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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
s^
ROBERT BUCHANAN
BOOKS BY ROBERT BUCHANAN
EFFIE HETHERINGTON. Crown 8vo, cloth,
2s. 6d. (Popular Copyright Novels.)
Also a 6d. Edition.
DIANA'S HUNTING. Demy i2mo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
(Half-Crown Series.)
A MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE. Cloth, 2S. ;
paper, is. 6d. (The Autonym Library.)
London: T. FISHER UNWIN.
(All rights reserved.)
RJ,eJ^^iS'^-^^!u^--d\_
Prontispikce.
ROBERT BUCHANAN
SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE
HIS LIFE'S WORK AND HIS
LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS ¥ ¥
BY
HARRIETT JAY
AUTHOR OF "the queen OF CONNAUGHT," " THE HARK COLLEEN,''
" MADGE DUNRAVEN," ETC., ETC.
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
Paternoster Square
1903
INSCRIPTION
To the memory of Robert Buchanan,
who adopted me in my childhood, and
who, throughout his life, was to me the
kindest of fathers, the best of friends.
To him I owe all that I have and am ;
and now that he is gone, it is my proud
pleasure to remember that, during his
last bitter hours of pain, I was able to
return to him, even if ever so slightly,
a little of the great tenderness and
devotion which he had always given to
me.
HARRIETT JAY.
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PREFACE
" TV T OBODY could tell the story of his life so well
1 \| as Robert Buchanan himself" (wrote Mr.
T. P. O'Connor in M.A.P.), and I feel this statement
to be so absolutely true that I have endeavoured in
compiling these Memoirs, to allow the Poet as far as
possible to speak for himself With this object in
view I have been most careful to gather together
every scrap of reminiscence which he has published
from time to time in various newspapers and maga-
zines. He knew himself better than any man or
woman could possibly know him, no matter how
intimate their acquaintance with him might be, and so
I have endeavoured to allow him to reveal himself to
the world.
I suppose no one knew him better than I did, and
yet even I was debarred from the knowledge of some
of his most sacred thoughts and feelings until after
he had been laid to rest. A careful study of his
diaries, and some of the private papers which he left
behind him revealed to me certain phases of his
character of which I had had no previous knowledge
whatever.
viii Preface
The task, though an arduous one, has been to
me a labour of love, and if, after a perusal of this
volume the heart of the reader is touched by the
struggles of a man who fought so bravely for the good
of Humanity, I shall have reaped my reward.
I wish to tender my best thanks to my brother and
sister artists who have so generously assisted me in
my work. To Mr. G. R. Sims, Mr. R. E. Francillon,
Mr. Henry S. Salt, and Mr. Henry Murray, I am
specially indebted for certain pages of reminiscence
which have been written for this work, and which I
feel sure will be of exceptional interest to the public.
I have also to acknowledge the courtesy of
Mr. Walter Scott for permission to quote from a
Preface written by Mr. Buchanan to the Poems
(Canterbury Edition) of the Hon. Roden Noel ; of
Mr. T. P. O'Connor for permission to quote from
" M.A.P." ; of Mr. Philip Welby for permission to quote
from an article on Mr. Buchanan, written by Mr.
Henry Murray and issued by Mr. Welby in book
form, under the title, "Robert Buchanan and other
Essays " ; to Mr. William Freeland for permission to
quote from the Glasgow Evening Times. I am also
indebted to the Right Hon. W. E. H. Lecky, M.P.,
to Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Mr.
William Canton, Mr. Alexander Strahan, Mr. Lionel
Gowing, Mrs. Macanally, Dr. Harry Campbell,
Dr. Gorham, Dr. Stodart Walker, and the Rev. T.
Varney and Miss Wylie for permission to quote from
letters, and I wish also to publicly acknowledge my
indebtedness to my dear friend. Miss Edith Francillon,
whose advice and help during the progress of this
work have been of the utmost value to me. Though
her name does not appear in the following pages, she
was a constant visitor at our house, and was intimately
Preface ix
acquainted with and much esteemed by both the Poet
and his wife.
My own association with Mr. Buchanan has been
of so exceptional a character, that a word or so con-
cerning the position which I held in his household
may not be out of place here. In the eye of the law
I was his sister-in-law, but that relationship could not
possibly convey any idea of the tie which bound us
together. Briefly told, the story is as follows : When
my sister had been married some three or four years,
and was still childless, she resolved to adopt me. In
doing this she was anxious that any love which I
might have to give should be given to herself and to
her husband, so I was taken from my home at a very
tender age and for many years was never allowed to
revisit it. When at length I was permitted to see
my mother I remember looking at her very much as
little Paul Dombey looked at Miss Pipchin, wonder-
ing all the time whether she could possibly be my
mother, or whether she was some " strange person "
whom I was told to regard in that light. I turned
away with a great sob and threw myself into my
sister's arms, clinging to her as the only mother whom
I was thenceforth to know. As to the Poet, I was
always taught both by his wife and his mother, to
look up to him as a model of all the virtues, and my
line of conduct was invariably determined by his
approval or the reverse. If I proffered some childish
request it was always met with, " Yes, if Robert says
you may," or " No, I don't think Robert would like
that," and though I was sometimes wayward and
wilful as children too often are, I never wavered, I
trust, in that great love which it was my duty as well
as my pleasure to give. His frown always made me
wretched, his smile made me glad, and I was never so
X Preface
happy as when I had earned his praise. When my
sister died, it was her dying wish that I should remain
with him, when his mother died the request was again
whispered into my ear by Hps which were fast growing
cold. During his last sad, terrible illness my friends
wrote to me praising me for what they called my
" generosity and self-sacrifice," when indeed there
was neither generosity nor self-sacrifice to praise.
The greatest pleasure in life, it seems to me, is to
be able to minister to the wants of those we love, and
I did what I did because in the doing of it lay my
only chance of happiness. When at length my task
was ended I felt only as if all the happiness had been
taken out of my life, but for his sake I rejoiced that
his pains were ended, and that he had gone to rejoin
those whom he had so passionately loved.
HARRIETT JAY.
