational matter
of interest got wind of the book, and began
to demand it at the libraries. The total
result was that, of the combined British and
American editions, some twenty thousand

MOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS" 153

copies were sold within the year — a good
record for a first book.

Brown watched all these developments
with anxious interest, and reported progress
to his friends almost daily at first, while
they carefully preserved reviews and news-
paper paragraphs that might serve to in-
dicate to him that the book would go.

After a time, fame came knocking at
Brown's door. He suffered for a while from
the attentions of society lion-hunters ; and
he rather seemed to enjoy the novelty,
although he smiled at it. A leading authors'
agent, who gives out that he never takes
up any author until he has secured a success,
made two or three applications for Brown's
patronage, and is said to have actually hawked
his next MS. as a speculation. Several
of the leading publishers also intimated to
him that they would be only too pleased

154 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

to entertain proposals for the publication
of his next novel. But the chief pleasure
that Brown's success brought to him was
derived from the skilled appreciation of the
merit of his work, vouchsafed by more
than one distinguished man of letters to
whom previously he had been an utter
stranger.

George Douglas, Novelist

CHAPTER VII
GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST

nr^HE success of his novel justified
Brown in his having devoted to the
drudgery of literature, on the humbler side
of journalism, the six years that had elapsed
since he had left college, and rehabilitated
him in the respect and consideration of
his friends in Ayrshire. These hastened
to offer him their congratulations, and
asked him to accept the office of chairman
at the annual reunion of " Ochiltronians "
on Hogmanay night — New Year's Eve. He
accepted the honour, and made opportunity
of his visit to Scotland for the occasion
157

158 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

to put himself in touch with a number of
his former friends, and to make the acquaint-
ance of a number of Scottish journalists
and men of letters to whom his book had
revealed him.

Mr. Neil Munro has given the public
the benefit of his impressions of Brown
as he saw him at this time :— -

"He was, to all appearances, strong,
athletic even — buoyant, active, in love with
life and his work, although he took his
pleasures and his labours alike temperately.
I had expected something of the swell
with the ' Oxford manner ' (which the
peasant catches by Isis as readily as does
the peer's son), and found instead a typical
Ayrshire man who might, but for his
spectacles and an occasional flight of fancy
or scholarship in his speech, have been a
young farmer. I had looked for a man

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 159

somewhat bitter, too, a cynic, a pessimist,
somewhat contemptuous of the country he
came from, as one might well be who wrote
' The House with the Green Shutters ' ;
and ten minutes' conversation revealed him
for a boyish, cheerful, laughing, whimsical
person, well enough pleased with the world
as he found it, tolerant to a fault, and as
Scots in sympathies and spirit, as well as
in speech (when he let himself go), as if
he had never left Ochiltree."

The people of Ochiltree, among whom
he had been brought up, were proud of
"Geordie Broon," for he reflected glory
upon the little community and the district
of Kyle ; and yet they were " just a trifle
afraid of him, as one who might conceivably
enshrine them in one of these shady pictures
of Scottish life that they fully expected him
to portray in the days that were to come."

160 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

The Ochiltree reunion is a somewhat
unique annual gathering of those who have,
at one time or another, been schoolfellows
in the village school, and, on the occasion
upon which Brown presided, this function
was celebrating its fortieth anniversary.
From a contemporary account we get some
idea of the event of the evening — the
chairman's address : " As he addressed
them, he certainly gave the audience pause.
He did not draw forth the customary roll
of MS. and read therefrom ; but, like
Professor Blackie, he stood up, stuck his
hands deep into his pockets, and launched
forth into the broadest of Lowland Doric —
Doric was the term he himself used — * Steek
the door, I canna talk wi' an open door.'
Soon he dropped into verse celebrating the
parish and the occasion, then he followed
up with an imaginary 'crack' with the

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 161

Burnock Water. It was not a laboured or
sustained speech, but its homeliness was
studded with unexpected gems that blazed
through it like lightning athwart a wintry
sky. Occasionally he would turn round to
his right-hand supporter— a sheep farmer,
great in repartee — and say, * Will I stop,
'Cloigh ? ' But, with all his raciness of the
soil on which he stood, he bore the marks
of the distinction which as a young man
of thirty-two he has already attained in
scholarship and authorship."

In a rhymed effusion prepared for the
occasion, and recited as part of his speech
Brown sang the praise of " Auld Ochiltree,"
her two rivers, and her men. Several of his
local friends and acquaintances—" 'Cloigh,"
« The Reidston Lindsays," " Wullie Wylie,"
"Geordie Miller," and " Whustlin' Davie"
— were touched off with humour and

ii

162 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

kindliness ; and, altogether, the latest
" Ochiltronian " to " arrive " showed no dis-
position to forget the companions and friends
of his boyhood's days, but seemed anxious
rather to share his glory with his birthplace
and the inhabitants thereof.

To-day, the passage in Brown's speech
that appears to have remained most vividly
in the memories of those who were present
is that in which be held converse with the
stream that flows through the lower part
of the village. The dialogue was mainly
concerned with the personalities of people
who had at one time or other been resident
in the village ; and it was brought to a
close by an imaginary remark on the part
of the stream, to the effect that it must
hurry on to join the River Lugar, and
would give it " a devil of a dunt " when
it reached it.

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 163

While at Ochiltree, Brown was the guest
of Mr. David Wilson, tenant in Auchencloigh,
who, like his neighbours, was better known
by the name of his farm, " 'Cloigh."

In the course of a humorous epistle,
addressed to Mr, Wilson some time after
he had returned to England, Brown told
of the well-being of "the other 'Cloigh,"
a collie dog which he had received as a
present. " He is very browdened on his
new maister," he wrote. " He comes scartin'
at my door every morning before I'm up,
and bowghs, * Hey, are ye waukin', Geordie ? '
My old housekeeper says : ' W'y, sir, 'e be
wise enough to be a Christian.' " Thus, in
genial and unspoiled fashion, Brown easily
resumed his intercourse with the friends of
his boyhood, and, as easily, the rich Doric
which they best understood as the medium
of familiar talk. Glasgow, and Oxford, and

164 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

"The House with the Green Shutters"
notwithstanding, he was still " Geordie
Broon " to the humblest of his early friends
and associates.

The young novelist returned to his work
after this triumphal tour, settling down in
a furnished cottage at Haslemere in Surrey,
the well-known country resort of London
men of letters. He occupied the "hut"
alone, but his landlady came in daily at
appointed hours, for the purpose of cooking
and serving his food, and of supplying other
domestic requirements. He rather relished
the seclusion which the style of life afforded
him.

Subscribing himself " The Eremite," he
wrote one letter to his friend Mr. Melrose,

in the course of which he said : " and

came down to see me on Sunday, and though
I like them well, it took me a day to get

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 165

back to my solitary rut again. The recluse
doesn't like his seclusion broken in on,
unless it be by Melrose, or somebody of
the sort — and then, you see, Melrose won't
come to see him."

Country scenery and country life Brown
absolutely loved. For one thing, they
supplied him with a homelike environment.
" He loved to talk to the old gaffers, as if
he were one of them ; telling them how
he had worked on a farm, and knew the
routine of their daily toil, and how he loved
the clean brown earth, and, sans shoes, sans
hat, had wooed it in an old shirt and a pair
of trousers ! "

Natural scenery, too, supplied him with
inspiration. One of his friends retains a
vivid recollection of the description which
he gave of a moonlit night that had followed
upon a wild, stormy day at Haslemere :

i66 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

" After being confined to the house all day
he had gone out at eleven o'clock at night.
* A great suave, soft-blowing wind was
shepherding vast flocks of white clouds '
across the sky. The wind was fierce in its
vehemence, but ' soft as a baby's cheek ' to
the touch. The scudding clouds were un-
usually noticeable. At one moment they
' swept forward in great battalions, heaped
and piled and yet hurrying ' ; a moment
later they * streamed across the heavens like
a scattered army.' As they crossed the
broad moon, great black shadows scurried
along the white roads, reminding the gazer
of the fleeting shadows of an April day.
The glory of the night was intensified by
the sense of absolute loneliness ; all the
rest of the world was abed, the wide moor
was his in sole possession. The experience
filled Brown's heart with satisfaction, not, he

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 167

said, a ' shouting happiness,' but a ' riotous
gladness.' He felt 'half drunk with the
mere delight of living.' At midnight he
moved homewards, and yet was slow to go
indoors. The wind still behaved like a
* jovial ruffian,' still retained its velvet
quality. But by that time the big white
moon had reached the zenith, and had the
sky to herself. ' The white battalions of
heaven had swept on,' the vast dome seemed
pure with a clean-washed purity."

Brown surely possessed what Walter
Bagehot defines as one of the essentials of
genius, " an experiencing nature." The
facts of nature, the drama of human life
interested him ; he was sensible of their
charms ; what other men saw but to for-
get, he appropriated for himself. He met
Bagehot's condition, " The materials for
the creative faculty must be provided by

i68 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

the receptive faculty. Before a man can
imagine what will seem to be realities, he
must be familiar with what are realities."

The invention of his second novel was
now Brown's chief task. This was to be
a love story, a romance of the days of
Cromwell, and into it he was resolved to
put the tender side of his nature. He
had also conceived the idea of a plot for
a third novel. This was to be called " The
Incompatibles," and there is suggestion in
the mere title that he contemplated a
further study of naked truth, from the
artistic point of view, somewhat on the
lines of " The House with the Green
Shutters."

By fits and starts, too, Brown was pulling
into final shape a study of " Hamlet " upon
which he had worked with loving care for
a number of years. Drama in general had

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 169

a great attraction for him, and he had a
definite intention to try his hand at play-
writing. He studied plays by various
playwrights very carefully. He side-marked
and annotated copies in his hand, and even
made alterations on them, with a view to
improvement of plot or handling.

Brown had little patience in witnessing
the performance of plays. The artifice of the
stage was too transparent for him. But
the works of dramatists and poets were
among his staple literature. Shakespeare's
words he made his own. Stephen Phillips
he hailed as a true and strong poet. He
was especially enthusiastic over " Paolo and
Francesca," frequently quoting such lines
as —

She sits alone among great roses.
He thought that lines like this were

170 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

worthy of Milton, and of Milton he was a
great lover. "Lycidas" he never tired of
repeating, when his friends would listen ;
and in his talk he revealed an intimacy
with all Milton's minor poems. Browning,
too, was among his favourites. Familiar
with his finest poems, Brown quoted from
them largely in the course of ordinary
conversation. A paper upon the inner
meaning of Browning's poetry was one of
the most distinctive of his contributions to
the symposiums of the Arnold.

Amid his other studies and pursuits
Brown did not miss modern books on topics
that interested him. It is perhaps worth
mentioning that he read Mr. T. W. H.
Crosland's " Unspeakable Scot," in which
a chapter is devoted to "Barbie." He
thought that the savagery of this book was
partly assumed for purposes of humour, but

GEORGE DOUGLAS, NOVELIST 171

that there was "a great deal of bitter truth
in it, bitterly expressed." While he con-
fessed that he enjoyed it, he expressed the
belief that it would not sell. " I devoutly
hope," he said, " that no Scottish fool will
write to the papers protesting against it,
for that is the very thing that Crosland
wants."

From the immediately preceding pages,
it will be observed that life at Haslemere
was far from monotonous. There was a
considerable and varied programme of work
to be overtaken ; and there was variety of
profitable recreation besides. Brown's visits
to town were infrequent, and most irregular
in their occurrence, and he always seemed
to be glad to return to his " hut," and to
solitude.

Dead ere his Prime

173

CHAPTER VIII

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME

T N the course of the previous pages of
the present sketch, we have more than
once referred to Brown's splendid physique.
Sprung from an ancestry closely associated
with the hardy but healthy labour of those
who till the soil, he possessed a well-knit
frame ; and this had been developed during
his boyhood, in circumstances which gave
him sufficient scope for healthy exercise,
without recourse to the artificial aid of
athletics. "If ever a man was built for a
long life, it was Brown," Mr. Robert Barr
has said.

175

176 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

There was one weak spot in Brown's
constitution, and that, as with Carlyle, was
his liver. Throughout his University career,
and especially in the unsuitable climate of
Oxford, he had much ado to stimulate his
jecoric functions, and in London and at
Haslemere he did not entirely escape. For
many of us it requires no stretch of
imagination to picture the limitations from
which his work must have suffered in con-
sequence. His letters supply ample con-
firmation. For example, in November, 1901,
he told of "liver and stomach bothers," of
which he had only got rid by walking and
diet.

Some months later, he wrote again that
he was suffering from appalling lethargy of
mind and body, "liver, not laziness." He
could idle away existence in a gross and
heavy dream, and had to pinch himself

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 177

angrily, in order to keep his mind fixed
on his work.

Even his morbid physical sensations were
of interest to the young novelist. He talked
of making a study of the lethargic character ;
an incidental sketch, rather. He thought
that there was a distinct place for incidental
psychological sketches in a novel. The
novelist was sometimes very familiar with
significant traits which, nevertheless, were
hardly big enough to make the framework
of a whole novel ; but if he would work them
in as features of his minor characters, these
would impress by their truth and (if well
handled) add to a full conviction of the
whole. Balzac, Brown noted, had done this
with the character of La Fosseuse in " The
Country Doctor."

Brown made one or two excursions to
Scotland after his triumphal visit, but his

12

178 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

appearances in London were infrequent and
brief. His habits being those of a solitary
man, no concern was felt by his friends when
weeks and even months passed without any
letter from him. Certainly the idea of
illness was the last thing that would have
occurred to any of them, although Brown
had had one or two illnesses which had
necessitated his lying in bed for a few days.

On Monday, August 25th, Brown came
to London, not this time with eager COIT-
fidence and anticipation of enjoying himself
with his friends, but as a sick man. A
few days before, one of his hepatic attacks
had driven him to athletic exercises of a
violent kind. There was consciousness of
a lesion as a result of his violence. A slight
spitting of blood and an irritating cough
ensued ; but, true to his method, he resolved
to fight it down, and walked, smoked, and

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 179

worked as usual. The symptoms, instead
of lessening, grew worse. On the Sunday
night he had no sleep, and on the Monday,
by the advice of a neighbour, he made the
visit to town to consult a medical man.