Southend-on-Sea.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE . . . . . . vii
I. HIS BIRTH ..... I
II. EARLY MEMORIES, 184I-50 . . . .JO
III. BOYHOOD, 1850-56 .... 17
IV. YOUTH, 1856-58 . . . . -31
V. FLIGHT TO LONDON, 1 859 ... 42
VI. EARLY STRUGGLES, 1859 . . . -53
VIL DAVID GRAY, i860 .... 57
VIII. FRIENDSHIPS, 1864 . • . . .88
IX. MARRIAGE, 1861 ..... lOO
X. G. H. LEWES AND ROBERT BROWNING, 1 862 . 105
XI. FIRST BOOKS, 1 863-66 . . . . II6
XII. RETURN TO SCOTLAND, 1 866 . . . 125
XIII. SPORT ...... 137
XIV. HUMANITARIANISM. (By Henry S. Salt) . . 144
XV. READINGS, 1868-69 . . . -153
XVI. THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY, 1870 . . 1 59
XVII. LIFE IN IRELAND . . . . 169
xii Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
XVIII. FIRST IDEAS OF NOVEL WRITING . . . 183
XIX. AN IMPRESSION, WRITTEN BY R. E. FRANCILLON 197
XX. "THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD," "GOD AND
THE MAN" ..... 203
XXI. "BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL" . . . 209
XXII. THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE . . . .217
XXIII. " THE CITY OF DREAM "... 225
XXIV. PLAY- WRITING . . . . . 23I
XXV. A REMINISCENCE. (By George R. Sims) . 250
XXVI. ON THE TURF. WRITTEN BY MR. HENRY
MURRAY ...... 253
XXVII. "the WANDERING JEW" . . . 258
XXVIII. THE LAST SHADOW ..... 277
XXIX. CLOSING SCENES. . . . .291
XXX. THE LAST SCENE OF ALL . . . 306
ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BUCHANAN . . Frontispiece
SPECIMEN OF ROBERT BUCHANAN'S HANDWRITING . Page V
ROBERT BUCHANAN (THE POET'S FATHER) To face page 8
66 STAMFORD STREET . . .,,,,50
MARY BUCHANAN (THE POET'S WIFE) . ,, ,, lOO
HARRIETT JAY . . . . • „ ,, 234
MARGARET BUCHANAN (THE POET'S MOTHER) „ „ 278
ROBERT BUCHANAN AND " BETSY '' {Last Portrait) „ „ 308
THE POET'S GRAVE . . . . „ ,,312
CHAPTER I
HIS BIRTH
ROBERT BUCHANAN, poet, novelist, drama-
tist, was born at Caversvvall in Lancashire on
the i8th of August, 1841.
An unworldly man, whose life was chiefly occupied
with the child's puzzle of natural religion. A worker,
yet a dreamer who fought Don Quixote-like with
many windmills ; a lover of truth and beauty, yet
darkly doomed to much ignoble pot-boiling, a dweller
between the fringe of literary Bohemia and the begin-
ning of mere cloudland, who, while giving a careless
glance at the present generation, ever fixed a long,
hopeful, wistful look towards posterity.
The story of his life which to the best of my ability
I am about to set down, is in many respects a sad
one. He had few friends and many enemies, and he
received from the world many cruel blows. From
the beginning I fear he lacked the true literary
temper, but he always tried to preach the truth as he
saw it, never counting the cost to himself. A fearless,
upright, honest man, whose life, if rightly studied,
cannot fail to be of interest to the world.
It was perhaps because he heard the name of God
for the first time so late in boyhood that the mention
2 '
2 Robert Buchanan
of that name never grew tiresome to him. He was
born in the strangest odour of infidelity, hence
infidehty amused him less than most men, but for
infidels and revolters he had ever a kindly feeling
quite irrespective of their creed or his. His life was
a lonely one — he was from first to last a lonely man ;
not unsociable by disposition, not unsympathetic,
but seldom travelling far for sympathy — always
climbing, climbing, but never quite reaching the
heights on which he had set his intellectual ideals.
Had his father not broken down in health and fortune
all might have been very different with him; he would
at least have had a foothold apart from the dangerous
quicksands of literature. For many years he suffered
a martyrdom from ill health, from the infinite
delicacies of an over-wrought nervous system, thence
came isolation, friendlessness, bitterness, misconcep-
tion, and despair.
Perhaps no man has been oftener abused, yet no
man needed kindness so much and received so little.
He was stabbed again and again, and scarcely one arm
was ever stretched out in his defence ; yet he bore his
burthen with cheerfulness and infinite hope, and now,
in reviewing his life, I can truly say that it was honest
even in its utmost blindness ; unselfish in its one linger-
ing aspiration to be truthful, and not to fear the truth.
He was never an ambitious man ; he reaped what he
sowed, and it was a blessed harvest ; for, in spite of
many trials and temptations, he never lost the deep
poetic heart which he brought with him into the
world as his only birthright.
As far back as the year 1891, when giving some
account of his early experiences, he wrote : —
"At the time when the benign Don Quixote of
modern Socialism, Robert Owen, was issuing his
His Birth 3
propaganda of a New Moral World, and when his
words of promise sounded like a trumpet-note to so
many youthful sons of toil, one of the first to respond
was a poor journeyman tailor in Ayrshire, who,
throwing down goose and scissors, straightway
aspired to the role of Socialist reformer ; was soon
welcomed and appreciated for his keen Scottish intel-
ligence, his wide, if uninstructed reading, and his
rugged eloquence on the platform ; in due time
became one of Owen's most valued Missionaries ; and
before many years had elapsed was famous among his
own people, and infamous among the orthodox, as
Robert Buchanan, poet and iconoclast. That man
was my father.
" Sometimes stumping the country as a controver-
sialist on the side of Free-Thought, sometimes travel-
ling from town to town with a magic lantern (one of
his great feats being the exposure of the popular
theory of ' ghosts,' through the production of a mystic
Skeleton which he sent dancing among his affrighted
audience), sometimes following his gentle Leader into
perilous places where the new gospel was hateful or
unknown, he laboured pertinaciously in the good
cause till, in or about 1840, well known to Socialists
as the Communistic Year, he married Miss Margaret
Williams, daughter of a well-known solicitor (of
Socialistic leanings) in Stoke-upon-Trent. Robert
Owen himself honoured the civil ceremony before the
Registrar, and gave Miss Williams away. About a
year afterwards I was born — if not in the odour of
sanctity, at least in the full and increasing daylight of
the New Moral World.
" It was, as the reader is doubtless aware, a stirring
time. The wave of the great Revolution had not yet
spent itself, and every day some doomed structure
4 Robert Buchanan
was subsiding into the waste of troubled waters.
Many failures had not yet daunted the apostles of
Liberty and Co-operation. Instead of the stagnant
pessimism which now covers the green fields of
Democracy with loathsome pools, an ardent optimism
was everywhere at work. Owen's clear call to arms
had been heard all over the land, bringing recruits
from the tailor's shop, the smithy, the cobbler's bench,
the manufactory, the plough-tail, from every place
indeed, where the poor sons of toil had learned to
read and think. Many of these men, my father
among the number, had splendid gifts ; all had the
courage of their opinions.
" Those who had the happiness to know Robert
Owen knew him as the most benign of men, in whom
the enthusiasm of humanity was combined with the
most extraordinary powers of practical business. In
the words of Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, ' Mr.
Owen looked for nothing less than to renovate the
world, to extirpate all evil, to banish all punishment,
to create like views and like wants, and to guard
against all conflicts and all hostilities.' His benevo-
lence, however, was entirely scientific — he was, in fact,
the father and founder of modern social science.
His success, for a time at least, was phenomenal. In
a letter to the Times newspaper in 1834 he said,
addressing his friend Lord Brougham : ' I believe it is
known to your lordship that from every point of view
no experiment was ever so successful as the one I
conducted at New Lanark, although it was com-
menced and continued in opposition to all the oldest
and strongest prejudices of mankind. For twenty-nine
years we did without the necessity for magistrates or
lawyers ; without a single legal punishment ; without
any known poor's-rate, without intemperance or re-
His Birth 5
ligious animosities. We reduced the hours of labour,
well educated all the children from infancy, greatly
improved the condition of the adults, diminished their
daily hours of labour, paid interest on capital, and
cleared upwards of ^300,000 of profit ! ' So far his
mission had been practical, and had succeeded ; but
in 1837 he delivered a formula which made him
thenceforth the avowed enemy of all who held
orthodox opinions.