When he came to the house of his friend,
Mr. Melrose, at Highgate, Brown tried to
comport himself bravely. With the greatest
difficulty able to speak, his first words on
entering the house were : " Don't be alarmed ;
I look bad, but there is nothing seriously
wrong with me." Alarming as his appear-
ance was, his friends were only too glad to
believe his reassuring protest. Two hours
before, he had been examined by a West
End physician, who had prescribed simple
remedies, and declared that his patient
would be all right in a day or two.

That night a little relief was obtained,
and Brown sat talking of books and literary

i8o GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

topics until one o'clock in the morning.
On the Tuesday morning, his friend, going
cheerfully into his room, was distressed to
find that he had never been in bed. The
relief of the previous night had been but
temporary, and his symptoms were as bad
as ever. A medical man who visited him
the same day declared him to be suffering
from severe congestion of the throat, but
not dangerously ill.

That night was spent as the preceding
night had been ; and, while his words
were brave, there was manifested a growing
uneasiness on Brown's part. Usually a very
self-reliant man, he now showed a disinclina-
tion to be left alone, and seemed grateful
for the constant attention of his friends.
Yet he steadily refused to allow other
friends to be summoned, his excuse being :
" I'm not seriously ill, you know ; painful.

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 181

but not dangerous." By this time, however,
Mr. Melrose was thoroughly alarmed, and
another physician was called — one who had
attended Brown in the same household a
year before, and to whom he was warmly
attached. The medical diagnosis was
rendered extremely difficult by Brown's
distress, and the physician confessed him-
self puzzled. He, in common with his con-
freres, however, declared that there was no
immediate danger ; and so Brown's friends
took heart again, and hoped for the best.

All this time Brown had been sitting up.
He found himself easier so, and disliked
the idea of going to bed ; but a nurse had
been summoned that night, and she insisted,
as a preliminary of her ministrations, that
he should take the position of a patient ;
in short, that he should be in bed. Some
premonition that he would never rise from

182 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

the couch may have been upon him, for he
strenuously opposed the idea, and only the
united persuasion of his friends made him
yield. From this time he grew worse.

In the middle of the night, Brown's
friends, Mr. Melrose and Mr. Howard Spicer,
who had gone to snatch a brief sleep, were
awakened hastily to receive the gravest
of news. The sick man's condition was
changing ; and, for the first time, the fear
that he was dying flashed over the minds
of the watchers. Medical assistance was at
once procured ; but, beyond the administer-
ing of oxygen to relieve the breathing,
and hypodermic injections to stimulate the
heart, nothing could be done. Gradually
Brown grew weaker, although he retained
consciousness. About nine in the morning
he said : " I ken you fine," in reply to
a question, and these were his last words.

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 183

Shortly afterwards he sank into a coma-
tose state, only broken by spasms. This
condition continued for about an hour ;
then, at ten o'clock on the morning of
Thursday, August 28th, the last struggle
came, and George Douglas Brown was no
more.

The obscurity of the disease that had
carried Brown off suggested the desirability
of a postmortem examination ; but, in de-
ference to the feelings of his fiance'e, the
idea was abandoned. The medical theory
is, however, that, although there was bad
congestion of the throat, and might have
been rupture of the trachea, a clot of blood
had travelled towards the heart and been
the actual cause of death.

The mortal remains of George Douglas
Brown were removed to Scotland, and on
Monday, September 1st, they were laid to

1 84 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

rest in the cemetery at Ayr, beside those
of his beloved mother.

At a time of sickness, or in a moment
of weldtschniertz. Brown wrote a poem, of
which the following two verses may fitly
close the story of his short and strenuous
life :-

Bury me deep on the Bennan Hill,

Where I may face the sea,
And sleep a lang and blessed sleep

Till Christ shall waken me.

Hid, the whaup may skirl in the lanely sky,

And the sun shine miles aroon,
And quately the stately ships gae by,

But I'll be sleeping soun.

The news of Brown's death came upon
his many friends and on the public with
inevitable suddenness, and the shock was
one of pained surprise. It was difficult
to believe that the strong and healthy and
joyous man, who had been moving about

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 185

among his fellows until ten days before,
was dead. It was difficult to realise that
speculations as to the possible development
of the undoubted genius of George Douglas
Brown had been put beyond the reach of
probation. It was difficult to accept with
resignation the removal of a young writer
who had given distinct promise of acquiring
fresh laurels for his Almae Matres, for
Scotland, and for English literature.

The chorus of regretful appreciation was
loud and sustained. Throughout the domains
of respectable journalism, critics and friends
hastened to lay their wreaths upon the
young Scotsman's tomb, to give voice to
their sense of loss, to mark the grave oi
their buried expectations. By way of
illustration, two representative quotations
may suffice.

Mr. Charles Whibley has recorded the

i86 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

opinion that the two qualities of freshness
and maturity are peculiarly characteristic of
" George Douglas," " who was at once a
sound scholar and an uncompromising realist."
" In the first place," continues Mr. Whibley,
" none but a scholar could have written
George Douglas's masterpiece, which is
composed severely upon the lines of a
Sophoclean tragedy. There is a real Nemesis
in the grandeur of the house ; there is a
true irony in the poker just the same size
as the rim of the fender, which is at once
Gourlay's pride and death. And the critics
who compared George Douglas to Balzac
would have been wiser had they remembered
the Greeks. The * bodies,' too, who com-
ment upon the action of the drama, and
constantly feed the fire of Gourlay's irritation,
are nothing more nor less than a Greek
chorus, and though the book is far more

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 187

complex in construction than the simple
model upon which it is built, its origin is
clearly demonstrated. In the second place,
the book is, like its author, perfectly sincere.
Its very savagery is imposed by a trans-
parently honest purpose. It is quite possible
that had not the school of the Kailyard
flourished, ' The House with the Green
Shutters/ would have taken on a different
shape. But once George Douglas was
resolved to tell the truth of his native
Scotland, he spared none of the facts. It is
true that there is a certain griminess in the
book, but it is not griminess for its own
sake. Mr. Douglas did not heap up
statistics, as M. Zola is wont to heap them
up, merely to astonish the Philistines. He
drew what he believed to be an accurate
picture, and he added no details which did
not illustrate the whole, or enhance the effect.

i88 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

Above all, he was an accomplished writer,
whose style was always sound and always
appropriate."

Of George Douglas Brown the man, one
who knew him with some degree of intimacy
has contributed the following appreciation
to the columns of the Ayr Advertiser: —

" He had a sane view of life. In spite of
many trials, he ever went on with a com-
pelling determination to grow in character —
and 'arrive.' He was modest, listened to
the opinions of others, had a winning way
of making commonplace things alive and in-
teresting, and held that in all men was the
Divine spark, however flickering and obscure.
He loved colour, space, flowers — all nature.
To George Douglas, child life was sacred,
and death but the gateway to full life. He
never failed a friend or harmed an enemy.
Fair, sane perception of humanity's ultimate

DEAD ERE HIS PRIME 189

happy perfection, contagious mirth, a pas-
sionate enthusiasm for the true in everything,
and boundless charity, allied to brilliant
brain power, made him a fascinating
personality. To those who really knew
him, he will never be dead. His friends,
who have lost the stimulus (except in
memory) of a bracing comradeship, some-
times wish he had never written a book,
that was held so mistakenly to mirror the
man, and was only a forerunner of greater
things that would have proved his genius —
in vastly different fashion — had he lived.
Intellect big, character bigger, George
Douglas Brown died as he lived, a fighter
plucky to the end."

In ordinary circumstances, it would have
fallen to the present writer to complete this
chapter with a summing up in appreciation

IQO GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

of the qualities and attributes of George
Douglas Brown's character and personality
and an estimate of the ultimate value and
place of his short life-work. But the
compilers of this volume have had the
good fortune to secure permission to reprint
the most intimate appreciation of George
Douglas Brown that has been given to the
public — that contributed by his friend, Mr.
Andrew Melrose, to the columns of The
Bookman — and the writer's task is completed
when he refers the reader to this reminiscent
sketch of a friendship and a notable
novel.

Reminiscences of a Friendship
and a Notable Novel

BY ANDREW MELROSE

191

GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

REMINISCENCES OF A FRIENDSHIP AND A
NOTABLE NOVEL

BY ANDREW MELROSE

I

T HAVE no means of fixing definitely

the date of my first meeting with George

Douglas Brown. Probably it was in the

late summer of 1898. Although I do not

remember the date of our first meeting, I

have a very vivid recollection of the meeting

itself, brought about by my friend Howard

Spicer. Mr. Spicer, who was at the time

editing Sandow's Magazine^ said that he

193 13

I94 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

wanted me to meet a new man he had got
hold of, who was, he thought, worth knowing.
And it was at the office vtSandow's Magazine,
in Arundel Street, that I first met Brown.
What impressed me most about him was
his intense seriousness, and a certain depre-
catory manner in giving his opinions on
literary matters. I never knew Brown as
anything else but a serious man, although
we had many happy days and royal nights
together ; but I speedily got to know that he
did not hold his opinions in a deprecatory
fashion. The manner I have indicated sprang
from a kind of shyness, a reluctance to make
himself fully known until he was sure of
perfect sympathy. Once assured of this,
no man could lay down the law with more
royal arrogance. It was one of the delights
of our subsequent relations that we both
exercised the right of stating our opinions

REMINISCENCES 195

as if they were ultimate ; and it was all
the better fun when it happened, as it often
did, that we took, or pretended to take,
diametrically opposite views.

I had a feeling in those days that Brown
was a lonely man. In the course of conver-
sation the names of various men, journalists
and others, cropped up, as indicating that
he had a fair number of friends. Of
only one man, however, did he speak with
the kind of familiarity which indicates in-
timacy. With Mr. Montagu Emanuel, an
old Balliol friend, he had constant and
close relations, and at his home he was
on a footing of familiar friendship. I
always thought of Brown as a man who
had many friends, but no real intimates ;
and he was the kind of man for whose
true development an intimate was essential.
This impression was confirmed by his

196 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

remarking, not once, but many times in the
course of our friendship, that he had revealed
himself to me more than to any other man
he had ever known.

II

It was not his modesty, however, although
that was delightful, nor his seriousness, which
was unusual, that drew me to him. It was
his intense interest in literature. One meets
with many men engaged in journalism, and
respectable enough as authors, who are
conventionally interested in literature as
" shop " ; but, so far as my own experience
goes, it is a rare thing to meet a man
who translates all life into literature, and
who can therefore talk of the subject at
all times with freshness and without repeat-
ing himself, and with the enthusiasm which

REMINISCENCES 197

indicates a man possessed by his subject.
Such a man was G. D. Brown, and therefore
the days and nights which we spent together
are among the most vivid of my recollections
as they were among the most enjoyable
experiences of my life. The biggest bout
of talking we ever had was three years ago,
when we spent a fortnight's holiday together,
and talked literature practically all the time,
every day, and half of every night. I hardly
need to explain that our conversation was not
mainly, nor in any great part, of published
books, new or old, but was chiefly concerned
with potential literature, the kind of books
that should be written, the fundamental
principles which must underlie all worthy
books, the pure aim and unworldly purpose
which should inform them.

As a matter of fact, although Brown, as a
reviewer of books and a publisher's reader,

198 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

read as much, and probably more, modern
literature than I, he had very little to say at
any time about new writers ; and his reading
of the older authors had by no means been
extensive. It was amazing, for instance, to
find that Carlyle was practically unknown
to him. Emerson he had never read, until
we read a volume of the essays together
on a holiday ; he declared that he had
never realised the beauty of Tennyson
until I read " Maud " to him ; and only the
day before he died he was looking for the
first time at " Mosses from an Old Manse,"
and saying he must read Hawthorne. He
said, and I have no doubt it was true, that
the majority of books had so little to give
him that he did not find it worth his while
to read them. If a man can write essential
stuff himself, why should he put off his
time reading the platitudes of the average

REMINISCENCES 199

book ? was a favourite question with him.
And no man ever felt surer that he had
something essential to say in books than
George Douglas Brown.

" The damning fault in most of the books
I read," he once wrote to me, " is that nothing
in them seems to leap at you from out the
pages. They are talky-talky, vapid. There

is an article in in which a man has

talked round about his subject for nine aim-
less pages. Now, easy and sleepy writing
may have a charm in a very few places ; but
most books, and certainly all books of the
kind we want, should be pregnant and
packed." This gives the key to his own
position as a novelist. He was a realist,
not because he loved sordid details and
the limning of ugly subjects, but because
he would have his characters so true to life
that they would "leap at you from out the

200 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

page." And he sacrificed the pleasure of
indulging in descriptive writing, for which
he had unusual qualification, because he
wanted to have every phrase essential to
the story, to make every word bite in its
meaning. Although he did not seek for
the significant among modern books, he
was greatly pleased when he came across
them ; and occasionally when he came to
my home he made discoveries which rejoiced
him. Of many books to which I directed
his attention, two especially he thought un-
commonly good — Miss Guiney's " Patrins,"
and Professor Raleigh's "Style." He made
the acquaintance of these books on two
separate occasions. On each occasion he
took a volume to read after we had parted
in the small hours of the morning, and
when we met at breakfast he was full of
the subject. When he left my home he

REMINISCENCES 201

carried off the books, and absolutely re-
fused to give them back !