" ' All the religions of the world,' he said,
'ARE wrong ! ' From that time forth the influential
classes entirely deserted him. He became at once an
apostle and a martyr. Personally a Theist, he
preached universal toleration, a form of toleration
which is, and always has been, to nine-tenths of
mankind, quite intolerable.
"Only those who have carefully followed the
history of the Socialistic movement under Owen can
have any notion whatever of the condition of Eng-
land in those troublous times. A freethinker, a
proclaimer of the right to private judgment, often
carried his life in his hand. The priest and the
capitalist, the bigot and the landowner, worked every-
where against the new doctrines, which, they con-
tended, were poisoning the air — the missionaries of
Socialism were very generally regarded as agents of
the Prince of Darkness conspiring to plunge the
country into anarchy and revolution. Owen's views
on religion were generally considered blasphemous,
horrible, atheistical, but it was his ideas on marriage,
in the moral programme which he advanced with
persuasive eloquence, that aroused the most frenzied
opposition, particularly among the women of the
lower classes, who were firmly persuaded that the
object was to rob them of their husbands and by
6 Robert Buchanan
reducing all sexual union to a simple contract, revok-
able at pleasure, to leave them at the mercy of male
caprice and to bastardise their children. This de-
lusion drove the wives and mothers of the toiling
classes to absolute frenzy, and made them the chief
leaders and abettors of the many acts of violence to
which Owen's missionaries were subjected." ^
The poet's grandfather, known throughout the
Midlands as " Lawyer Williams," was a very remark-
able man. Quite early in his career he had come
under the influence of Robert Owen and had accepted
that philanthropist's ideas on social, political, and
religious problems — in fact, he was a freethinker of
the most advanced school. He fearlessly proclaimed
his opinions in and out of season, and this exceptional
candour, so far from hindering his progress in his
profession, gained for him the respect of his most
bitter opponents. It was a favourite dictum of his,
that there was no such anachronism as an " honest
lawyer," but he himself was honesty incarnate, a
living refutation of his own dictum ; and his fearless-
ness, his unselfishness in helping the weak and in
denouncing every form of injustice, earned for him
the title of the " poor man's friend."
At the time that the war against Capital and
Superstition was raging, "Lawyer Williams" followed
his profession as a solicitor in Stoke-upon-Trent, and
his house became the temporary home of every wan-
dering preacher of the cause who visited the district.
He entertained the lecturers, he presided at their
meetings, he furthered, both publicly and privately,
the dissemination of the new doctrines, and only his
great popularity with the lower classes saved him
from personal violence. Again and again when the
' " Latter Day Leaves."
His Birth 7
mob rose in its fury, when public halls were wrecked
and Owen's lecturers were compelled to fly for their
lives, the only refuge in Stoke was the house of
" Lawyer Williams," and while some trembling
apostle of freethought was being smuggled away
through the back door, the " poor man's friend "
faced the furies and diverted their attention to his
own person. Any other man's house would have
been burned down or razed to the ground ; any other
man would, in all likelihood, have been torn to pieces.
Both the men and women of Stoke respected the man
who had befriended them in a thousand ways, who
had sacrificed time and money and reputation to
the legal defence of the poorest and most wretched
among them, and much as they loathed the opinions
which he fearlessly shared, not one hand in all the
crowd was raised against him. Nor was it among
the poor and wretched alone that his name was
a synonym for honesty, kindliness, and philanthropy.
Even amongst the clergy, his bitterest opponents, he
had sympathisers and well-wishers. Doctor Vale, the
Vicar of Stoke, was the intimate friend of the lawyer
and his wife, and on one occasion Mr. Williams
protected him from the wild mob of hungry men and
women who would otherwise have had his life.
To the lawyer and his wife were born two children,
a son and a daughter, the latter of whom became the
poet's mother. She was a very beautiful girl — blue-
eyed and golden-haired. Almost with her first breath
she inhaled the atmosphere of Socialism and free-
thought. Throughout her long life she had two
supreme objects of idolatry — her father, who recipro-
cated her passionate attachment, and Robert Owen,
whom she had been taught to regard as the wisest
and best of men.
8 Robert Buchanan
To the house of " Lawyer Williams " came from
time to time all the preachers of the cause. Among
these men was the poet's father, who, when quite a
boy, had run away from home to seek his fortune.
He was a dark, somewhat reserved young man, an
omnivorous reader, and a fairly fluent speaker, but it
was in the height of fiery argument on the public
platform that he appeared at his best. Some of his
fellow missionaries excelled him in oratorical gifts,
but in knowledge of the subjects discussed, and in
range of general information he had no equal among
them. His manners were far from courtly, but his
strong intellectual qualities attracted Miss Williams,
and before they had been very long acquainted they
were engaged to be married. The marriage took
place in the autumn of 1840, and on the i8th day
of August, 1 84 1, Robert, their only son, was born.
About twelve years later Mrs. Buchanan gave birth
to a little girl, who died in infancy, so Robert was
practically their only child.
The fact that his parents had no other surviving
children was, I think, the chief misfortune of his life,
as well as its crowning blessing. An only child, he
became the idol of his mother, whose affection for
him he returned with absolutely overmastering
intensity. His feeling towards his father, he often
said, was one of ordinary, though strong affection,
but towards his mother it was far from ordinary.
His earliest memories were of her beauty and quite
girlish grace. She was a particularly young-looking
woman at all times, and he could never, at any hour
of his life, realise the fact that she was growing old.
In looking at her even when she was close upon
eighty years of age, he saw only the soft blue eyes
and golden hair as he had seen them long ago, and I
RojlKUT ilLl IIA.NAN.
(The Poet's Father.)
Tv face page 8.
His Birth 9
have heard him remark again and again that it
always gave him a shock if any one happened to
refer to her as "old," " I cannot imagine my mother
old," he would say, and again, the very day after she
died, " I do not feel that she is dead, for I cannot
imagine the world without my mother ! " As I have
said, he adored her, and was in turn adored. Thus
reared and sheltered from every harsh influence, he
grew sensitive beyond measure, and his naturally
nervous temperament became so highly strung, that
he was ill prepared for the struggles of the world.
This was a misfortune, and the cause later on of
infinite pain and heartache. He was spoiled by too
much tenderness and solicitude, weakened by too
many gusts of childish passion which wrung his heart
the more because he was not openly demonstrative,
but given on the contrary to the concealment of his
deepest feelings. But the influence of his mother was
not merely emotional. He learned from her teaching
to be sympathetic and tender-hearted, to worship
goodness and to rise in revolt against any form of in-
justice or oppression. The words of the great Humani-
tarians were on her lips, she had learned them at her
father's knee, and he learned them in turn at hers.
From his parents he had no religious training what-
ever, yet slowly and imperceptibly there grew in him
a deep and abiding sense of natural religion, of awe
and reverence for the mysterious Power which moves
the world. He could never remember when he first
began to say his prayers, but he knew that as a child
he said them, and later on to my knowledge on two
memorable occasions he said them — first, by the dead
body of his wife, next by the dead body of his
mother, she who to him was the symbol of all that
was beautiful and loving in humanity.
CHAPTER II
EARLY MEMORIES, 1841-50
"'' I ^HE reward of Socialist missionaries in those
1 days was, I fear, quite inadequate to their
personal necessities, and my father was one of many
who found it necessary to eke out a subsistence by
reporting for the Press. Just after I was born he
joined the staff of the Sun newspaper, combining
with his occupation of reporter that of small news-
vendor. A few months later, when I was still an
infant, my mother went to join the community at
Ham Common, in Surrey, the manager of which was
Mr. William Oldham, whose chief eccentricity was a
preference for wet sheets to dry ones. The inmates
of Alcott House, or, as it was called, the Concordian,
were vegetarians, objected to the use of even salt and
tea, and, naturally, to all stimulants, and advocated
entire abstinence from indulgences of the flesh,
including marriage. My mother, as a married woman,
was refused admission to the inner, or perfectly
sacred, circle, which was presided over by Oldham, the
grand " Pater." A diet consisting almost entirely of
uncooked cabbage is apt to grow monotonous, and
my mother did not remain at Ham Common long.
A year or two later, however, when New Harmony
was established, she went on Robert Owen's special
10
Early Memories, 1841-50 11
invitation to Oueenvvood, near Wisbech, Norfolk,
a baronial structure surrounded by spacious woods
and promenades. The inmates of Queenwood,
though they were all believers in the principle of
association, consulted their own taste in matters of
diet, but the most popular table in the Hall was the
one where a vegetarian diet alone was served. It
was, as I gathered, a happy and innocent community ;
but infamous reports were spread concerning it by the
antagonists of human progress ; it was, in fact, de-
scribed as an immoral association. Members of the
Church Orthodox were not likely to forgive a com-
munity founded to illustrate the doctrines of the man
who denounced all religions as ' wrong,' and who on
the platform and in the newspapers had so often
shown the weak points in the armour of Christianity.
'Is it possible' asked an opponent of Socialism at
Edinburgh, in 1838, 'to train an individual to believe
that two and two make five ? ' ' We need not, I fancy,
go far for an answer,' replied Owen, with his gentle
smile and inimitable courtliness of manner, ' I fancy
all of us know many persons who are trained to
believe that three make one, and who think very ill of
you if you differ from them.'
" I have often heard my mother speak of Robert
Owen as the kindliest and most gracious of men,
with an air of indomitable gentleness peculiarly
irritating to individuals whose metier it was to discuss
burning questions under burning excitement. I saw
the good man often early in my life, but my recollec-
tion of him is kaleidoscopic — one tiny sparkle of
memory mixed confusedly with things I have only
heard. In our home, wherever it might be, he was
a sort of religious presence. I heard his name long
before I heard that of Jesus Christ. I was taught to
12 Robert Buchanan
think of him as of one wholly unselfish, holy, and
morally omniscient. I heard again and again of his
gracious deeds and inspiring words. One secret of
his extraordinary power was that he was pre-eminently
a 'gentleman.' Under his refining influence the
rough, untutored men who flocked to his standard
became gentle too. When persecution came they
took it like their master, patiently and wisely. To
know Robert Owen was in itself a liberal education.
" My first vivid recollections are of the period when
my father, having established himself on the London
Press, and residing permanently in London, sent me
to a small school at Hampton Wick, kept by a well-
known Socialist missionary, Alexander Campbell,
known to his circle as the ' Patriarch.' He was a
grave, simple man, with peculiar notions on the
Immanence of the Deity, or what is called Being.
With his peculiar religious ideas he combined, I
fancy, eccentric views concerning the diet of the
human race. At all events, the children under the
care of himself and his daughter pined for lack of
fitting nutriment. I myself, as a very little boy, must
have been in danger of starvation, for I vividly
remember having to supplement the school diet,
which was chiefly vegetarian, by eating snails gathered
in the garden. On going home for the holidays I
was found to be a little skeleton, and my mother took
care that I did not return to the establishment.
" I was next sent to a so-called French and German
College at Merton, kept by a certain M. de Chaste-
lain, a French gentleman and, I think, a refugee. It
was a large school, excellently conducted, but resem-
bling, in some respects, Mr. Creakle's establishment,
made famous by the author of " David Copperfield."
Just opposite the main entrance was a CHURCH,
Early Memories, 1841—50 13
almost the first I had ever seen, and certainly the first
I ever entered. Here, I presume, I became acquainted
with the national religion and its sacred terminology.
I vividly recall the sense of strangeness I expe-
rienced when I listened, little heathen that I was,
to the ordinary vocabulary of Christianity. I had
received no religious teaching : if I had heard the
name of God, it had been as a voice from far away ;
and I was old enough to understand that much that
was taught in churches was mostly * superstition.'
But not till some years afterwards, when I was taken
to Scotland, did I completely realise the gloom and
narrowness of the popular Christian creed.
" My parents were now residing at Norwood, in a
quaint little cottage commanding a distant prospect
of St. Paul's ; and thither, chiefly on Sundays, came
many of the apostles of progress — hirsute men for the
most part, of all characters and of all nations. When
my holidays occurred I saw a good deal of these gentle-
men. Two of them I remember vividly, who generally
came together : one a little miniature of a man with
tiny feet and hands and an enormous head, generally
covered by a chimney-pot hat three or four sizes too
large for it ; the other a mighty fellow, of gigantic
stature, with a chest fit for Hercules and a voice like
a trumpet. The first was Louis Blanc, a famous
exile: the second was Caussidiere, who had been chief
of the police in Paris during the last Revolution.
Both spoke English fairly, and Blanc wrote it like an
Englishman. It was during a visit of this strange
pair that I first heard the ' Marseillaise.' Sung by
Caussidiere in stentorian tones, with kindling eyes
and excited gestures, it sounded like a wild conjura-
tion. I listened to these men for hours, as they
talked of their country and its sorrows, and named
14 Robert Buchanan
the wondrous words, ' Liberty, Equality, and Fra-
ternity.'
"In after years I met Louis Blanc again, and by
that time only the faintest trace of a foreign accent
remained to show that he was a Frenchman. He was
at once the keenest and most enthusiastic of little
men, neat in his person, brilliant in his talk, and
cultured to the finger-nails. He loved England, which
had so long afforded him a home, and hated nothing
in the world but one thing, the Empire, and one man,
the Emperor. He preached the great Socialistic
doctrine of solidarity, in writings which were as
brilliant as they were closely reasoned ; he was an
enemy of tyranny in any form ; and he lived long
enough to see the foulest tyranny of modern times, a
tyranny of the senses, ignominiously overthrown at
Sedan.
" Another friend of my father, and a constant visitor
at our house, was Lloyd Jones, lecturer, debater, and
journalist. An Irishman with the mellowest of voices,
he delighted my young soul with snatches of jovial
song, ' The Widow Machree,' ' The Leather Bottel,'
and the modern burlesque of that royal ballad, ' The
Pewter Quart,' written, I think, by Macguire, and
originally published in Blackwood —
' Here, boy, take this handful of brass,
Across to the Goose and the Gridiron pass,
Pay the coin on the counter out,
And bring me a pint of foaming stout,
Put it not into bottle or jug,
Cannikin, rumkin, flagon, or mug,
Into nothing at all, in short,
Except the natural Pewter Quart ! '
" Jones ' troll'd ' rather than sang, with robust
strength and humour. I found out when I was a
Early Memories, 1841-50 15
year or two older, that he knew and loved the obscurer
early poets, and could recite whole passages from
their works by heart. George Wither was a great
favourite of his, and he had a fine collection of that
poet's works, many of them very scarce. It was a great
treat to hear him sing Wither's charming ballad —
' Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair ?