Ill

How well Brown lived up to his ideals,
and with what tremendous force he could
actualise them, I realised for the first time
when I heard him read the original MS.
of the first and last novel associated with
his name. " The House with the Green
Shutters" was at that time a finished
story of twenty thousand words, so packed
that it gave the feeling of excessive strain.
The memory of that reading comes vividly
back to my mind. In a half- furnished
cottage down in Surrey, belonging to
Howard Spicer, three of us were squatting
on the floor on rugs, for lack of chairs.
For a whole afternoon two of us smoked

202 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

in silence while Brown read his famous
story. He knew us fairly well by this
time, but not familiarly enough to enable
him to read his own work without diffidence ;
and I remember what a great nervous
strain it was upon him. The interest of the
story was so painfully absorbing that, even
in the intervals when the reader paused
to rest, we had no mind to criticise, but in
the grip of its impending tragedy smoked
vigorously in silence. When it was finished,
the cumulative effect was tremendous. The
story had many and obvious defects, and
these were noted by us with frank criticism ;
but from that time I never doubted that, if
Brown got his chance, he would make a
distinctive place for himself in literature.

As a result of our criticism, Brown agreed
not to place his MS. as a short story, but to
extend it to a full-length novel. He was

REMINISCENCES 203

pleased by our appreciation, which was, he
said, the first he had received ; and he made
me promise to read it when extended, and
to make suggestions. Later on, he was not
so humble about his book ; and a year
after, as it approached completion, when I
made some criticism upon it, I saw that
he had got the bit between his teeth, as it
were, and was not disposed to take criticism
readily. He professed to see its faults ;
he admitted that it went in some particulars
right in the face of artistic principles which
he was constantly laying down. " I believe

you are right, ; but I have a feeling

now that this book has got to go as it
is" Humorously threatening to have my
revenge in a review, I accepted his mood,
and at subsequent readings rarely offered
any comment, saving this : " If the book
goes — and it cannot quite fail — it will be in

204 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

spite of its defects." That it would have
a literary success we never for a moment
doubted, but I must frankly own that we
were not prepared for the popular success
which it achieved here and in America.

IV

Brown's position for a while gave me
much anxious thought. All the men of his
acquaintance, myself included, were in more
or less settled positions ; they had found
work and settled down to it seriously. For
them each day brought duties, each week
or month brought the pecuniary reward of
work. Brown alone had no regular employ-
ment ; he acknowledged no duties, and in
fact shunned anything like an attempt to
get him into settled work. On one occasion
two of his friends talked the matter over, and

REMINISCENCES 205

decided that they would try to get him fixed.
Within a few weeks a position of a literary
kind, carrying £600 a year as salary, was
bespoken for him. He had all the qualifica-
tions desiderated — University degree, literary
ability, and the like — and his nomination was
favourably entertained. We made haste to
tell him the good news, but he took it with
a marked lack of enthusiasm. I remember
the quizzically amused look on his face when
we told him that an appointment had been
made for him to meet one of the principals
concerned next day; and I had an idea
that he had no intention of putting in an
appearance. I was not deceived. Brown
did not turn up ; the post was given to
another man, and we made no second
attempt to put our friend in harness. It
must not be supposed, however, that he was
averse to work. When he had a fit of

206 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

industry on, nothing would induce him to
interrupt it ; and when his exchequer ran
low, he would "swot" for days, as hard as
any journalist, reviewing, writing sketches,
articles, and odd paragraphs. But he valued
his freedom so much that he would not take
up any work which demanded regularity of
hours and some method.

Brown was a great stroller in London
parks — not at fashionable hours, however,
but in the early hours of the forenoon, when,
except for children playing, and guardian
nursemaids, they are practically deserted. I
have wandered with him in these early hours,
and he has shown to me his favourite re-
treats. In the glades of Kensington Gardens
he found quiet spots, in which, but for the

REMINISCENCES 207

dull roar of the traffic that surges round,
one might imagine oneself in the heart of a
deep wood. Here he spent many a summer
morning, lying on his back in the fresh grass,
looking up into the trees that threw over him
their welcome shelter. To a casual observer
he was simply loafing, as any man might
loaf who found himself in a London park
on a bright summer morning, with no definite
duties to perform. Brown was, indeed, loaf-
ing physically on these occasions, but he
was by no means loafing mentally. This
was a marked characteristic of the man —
that while he shunned settled work, he
probably wasted less time in mooning than
any man of his acquaintance. He could
not always write, but he could always
think ; and he was practically innocent of
the intellectual laziness which spells ruin
for so many fine minds.

2o8 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

Some of us carry notebooks and never
use them. Brown always carried a note-
book, and that notebook was a necessity of
his intellectual habits. He designedly sought
for ideas ; when they came, he knew them
for his own, and, with the careful providence
of a man determinedly preparing for a career,
he noted them down. He had a great
admiration for style too ; and while his
utterance was free, spontaneous, and in-
stinctively selective, in writing he deliber-
ately restrained himself and struggled for
the most fitting and expressive word.
" What do you think of this definition of
style ? " he asked one night. " I wrote the
other day a definition that rather pleased
me : ' Style is supernal thought supernally
expressed.' " Whatever may be thought
of the definition, Brown certainly believed
that the best style was only got by " working

REMINISCENCES 209

at," and he declared many a time to me
that his chief hindrance in working, was,
not the lack of ideas, but the difficulty
of getting the right word. It was there-
fore only consistent, that he should note
down fresh words and phrases that occurred
to him when thinking on any subject
In this connection I remember vividly a
Saturday-afternoon conversation in which I
could not get a cut in, because of the eager
interest with which he compared notes as
to the birth of ideas and the clothing of
them in fitting words with — a professor of
theology ! — Dr. D. W. Simon, of Bradford
United College. The two men, so widely
different in every other respect, found on the
purely intellectual side that they had much
in common. A whole pile of notebooks
filled with ideas and phrases were Brown's
stock-in-trade. They were all his own ; he

14

2io GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

was almost foolishly jealous of the influence
of other minds on his own, and he did not
believe in using quotations.

VI

I never troubled about Brown's position
after a certain Saturday afternoon nearly
two and a half years ago. We had lunched
together, and then the whim took us to go to
Carlyle's house. The day was one of swelter-
ing heat, and I remember the pleasant relief
it was to get into that "house of proud
Silences," which is still instinct with a
human interest not surpassed by any other
literary shrine. Brown was no Carlylean
student, but he knew sufficient of his life
and work to understand Carlyle's essential
worth ; and I, who had visited the house
before, was not blas£ Somehow or other,

REMINISCENCES 211

after looking at several of the relics and
talking of the irascible old man of the
" Reminiscences," something tickled our
sense of humour, and our gurgling laughter
was taken as indicating a lack of proper
reverence, I fear, by a party of keen-looking
Americans who were solemnly examining
everything. We did not complete the
inspection of the house, but came out,
and then on a 'bus homewards we talked
of many things with gathering seriousness
and intimacy. Finally, I spoke of my feeling
about him, a man of thirty, who had not
"done" anything, nor begun to make a place
for himself in the world. I asked him what
his definite aim was, and the answer came
unhesitatingly, "To be a novelist." My
second question was, " Do you feel certain
that the ' Green Shutters ' will make you
arrive ? " And the reply was swift and

212 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

confident : " Absolutely certain, ." From

another man, this would have meant nothing
save the confidence that is not generally
lacking in young writers. Coming from
G. D. Brown, somehow it carried a kind
of conviction, and I promised that I would
never again trouble myself about his future,
and I never did.