If she be not fair to me,
What care I how fair she be ? '
or to hear him recite the same poet's naive, yet lively
invocation to the Muse, written in prison —
' By a Daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
By a lush upon a tree,
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's wonders can
In some other wiser man ! '
I owe Lloyd Jones this debt, that he first taught me
to love old songs and homespun English poetry. He
was a large-hearted, genial man, not to be forgotten
in any chronicle of the Socialistic cause.
" It was not, as I have hinted, until I was taken by
my parents to reside in Scotland that I came face to
face with the Dismal Superstition against which my
father and these men, his friends, were passionately
struggling. I then learned for the first time that to
fight for human good, to be honest and fearless, to
love the Light, was to be branded as an Enemy of
Society and an Atheist. I saw my father so branded,
and I have not forgotten my first horror when chil-
dren of my own age avoided me, on the score that I
was the son of an ' infidel.' But I learned now that
1 6 Robert Buchanan
there was more real religion, more holy zeal for
Humanity, in these revolters against the popular creed
than in most of the Christians who preach one faith
and practise another.
" Tanhim Religio potiiit suadere vialorum.
" The world has advanced somewhat since those
early days of which I have been writing. There is
no sign as yet, however, that the warning uttered long
ago by Lucretius, and echoed by the minority from
generation to generation, has been of much avail." ^
' " Latter Day Leaves."
CHAPTER III
BOYHOOD, 1850-56
THE poet was about ten years of age when he
left the French and German College at Merton,
and accompanied his parents to Glasgow, where his
father had undertaken to edit a newspaper of advanced
liberal views, the Glasgow Sentinel. It was in Glas-
gow, therefore, that he spent a large portion of his
boyhood and early youth. The newspaper office
was up a dingy street in the neighbourhood of the
Trongate, and all around stretched the darkest slums
and dens of the city. Just below it was the newspaper
shop of William Love, who had some sort of share in
the proprietorship of the Sentinel.
William Love was a cripple, with one leg much
smaller than the other. He had been the mainstay
of a large family of brothers and sisters, and was
destined in after years to become the largest book-
seller in Glasgow. At the time of which I write he
was in a very small way of business indeed, but what
his occupation lacked in one way was amply made
up for in another. On that dingy counter lay the
whole armoury of the new moral world, tracts for the
times, Owen's speeches, Holyoake's debates, all the
3 ''
1 8 Robert Buchanan
literature of Socialism. There, from time to time,
gathered the local apostles of freethinking — Lloyd
Jones, Alexander Campbell, William Turvey, and
Mr. Buchanan, sen. Thus, as a boy, Robert
Buch-anan listened to the oracles and drank in the
atmosphere of unbelief.
To understand the boy's position at that period of
his life it is necessary to remember that Glasgow was
at that time the very stronghold of Godliness and
more particularly of Sabbatarianism. The men of
whom I am writing were looked upon as social out-
casts. When they appeared upon the platform to
face the champions of orthodoxy, it was often at the
peril of their lives. Even when walking in the streets
they were frequently assailed with insulting epithets,
and threatened with personal violence. The poet's
father was an object of special detestation, and he
himself, as the son of a notorious unbeliever, was very
often taught the lesson of social persecution. If he
made an acquaintance of his own age, that boy was
generally warned against him and taught to give
him the cold shoulder. " Don't play with yon laddie,"
the boys themselves would say, " his father's an
infidel ! " Ridiculous as the record of this persecution
may appear, it caused the lad at the time a great deal
of misery, and later on, when we spoke together of
those days of his youth, he assured me that many a
time he had prayed with all his soul that his father
would mend his ways, go to church, and accept the
social sanctities like other men !
Meantime the boy was sent to a small day school
in the suburb of Glasgow where the family had taken
up their abode. It seems to have been a poor estab-
lishment compared to the college at Merton, but he
learned in it the rudiments of Latin and mathematics,
Boyhood, 1850-56 19
and throve under the strict yet kindly care of the
master, one of those zealous pedagogues to be found
only in Scotland. But his real education went on in
his father's house, and at the house of William Love,
where his father went every Sunday to read the
secular journals of the week.
In his very able article, written during the poet's
last illness, and published shortly before his death,
Mr. Henry Murray says : " From a brief period of
God-intoxication, through many doubts and battles
and fluctuations, he came at last to face the facts of
Life and Death, with only the thinnest veil of mysticism
to hide their stern nakedness. Thin as that veil was,
it was growing ever thinner. From the broken arc
we may divine the perfect round, and it is my fixed
belief that, had the subtle and cruel malady which
struck him down but spared him for a little longer
time, he would logically have completed the evolu-
tion of so many years, and have definitely pro-
claimed himself as an Agnostic, perhaps even as an
atheist." ^
An agnostic he undoubtedly was, but it seems to
me that a man of his emotional temperament could
never have become an atheist.
"For the life of me I cannot tell how the sweet
spirit of natural piety arose within me. All my
experience, my birth, my education, my entire sur-
roundings were against its birth or growth, all the
human beings I had known or listened to were con-
firmed sceptics or boisterous unbelievers. Yet while
my father was confidently preaching God's non-
existence, I was praying to God in the language of
the canonical books. I cannot even remember a time
when I did not kneel by my bedside before going to
' " Robert Buchanan and other Essays."
20 Robert Buchanan
sleep, and repeat the Lord's Prayer. So far away
was I from any human sympathy in this foolish
matter, that this praying of mine was ever done
secretly, with a strong sense of shame and dread of
discovery." ^
As late as the year 1896, he wrote : —
" ' The dumb, wistful yearning in man to something
higher — yearning such as the animal creation showed
in the Greek period to the human — has not yet found
any interpreter equal to Buchanan.' These words,
written by a writer in the Spectator in the course of a
general estimate of modern poets, are the highest
tribute I have ever received from any contemporary
critic, and because I think they are true, in so far as
they recognise what I have at least attempted to do
in poetry, I am proud to quote them. I am ready to
admit au rest, that my religion is only a yearning, my
hope only a hope, born even out of a certain kind of
despair ; but through all the aberrations of a stormy
personal career, and amid all the vicissitudes of fame
and fortune, I have never ceased to cherish it, and
the day it dies within me will be the day of my
intellectual and moral extinction. It includes, I need
not say, the forlorn and perhaps foolish faith of my
childhood — the faith (to be carefully distinguished
from belief) in personal immortality, in a supreme
God or Good, and in the Life after Death. A faith
very much out of fashion. To many good and wise
men, to many more men who are neither good nor
wise, such a faith is merely a survival from the lower
forms of intelligence, and will become less and less
possible as human beings realise the actual conditions
of existence and energise more and more unselfishly
for the good of the great and perfect being. Humanity.
' "Latter Day Leaves."