On this occasion I remember he told me
he was quite conscious that his position
was misunderstood by many men of his
acquaintance. " I never speak about my

novel," he said, " except to you and

and . The men I knew at Oxford

think I am not going to come off. But it

does not matter. is always anxious

that I should justify myself to the Oxford
men, and I think I'll do it, but there's
no hurry"

REMINISCENCES 213

VII

It has been stated in a Scottish weekly
by a journalist and novelist, who met Brown
once, that he did not greatly value his
book, and was a little surprised at its success.
I have shown that the former statement is
very far wide of the facts — that he valued
it so highly that he would practically admit
no criticism of it. A still more striking
proof of his opinion of his work was his
remark, " I know it sounds arrogant, but
I have a feeling that it does not greatly
matter who publishes my book ; it is bound
to go."

When "The House with the Green
Shutters" was accepted by an American
house on the recommendation of the well-
known critic, Mr. Charles Whibley, he was,

214 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

however, frankly pleased ; and there was a
sly dig at me in the letter which announced
the news— " M'Clure told me Whibley's
report was commendatory throughout " ; but
he adds naively, " I tell you this, because
you will be even more pleased than I am."
On its publication, he sent me a copy with
this message : " Herewith a copy of the
immortal Work. Disembowel it, or laud it
to the skies, as seemeth good to thy
soul. . . ."

As to its success, Brown's expectations were
large. He believed it might run to twenty
thousand copies, and before he died there
was a feeling with him that, given certain
conditions, it ought to have done so. Sur-
prised at the success which it had he certainly
was not. It is a fact, though, that he spoke
gratefully of the kind reception it got from
the Press. There were exceptions, however

REMINISCENCES 215

" Rather idiotic review in The Scotsman, but
they put it first in their list of fiction, and
vote it disagreeably powerful. Goodish re-
view in Glasgow Herald : ' True to the verge
of being merciless ... If we smile, it is at
the cruel point of some stinging jest. . . .
Shows with a vengeance, too, the reverse
of the Drumtochty shield. . . . Overdrawn, but
grimly true, and full of promise.'" These
and other excerpts from reviews which he
sent me from time to time showed how
keenly he followed the progress of his book.
" So far," he writes again, " nobody but The
Glasgow Herald man has seen that I'm
showing up the Scot malignant — which you
and I thought, in a way, the raison d'etre
of the book. Scotsman fellow says 'it's
brutally coarse.' Coarse ! "

During the first few weeks after the publi-
cation of his book, Brown was indeed very

2i6 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWM

anxious about its fate. Various circum-
stances had conspired to delay its appearance
in England ; and the fact that for a while
it excited no particular attention made him
fear it was going to be swamped in the
flood of Christmas publications. During
these weeks there were few days in which
Brown did not come to see us. We knew
what he came for, and gave him every
comfort in the way of "signs" of success
which we could gather. But we began to
fear that we were going to be disappointed
in our hopes. Several extended and good
notices had appeared in England — notably
one, I think, in The Pall Mall Gazette,
which greatly pleased Brown ; but it was
not until it was noticed by Mr. Andrew
Lang in Longmaris Magazine that the tide
began to flow unmistakably in its favour
Equally favourable notices in The Times,

in The Morning Post, and in The Monthly
Review — one of them at least, perhaps all,
from the same hand — set the fashion ; after
this, reviews were numerous, and each more
favourable than the other. In a few weeks,
" The House with the Green Shutters " was in
everybody's mouth, and its author was the
most-talked-of man in literary circles in
London.

Of the book itself it is not necessary for
me to speak critically. I had my chance
of a review, and I did not " disembowel it ";
for it was in the early days, when its fate
seemed uncertain, and this was not the func-
tion of a friend. I did not ignore its defects,
but found it on a final reading — as I had
found it at the beginning — the most signifi-
cant and powerful novel I had read for a
decade at least.

2i8 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

VIII

Brown was keenly conscious that his book
was apt to give the impression of a savage,
cynical nature, and he shrank from being so
misunderstood. It was probably this con-
sciousness that influenced him in the choice
of a subject for his next work. He chose
a love story, a romance of Cromwell's time, in
which he was resolved to express the tender
side of his nature. The romance is un-
finished, and probably will never appear,
even as a fragment ; and so those who took
their impression of the author's nature from
the types of characters that he drew with
such merciless fidelity in his one book, must
be content to readjust their opinion of him
from the picture of the man as he appeared
to his intimate friends. Whether Brown

REMINISCENCES 219

would have been as successful with the story
which he had projected, as he was in " The
House with the Green Shutters " remains
an interesting speculation. Probably he
would have been more at home with a
third novel which he had planned — " The
Incompatibles " ; and my instinctive feeling
is that in a subject like this he would more
readily and fully have exercised his extra-
ordinary powers. This also is a mere
conjecture, however. Certainly he got his
fame not so much by his performance as
by what that performance promised. The
possibilities were great, but they have been
swept into the eternities to ripen ; and the
question as to whether he might have become
a master of English literature, or whether
he was, as some thought, a man of one book,
can never be answered. He lived his short
life simply and seriously ; the work that he

220 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

felt impelled to do he did with sincerity
and fine conscientiousness. In a few brief
months he had leapt from obscurity into
amazing literary fame, and he died planning
his life-work.

All is over and done;
Render thanks to the Giver, England, for thy son.

IX

I have thought it necessary to say so
much about the origin and progress of
Brown's book because of the place which
the novel has achieved in contemporary
literature. But during the early years of
our acquaintance I had no thought of his
becoming a famous author ; and our friend-
ship was that of two men who had a great
deal in common, whose intimate friendships
were few, and whose view of life was

REMINISCENCES 221

practically identical. Circumstances ripened
our intimacy quickly ; and a closer friend-
ship, on certain sides, than ours became
is to me inconceivable.

As an outcome of many conversations
upon the essential in literature, there was
formed a partnership of three for literary
purposes, the third partner being Howard
Spicer. The literary purpose took shape
in a kind of authors' advisory agency, for
encouraging the writers of what we termed
" essential stuff." There was, of course, a
room in Fleet Street, where all three met
after six o'clock at night for conversation
and the airing of projects. It was a small
room on the roof, furnished modestly, but
sufficient for comfort ; and it had a glorious
view across to the Surrey Hills. Brown,
as being the only one of us whose time
was his own, was appointed " Manager " and

222 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

Correspondent for the " Triumvirate," as we
gravely designated the partnership. To me
the scheme was more or less a joke — albeit
one in which I saw possibilities serious
enough for Brown — but we went about it as
if we were hoping to make fame and fortune
out of it. We had advertisements in literary
papers, inviting MSS., which were to be con-
sidered and criticised for a ridiculously small
fee. For some months, Brown played the role
of manager and correspondent sedulously
enough ; but the poor quality of the MSS.
which came in was disappointing, and the
task of reading and criticising stuff that
had no place but the W.P.B. soon irritated
him, and as a literary agency the venture
was an inglorious failure.

The room was kept on for two years,
however, as a meeting-place, and many a
good time we had in it Occasionally, but

REMINISCENCES 223

not often, we introduced a friend,; and on
such occasions, I feel confident, the visitor
left us utterly mystified as to the purpose
of the partnership, and with vague doubts
of our sanity. We had an idea of publish-
ing too, and our immortal work was to be
" The House with the Green Shutters " — a
book which was at once to bring grist to
the "Triumvirate," and to be an indication
of the kind of stuff that we were prepared
to run. When the book was finished Brown
would have kept to his bargain, but I
persuaded him against it, as I knew that
the immediate success of his novel would be
hindered by the imprint of a new publishing
house.

If the commercial side of the partnership
was a joke, the " Triumvirate " as a friendship
was not. Brown himself took it as seriously
as any of us. We had a little tiff one day

224 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

before an outsider, and this drew a letter
from me. In the course of a long reply
he said, " I agree with all you say about
the Triumvirate speaking with one voice and
as one man against all outsiders, even if
these outsiders be personal friends of one
or other member of the Triumvirate." This
was the basis of our partnership. United
in sympathies and in fundamental ideas of
literature, we three were to be as one man.
The partnership had never a break until
death came.

X

Early in our friendship Brown was intro-
duced to my home, and, fortunately for
our personal relations, he was liked so well
there that it was a red-letter night when he
came. He often came; he never announced
his coming — he came when the mood struck

REMINISCENCES 225

him : as he was a Bohemian, he never made
any preparations for stopping. Yet he
always remained overnight, and sometimes
his visit ran into three weeks. He liked
being able to visit in this informal fashion,
and he was never an unwelcome guest.

On one occasion his unexpected arrival
landed Brown in a ludicrous position. My
family were from home, and I had not seen
Brown for some days. One Saturday night
he had taken it into his head to stop with
me, and at about ten o'clock at night he
turned up at the house, only to find me out.
He had put on a frock-coat and top-hat,
intending to go to church with me the next
day ; but this amiable desire to make him-
self respectable proved his undoing, for the
caretaker, who had seen him a week before
in a lounge suit and straw hat, did not
recognise him in his finery, and refused to

IS

226 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

allow him to enter. Expostulation was in
vain : the man was firm in refusing an
entrance. Finally, he agreed to let him in
to wait my home-coming, on condition that
he — the man — sat in the same room with
him. And in my den Brown remained
practically in custody for two hours. He
told me afterwards that he was seriously
discomposed at the position, for he had come
without money, and would have needed to
walk back to town if I had not turned up.
I need not say that Brown bore no grudge
against the man who had done his duty
not wisely but too well.

XI

As a talker, Brown was more vital than
any other man I have ever met. He had
great silences, but during these periods he

REMINISCENCES 227

remained by himself. He came to us when
he wanted to talk, and he found us always
ready. His conversation was like his writ-
ing— keen, incisive, and significant. I never
knew a man talk better, in the sense that
his sentences were perfectly formed, although
there was not the slightest preparation. Like
many another man, his best talk was after
twelve o'clock at night Probably we never
went to bed before half-past one, and often
it was two and three o'clock when we turned
in. When all other subjects had been ex-
hausted, there still remained Shakespeare.
And on Shakespeare my friend could talk
at all times. He had a magnificent verbal
memory, and was never at a loss to illus-
trate his conversations by long quotations
from the author of whom he was speaking.
In " talking Shakespeare," this faculty stood
him in good stead.

228 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

His exposition of " Hamlet," which I hope
will be given to the world soon, was in sub-
stance recited to me three years ago during
a fortnight's holiday which we spent at the
seaside together. Yet he had not a sheet of
MS. before him. I believe this will be found
to be one of the most strikingly original
and profound expositions of " Hamlet " that
have ever been written. It will make secure
the position as a thinker which Brown
by his single work might have held pre-
cariously. Another proof of how completely
Shakespeare swept him away, when he got
on the subject, was supplied by the fact
that on one occasion, during a three weeks'
visit to Howard Spicer's home, the one
literary subject talked of all the time
was " Hamlet." To Spicer, as to me, he
practically recited the whole of what is now
the complete exposition. He was a student

REMINISCENCES 229

of Meredith, and, more critically perhaps,
of Balzac. Burns he had — like the Ayrshire
man he was — at his finger-tips ; and while
he would, in the rushes of impetuous talk,
suddenly dive into a book-shelf for the
purpose of reading from an author a passage
to point his meaning, he could repeat by
heart all of Burns that he desired to familiar-
ise his hearer with.

Like all men with original and active
intellectual power, Brown had a great
capacity for being bored ; and although he
had a robustious side to him which made
him appear " a right good chap " to men
of a totally different cast, many instances
come back to me of his arranging to meet
one or other of the " Triumvirate " for the
pure purpose of escaping from company in
which he found himself but with which he
had no real sympathy. On one occasion,

230 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

I remember, he was living up the river ;
and, after being bored to madness for a
week, he wired to one of us, begging us
to send a telegram saying that urgent
business called him to London. On the
other hand, he would enter with sympathy
and the keenest interest into affairs of simple,
unpretentious people ; and because of this he
was a hero to many a humble old person
who never suspected his literary powers.

XII

Because there is a great deal of " damn-
ing" in his book, and an abundance of
expletive that is not choice, it has been
supposed, in many quarters, that Brown
was without reverence and without religion.
Nothing could be further from the truth. His
reverence was instinctive and profound,

REMINISCENCES 231

and his nature was intensely religious. I
had not known Brown long, when he talked
religion to me voluntarily : at first, diffi-
dently, then with a surge and without
restraint he told me of his experience.
I would like to tell it, but some things are
too intimate to repeat, even after a man
is gone ; and my instinct is to let the
details of that memorable confidence re-
main untold. Suffice it to say that Brown
had had a marked religious turning-point ;
a new view of life had made existence a
good thing and work a joyful duty, at a
juncture when, as he put it, "hell had filled
his heart." When I heard this confidence,
I knew why Brown struck me at first
chiefly by his seriousness. One of the ideas
the " Trumvirate " held in common was that
religion is at the back of all abiding litera-
ture, and that there can be no real literature

232 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

that is wholly without essential religion.
And he held, if possible more firmly than
I, that only those who see the world on
a background of eternity can write great
literature.

I hope it is not necessary to explain that
it is not intended here to claim Brown for
an orthodox Christian. That he never had
been, probably never could have become.
Yet there is no saying. With all his royal
arrogance of intellect, he had, on the side
of the Unseen, a very simple heart, and at
no time could he have sat in the seat of
the scorner. It is a curious fact that, about
a year ago, he volunteered the information
that he had begun to read the Bible a great
deal ; and I know from observation that,
for months before he left town for Hasle-
mere, he read a great deal in the New
Testament. I do not see why I should not

REMINISCENCES 233

say here, finishing this part of my paper,
that, not once but many times, in the course
of our conversation, when certain crudities
of evangelical belief came up, he prefaced
his criticism by saying, " You're a believer,

. So am I, as you know ; but "

and then would follow his objection to some-
thing he had heard or read of a religious
but unintelligent kind.