Boyhood, 1850-56 21
But to me, a dreamer of dreams, the ' dumb, wistful
yearning ' is born solely and wholly, not out of love
for the race, but out of acute, intimate, possibly selfish
perso7ial love ; my religion, like my charity, begins at
home, and my philanthropy is only the generalisation
of individual experience and affection. It is this fact
which has made me, after thirty years of thought on
religious subjects, see in the Christian religion, as still
preached and taught, the hereditary enemy of human
aspiration. Christianity is not dead ; it will never die
so long as the deductive method, arguing from
generalisations to particulars, possess any fascination
for the human mind, in preference to the method
which instructs religion on the basis of particular and
individual proofs and discovers in it the only possible
solution of an eternal enigma."
In writing to Mr. Leslie Stephen, in the year 1896,
he said : —
" I always feel that this life is worthless without
the idea of pe^nnanence in the affections, and I am
afraid I reiterate the thought too often in my writ-
ings. And the very idea of Evolution, if upbuilt of
limitless death and suffering, is horrible without some
further explanation. ... I know that I am struggling
in deep waters and can land on neither side — neither
on the side of orthodox Religion, nor on that of out-
right Materialism — so that I am in danger of pleasing
no one. But I have a very clear idea, nevertheless, of
where I am drifting. Intellectually speaking, I find
no ground whatever for believing in a Divine solution
of this puzzle — emotionally, I feel surer. I cannot
say that I am of your opinion that this life is worth
anything without another and a higher. Frankly I
hope I shall never think so."
Meanwhile his father's editorship throve, and he
22 Robert Buchanan
soon became the proprietor of the paper. By that
time the Glasgow Sentinel, though still of limited
circulation, was a recognised power in Glasgow. The
leaven was slowly working. After the abolition of the
stamp duty on newspapers the Sentinel acquired, with
a large increase of subscribers and purchasers, an
increase of influence in due proportion. Meantime,
for the better furtherance of the boy's education he
was sent to a boarding-school at Rothesay, in the
Island of Bute.
It was a small school, kept by a person named Munro,
whom Robert afterwards recalled as a delicate, gentle,
pink-complexioned man, who would sit in the middle
of the schoolroom bathing his poor aching head
with cold water, and suffering all the martyrdom of
nervous headache. The boarders were chiefly boys
from Glasgow or the neighbourhood, but there were a
couple of dingy-complexioned lads from Demerara,
and several little girls from the same mysterious
region. If the boy's religious studies had been
previously neglected, they were now vigorously and
rigorously pursued. The good schoolmaster, catering
for pious parents, dosed his scholars daily with long
Scripture lessons and hymns to be got by heart.
There were prayers too, morning and evening, grace
before and after meat, while on Sunday the scholars
were marched away to Port Bannatyne to hear two
services and two long sermons, with an interval
between for refreshments, consisting of a few biscuits
partaken of in a chilly schoolroom attached to the
" kirk." Sick as he had become of social outlawry,
the boy thought all this highly proper and respect-
able, not that it failed to bore him as it did the others,
not that he failed to slumber tranquilly during the
sermon, or to play odds-and-evens with marbles
Boyhood, 1850-56 23
during the service, but he always looked back on
those days as among the happiest of his life. Most of
his schoolfellows had had a surfeit of Sabbatarianism,
from infancy upwards, and cordially hated the very
name of the Sabbath, but he, to whom it was a new
experience, found the pious influence most refreshing.
In later years he never heard the church bells, but
he recalled with a thrill of pleasure that peaceful
time.
He often spoke, too, of the intense home-sickness
which possessed him in those days, and which
mastered him like a passion. He had the gentlest
and fondest of mothers, and it was torture to him
to be away from her side — torture deepened by the
long and loving letters which she sent him almost
daily. " My life has been a turbulous one," he said,
" not free from bitter sorrows, but never since have I
endured a keener anguish than possessed me when
homesick in those boyish days. I would sit for hours
together, with the tears streaming down my face,
looking across the dark waters of the firth, and
thinking of my home — so near and yet so far
away." ^
I mention this home-sickness because, with it, began
his first promptings to express emotion in that poetic
art by the pursuit of which he is now chiefly known.
About that time, at any rate, he began to scribble
verses. Of many of these verses his mother was the
theme, but some years later he one day recalled for
our edification two abominable lines which had for
subject a certain young lady of dazzling beauty
whom he met at a school party, one Halloween.
The name of this divinity was Rebecca, and she
was a farmer's daughter, and he addressed to
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
24 Robert Buchanan
her his first love poem, which culminated as
follows : —
" O, were she mine, with countless gems I'd deck her,
And give my all to beautiful Rebecca ! "
About that time he became a refractory and
troublesome pupil. What between homesickness and
natural restlessness of temperament, he was soon
driven to open mutiny. On one occasion when
returning to school in one of the Clyde steamers
after a brief holiday, he left the boat at Dunoon,
immersed himself bodily in the sea, and taking the
next boat home again appeared before his mother
dripping and bedraggled, saying that he had fallen
overboard and had narrowly escaped drowning. His
story was discredited and he was sent away again in
no little disgrace. But from that hour he was deter-
mined not to remain in the boarding-school, and went
steadily to work to get himself expelled. He must
have been a sore trial to his schoolmaster, for a
gentleman writing to him some years later, asked,
naively, " Were you that devil of a boy who was at
school with my daughter at Rothesay ? "
I am afraid there is no doubt that he had fairly
earned the title of " a devil of a boy." His mischief-
making culminated in a ridiculous episode, worthy to
be chronicled in the Boy's Journal. After many days
of mutinous planning, during which he devised a wild
scheme to quit the school and seek his fortune, he
succeeded in persuading two of his schoolfellows to
join him in running away. Robert had armed himself
with an old pistol, the lock of which was broken, and
which required infinite persuasion before it would go
off, but for all that he felt a positive desperado ready
Boyhood, 1850-56 25
to sell his life dearly should violent hands be laid
upon him. Early one day the three boys left the
school and ran to Rothesay, some two miles distant.
The moment their absence was discovered they were
pursued, caught, and brought ignominiously back.
Next morning Mr. Munro took Robert into his
private room, and after giving him a long and very
sensible lecture, informed him that he must leave the
school, as he was a mutinous spirit which it was
necessary to expel. The very next day, therefore,
he was sent home to Glasgow.
To one other episode of his life at Rothesay I may
briefly allude before I pass on to other matters. A
little before he planned to run away he had fallen
desperately in love, the object of his affections being
a little girl whom he had met at a school dance. He
was just twelve years old, she about nine, and their
love seemed to be a very passionate business indeed.
One day she told him she was going away with her
parents. Stunned by the news, the boy implored her
to remain, but it was of no avail. A little later their
last meeting came, taking place in a "close" at
Rothesay. " Again and again," he said, when
describing this incident, " my youthful Juliet rushed
into my arms, again and again our tears mingled
together. She went and I never saw her again.
The parting was a blow to me, and helped to create
the spirit of recklessness which was the ultimate cause
of my being expelled from the school."
So, at twelve years of age, he had already begun to
live. Love, innocent but potent had already found
him out, and childish sorrow had deepened love's
impression. By that time he was writing verses and
beginning to understand the magic of the word
" poetry." Nor had Nature neglected her ministra-
26 Robert Buchanan
tions. In the sea-girt little island of Bute he had
become familiar with two great natural phenomena —
the hills and the ocean. He carried away with him
visions of the sunset clouds on Goatfell, of moonlight
on the waters, of sunlight on the open heathery moor.
Not till some years later, when he read Wordsworth,
did he learn to look on Nature with the eye of a poet
or a lover, but the love for sea and mountains which
afterwards became his passion and his inspiration
began with his school life on the Clyde,
By this time Mr. Buchanan was a fairly prosperous
newspaper proprietor, owning besides the Sc7itmel
two other newspapers which he had started, the
Glasgow Thnes and the Penny Post. He had taken
a flat in the West end of Glasgow, close to the Park,
and there, when his son left Rothesay, he resided
with his parents. His first day-school was the
Glasgow Academy, where he attended the Latin
classes of Doctor Corrie. From the Academy he
passed on to the High School, attending the PVench
and English classes under teachers whose names I
have heard but forget, and the Latin classes under
Doctor Lowe, whom he ever remembered as the
kindest of schoolmasters and who first instructed
him in the mysteries of the manufacture of Latin
verse. Now that he was able to pursue his studies
at home he was perfectly happy, the more so, owing
to the fact that in addition to his very perfunctory
work at school, he was already beginning to compose
both prose and verse, and contributing anonymously
before he was fifteen years of age to one of the
Glasgow daily newspapers, and one, moreover, which
did not belong to his father. His eiTusions were
printed and he was, of course, in the seventh heaven
of delight.
Boyhood, 1850-56 27
His early flights into the fields of literature were
not discountenanced. His first efforts delighted his
mother and, better still, did not displease his father,
and it was soon whispered about that the infidel
editor's curly-headed son was a poet in embryo.
That being so, he found a friendly sympathiser and
adviser. At that time Mr. Buchanan's literary
lieutenant on his newspapers was called Hugh
Macdonald. He was an artizan who had turned
poet and become a writer for the press. He was
a great pedestrian and knew every hill, stream,
clump of woodland, old castle and wayside inn for
miles round the smoky city. He was besides a
practical botanist and could tell the name of every
flower which grew in that region. He was also
familiar with the names and notes of all the birds.
But his knowledge was specially that of a poet. If
a bird or flower had a sweet Doric name, if it was
celebrated in old or modern song, he knew it. His
talk was full of the music of Scottish glens, and a
day out among the woods with him was a delight
to be remembered.
As Macdonald was in Mr. Buchanan's employment,
and a frequent guest at his house, the youthful poet
soon made his acquaintance, and when he discovered
that the boy had a turn for writing verse he did all
he could to foster the aspiration. He bought the
lad's first long poem, a weird and wondrous ballad,
for half a crown, and published it in the Glasgow
Times, hugely to the delight of the author, of course.
From that time forth he dubbed himself the lad's
" literary godfather." But the chief boon he conferred
upon his godson was the knowledge of his delightful
personality. Hitherto the men with whom Robert
had come in contact were, with few exceptions, prose
28 Robert Buchanan
men, political and social reformers of harsh and arid
experience, always excepting his father, who loved
the Muses with all his soul. But Hugh Macdonald
was different. He " babbled o' green fields," he could
sing old Scotch songs and recite old Scotch ballads
in a way to fire the blood. He first of all made the
boy aware of the magic of the simple speech of the
lyrics woven by Tannahill and Motherwell, of the
broad, human touch of Burns, of the winsome tender-
ness of such fireside singers as William Miller, and
when he grew to manhood he never forgot this debt.
Under this inflluence he discovered that the smoky
city, and the cities in its neighbourhood, were very
birdsnests of melody, full of happy singers who
made songs to the trotting of the ploughman's team
and the whuzzing of the loom. The very air was
full of poetry. Why, in the adjacent town of Paisley
alone the poets were to be counted by thousands.
Macdonald knew them all. Wherever he went with
his stout staff in his hand he was a welcome guest.
He seems, however, to have had one failing, which,
alas ! was too common among the Scotchmen of that
time, he was too fond of what is called " the social
glass," and as he grew older he yielded more and
more to that temptation. When he left Mr.
Buchanan's employment to assume a more lucrative
post on another newspaper, the son saw little or
nothing of him. He died shortly afterwards in the
very prime of his manhood.
But it was not merely personal influence like that
of Hugh the Rambler which filled the boy's soul with
the impulse to write and sing. As I have said, the
whole air he breathed was alive with music, from the
piercing notes of the old ballads to the tear- and
laughter-compelling songs of Burns. Wherever he
Boyhood, 1850-56 29
went, into fine house or poor cottage, down dark
streets or across green fields, the poets were whistling
away like so many blackbirds, the living emulating
the dead, and the dead as vocal as if they were only
newly born ! How could a boy resist the magic ?
Why, he heard more music and inhaled more poetical
delight in one short Scottish summer than he might
have done in London during many years. It is more
than likely that if you stopped a policeman on his
beat in the streets of Glasgow, you would find that
he was a poet, and that he knew his Shakespeare
and even his Shelley, to say nothing of his Burns !
At that time there was at all events one true poet
living in Glasgow, but the youth did not meet him
till several years later. His name was William
Freeland ; the name is still his, for he is still
living, and in the same city, and he wrote very
touchingly of Robert Buchanan's death.
" I knew him as a handsome and healthy lad in
Glasgow, and I have followed his career, generally
with admiration, and often with astonishment. He was
ever a fighter, and there was a time when, full of life
and vigour, it might have been predicted that he would
live to a brave and bright old age. It was in his
father's paper that he began to ' strike the lyre,' and
he did so in a manner which foreshadowed the future
poet. It is by his poetry that his name will live, and
if the opinion of one or two excellent critics may be
trusted, his fame is fairly well assured. One of these
critics was the late Mr. R. H. Hutton, of the Spectator^
who, in noticing an edition of his collected works, could
hardly put a limit to his praise. ' To our mind,' said
Mr. Hutton, ' after long knowledge of his poems, they
seem to us nearly perfect of their kind, realistic and
idealistic alike in the highest sense.' Mr. Steadman,
30 Robert Buchanan
in referring to ' Willie Baird/ one of the ' Idyls of
Inverburn,* described him as a ' most faithful poet to
Nature ' ; saying further : ' He is her familiar, and in
this respect it would seem as if the mantle of Words-
worth had fallen to him from some fine sunset or
misty height.' These are friendly words, but they are
not unwarranted — in whatever form Mr. Buchanan
wrote, he was never false to his poetic function. He
was a poet of a high order, and his best poetry is rich
with beauty and music and truth."
CHAPTER IV
YOUTH, 1856-58
FROM the High School, where he acquired a fair
knowledge of Latin, Robert Buchanan passed
on to the University, where he took the Latin course
under Ramsay and the Greek under Lushington.
The last-named Professor had a wonderful interest in
the boy's eyes,' for it was reported that he knew ^
Tennyson.
During his studies at the University the young
poet had a tutor, a mild and kindly man who did his
best to keep his pupil close to his studies, but who
usually failed, for at that time one Temple of Pleasure
above all was attracting him, and that was the
theatre, to which his father's position as a newspaper
proprietor gave him the privilege of constant entrance.
" Among the few imperishable Dramas which are
not merely poetical but greatly and truly human, I
think that the ' King Lear ' of Shakespeare stands
supreme. This work was the one with which I first
became acquainted, at a time when all my boyish
soul was hungry for the teaching of great Poetry.