XIII

I have spoken of his humility on the side
of the great mysteries, as contrasted with his
arrogance on the strictly intellectual side.
He was humble on another side — the side
of his friendship. Listen to an extract from
a letter written three years ago. It is almost
too sacred for reprinting, but for various
reasons I give it. We had had a misunder-
standing, our first and only one : " . . . But

234 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

my dear (and this is the point), even

if the irritation had been real on your side,
even if you had railed at and scolded and
hurt me, it would have made no difference
to the love and affection I have for you. . . .
There can never be any essential difference
between you and me. Even if we parted
in anger (which God forbid), and never spoke
to each other again, our souls would still
be friends." Friendship, however, on Brown's
side did not blind him to defects, real or
imaginary, which he detected in his friends.
Still less was he blind to his own generous
faults. " I have features in my character,"
he says further on, " which I know you can't
altogether approve of — and yet you love me
in spite of them. And so I love you in
spite of all your faults, were they a thousand
times worse than my too hot temper ever
made them out to be."

REMINISCENCES 235

After this it will not be surprising to hear
that his outlook on life was neither savage
nor pessimistic. On the contrary, it was
kindly and optimistic. No one thought of
his fellows with more sympathetic feelings ;
no one was more keen to observe the finer
graces which occasionally flower in lives
that seem wholly materialistic, and his
relations with children were of a kind only
possible to a sunny nature and a pure heart.
He liked children, he had more than a
superficial interest in their ways, and as
a consequence some of his most devoted
friends were among the children of the
homes which he visited.

XIV

When his day of fame came, he neither
rioted in it nor shunned it. He was not

236 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

humble about his book and its success, but he
remained practically unaffected by it. The
signs of his new place among men were the
same to him as they always are to one who
has made a literary success. Not a day
passed without a reference to him or his book
in some newspaper. The people whom he
had not courted began to court him, and
several eminent publishers wrote hoping that
he would submit his next book to them.
From authors' agents he had repeated com-
munications, and some people of fashion, who
make a practice of bringing literary lions to-
gether, opened their doors to welcome him.
In those days Brown did not lose his head.
His dress was as careless as ever, his habits
Bohemian as they had always been, his
visits to his friends as unexpected, and
his conversation of the same range and
quality as during the time of his obscurity.

REMINISCENCES 237

Whatever Brown thought of his book, it
was never a subject of conversation with him
after it had attracted notice, and, in all the
evenings that we spent together during
the last months of his life, " The House with
the Green Shutters " was practically never
mentioned. Probably, the one thing in his
success that gave him unqualified pleasure,
was the consciousness that men whose
opinion he valued had acknowledged the
ability of his book. In this connection the
first gratifying proof that he had attracted
attention was a letter which Mr. Andrew
Lang wrote to him. Newspaper critics had
said some kind things about the power of
the book, but these reviews had carried no
signatures. When frank appreciation, without
the slightest hint of patronage, came from
one in the front rank of literature — a scholar
of his own college, and a total stranger to

238 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

him — he tasted, perhaps, the first sweets
of success, and his expression of pleasure
when he told me the news was ingenuous
and delightful.

From the literary men and journalists with
whom he had always had more or less asso-
ciation he got appreciation of a different kind,
even more marked. He began to be sought
out at his lodgings, to be questioned on
literary matters, to be asked for advice, and
to receive other such indications that he was
looked upon as a writer who had " arrived,"
as the phrase goes. He gave himself no airs,
however ; he did not take himself with new
seriousness, although he was conscious that
he might have done so without offence. He
noted the new deference that was paid to
him by men who had never before con-
sidered him, save as one to whom they
might do a kindness by giving a job. He

REMINISCENCES 239

affected to be amused by and superior to
this new manifestation, but in reality he
succumbed to the flattery of it. It was no
wonder. To be one day a hack journalist,
living from hand to mouth, kicking his
heels in editors' outer offices, waiting for a
commission to write half-crown paragraphs, to
be their " useful man " ; and the next day to
find these editors and others taking a railway
journey of sixty miles for the pure pleasure
of smoking a pipe with him as the most-
talked- of author of the day, was something
which only a less generous and ingenuous
man than Brown could have experienced
unmoved.

Besides, although he was one of the
most-talked-of men in London, Brown was
still one of the poorest. Indeed, until
two months before he died, he was still
living a precarious existence. To those

240 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

who think of a successful novel as an in-
stant source of wealth to its author, this
fact will appear amazing and disappointing.
But a fact it is ; and although he sometimes
commented upon his poverty humorously,
he had at times a sense of annoyance which
made him fling out in surges of anger. A
generous heart made his anger short-lived ;
his gratitude was enormous and abiding ;
and I doubt if, when he died, Brown
had a grievance against any one in the
world.

XV

I loved Brown the Bohemian without
a thought of fame better than "George
Douglas " the successful author ; and my
affection for his memory is not enhanced
by the fact that he had justified himself

REMINISCENCES 241

in a brilliant book. I have a melancholy
pleasure in recalling numberless evenings we
spent in London together : evenings wholly
without excitement, and yet with a kind of
uplifting pleasure in them that one rarely
feels after first youth is left behind. This
was the order and programme of these even-
ings : a quiet dinner in a favourite restaurant,
where the landlord smiled a welcome, and
the waiter was attentive but not fussy ; where
the food was good and of modest price.
We sat in this place as other men sit in
a club, and the talk was as free and
varied as it could have been under the most
favourable conditions. Two hours here,
then a walk along the Embankment, up
by deserted Queen Victoria Street, and
round by St. Paul's ; or west, away down
by the quaint streets that still remain of
old Chelsea ; or a 'bus ride to a distant

16

242 GEORGE DOUGLAS BROWN

terminus, — all the while surrendering our-
selves to the mystery and magic which
make a summer night in London an
enchantment. Sometimes we talked con-
tinuously, and that was good ; sometimes
there were stretches of silence, and these
were good too ; but always we were united
by a bond so close that we could not be
estranged, yet so free that there was no
constraint.

Had it been possible for Brown to have
read this reminiscence, he would have read
another name into it right through. I have
not mentioned this name, save casually ;
but that is because he is one of the original
three who had everything in common, even
their individual pleasures with each other.
To his home Brown went as to mine ; from
him he got help of a kind which I could
not render, and to him he gave as sincere

REMINISCENCES 243

an affection as he could give to any man.
When the third member of our partnership
came on the fatal last night to hurry Brown
into being well by his own splendid vitality,
neither of us thought that within a few
hours we should be holding our friend's
hands in his death agony. It was surely
something more than a coincidence that we
three should spend the supreme hour for
one of us together.

Yet I confess I have a wholly personal
and selfish satisfaction in turning up my
copy of " The House with the Green Shutters,"
and reading the inscription there, writ large
in Brown's own hand — Amico Amicissimo
Andrea Melrose hunc libellum, Auctor — the
justification for this reminiscence of one of
the bravest, cleanest, most brotherly souls
I have ever met.