" I was then a boy in Glasgow, and the elder
Vandenhofif was playing in Scotland, accompanied by
his niece, known as ' Miss Vandenhoff.' When they
31
32 Robert Buchanan
came to the West of Scotland I saw them in nearly
all their impersonations, and also attended their
public readings of the ' Antigone ' of Sophocles ; it
was not, however, until I saw the play of ' Lear' for
the first time, with Vandenhoff as the old King and
his niece as Cordelia, that I fully realised the signifi-
cance of the great tragedy.
" To this day I retain the impression left upon me
by this performance, without parallel in my experi-
ence for splendour and pathos of poetical effect.
Compared with much of the other work of Shake-
speare, this play of ' Lear ' towers solitary and
supreme: and to turn to it from such fustian as ' King
John ' and other of the historical plays, is to leave
what Mr. Walkley calls the ' padded room ' and come
face to face with a modern mind and a nobler spirit.
It is the fashion, of course, to treat all the great
dramatist's work as if it was impeccable ; whereas a
portion of the work he did for the stage was almost
beneath contempt, both in subject and in treatment.
Curiously enough, some of his least inspired pro-
ductions are the very ones which hold possession of
the stage. ' King Lear ' is seldom or never repre-
sented, for the reason possibly that it demands
greater insight and a larger method in its exponents
than are nowadays forthcoming on the boards. I
have seen several Lears since the Lear of Vandenhoff,
but all of them seemed to me either uninspired, or
melodramatic or inarticulate. Unfortunately I missed
the Lear of Salvini, which possessed, I am assured,
remarkable qualities.
" But for me, ' King Lear ' remains, and will remain,
the soul-moving poem which swept me beyond myself
when I was a boy. I feel now, as I felt then, the
unapproachable truth and sublimity of such passages
Youth, 1856-58 33
as the one in Act III., where the storm-beaten
Monarch first realises the mystery of human wretched-
ness and pain. Here, and in many other passages,
the very quick of Pity is touched. From the soul-
moving situation, where the old man's tremulous
hands reach out to feel the tears on the lids of his
sobbing daughter, down to the crowning pathos, the
heart-breaking last cry, the whole story moves on to
such music as has never been made by poet either
before or since, culminating in the solemn words of
Kent, uttered just before the curtain falls. I feel
still, as I felt more than thirty years ago, that this
work of Shakespeare ranks among the highest
possible achievements of the human mind. Yet the
speech in which it is written, observe, is the simple
speech of ordinary life, which, with all its wonderful
modulations, is as natural to-day as in the day when
it was first uttered.
" The influence on my own character of this master-
piece was deep and abiding. I first gained from it
that perception of the piteousness of life which has
been, despite all aberrations into contemporary
savagery, the inspiration of all my writings. To me
the storm-tost figure of Lear represented Humanity
itself, swept hither and thither by the elemental and
seemingly aimless cruelty of Nature, yet coming at
last to anchorage, so far as the individual is con-
cerned, in an equally elemental peace and calm. I
was taught by the contemplation of his wretchedness,
as he himself was taught by personal strife and
sorrow, to feel for that sorrow of which I had hitherto
taken ' too little care.' In weeping for him I wept
for all those who suffer, either through their own
passions or through the anarchy of society, and from
that time forward I was alert to catch any genuine
4
34 Robert Buchanan
cri du arur from the troubled waters of the world.
Other influences, of course, co-operated — my upbring-
ing among the Socialists, my mother's supreme
sympathy for all suffering, my general reading in the
literature I was beginning to love — but I think, nay, I
am sure, that ' King Lear ' focussed my feelings into
humanitarianism, and gave to my mind no little of
the human sympathy which I hope it possesses. I
mention this, not to claim any special interest for my
own literary development, but to emphasise the belief
I have long held — that environment shapes character,
for good or evil, quite as much as natural tempera-
ment and inherited qualities. Up to a certain period
of my boyhood I was, I think, indifferent to suffering,
capable of selfish cruelty, careless of all pain save my
own. From the moment that I drank into my being
the full significance of Shakespeare's tragedy I
possessed a clue to all the mystery of Life, and
realised that if I personally had ever any message to
deliver, it would be a message on behalf of suffering
humanity.
" I learned also from ' King Lear ' another thing,
which I have never quite forgotten — the truth that
simplicity of thought and phrase is the inevitable
characteristic of all great literary work. The more I
studied the masterj^iece (and of course I rushed from
the playhouse to study the printed text), the more I
saw that its effects were obtained by absolute truth to
nature and to the language of common life. In the
finest passages, words of one syllable predominated,
strong Saxon words for the most part, rendered
poetically wonderful by the magic of their phrasing.
Like many young readers, and like all young poets, I
was charmed, of course, by the verbal felicity in which
Shakespeare still remains supreme. I lingered like a
Youth, 1856-58 35
lover over such expressions as : ' drinks the green
mantle of the deadly pool,' * as mad as the vexed sea,'
'strange oeiliads and most speaking looks,' ' the shrill-
gorged lark,' ' the wheel has come full circle, — I am
here,' and a hundred others more or less apt and
masterful. Of course these things concerned the
mere vocabulary of poetical art, but if I needed any
clue to the cunning of great Literature, they supplied
it to me. I was thenceforth free of the realms of
Poesy, so far as its masonic signs are concerned. It
took me many a long year to discover that, without a
deeper and more abiding inspiration, the masonic
signs meant nothing, though I may remark, en passant,
that I know of no instance in literature where con-
summate mastery of verbal expression is associated
with deficient intellectual power. Even Keats, the
least meditative and the most passionate of all the
poets and the nearest in power of verbal magic to
Shakespeare, was intellectually prescient to the
inmost fibres of his poetical being — pure absolute
thinking and conceiving power being at the very root
of his unexampled sensuous instinct, and leading him
to those miracles of phrasing in which, I conceive, he
has no modern rival. It so happened that at the
very time when my eyes were becoming opened to
the secrets of human imagination, while hungry, with
a lad's insensate hunger, for the thrills of Life itself,
that chance threw me among the very men who were
the liege servants of the great Dramatist ; and a rare
crowd they were, with much of the savagery, but no
little of the personal charm, of Shakespeare's own
contemporaries.
" The Theatre Royal, Glasgow, was then under the
management of Edmund Glover, a man of remarkable
gifts, full-blooded, able, and quick both in thought
36
Robert Buchanan
and execution, an actor of power and passion, fas-
cinating and humorous. As my father was the
editor and proprietor of a leading local newspaper, I
had free entrance to the Theatre, which I haunted in
and out of season ; but not satisfied with this, I
followed the Players into the privacy of their lives,
or such doubtful privacy as they found in the hostelry
round the corner. Well, they were for the most part
merry fellows, wild in their ways, loose in their gait
and their conversation, living in an atmosphere which
constantly reminded me of that breathed by Falstaff
and the rogues of his following. It would be idle to
deny that they were not a sober crew — their spirits
and their manners were ever under the influence of
my Host of the Garter, for the actor then was still a
vagabond, who had not yet acquired the respectability
of the counter-jumper or the fine airs of the man about
town. Such as they were I loved them, and I am
still quite sure that they were true kinsmen and leal
descendants of the players who lived and died in the
times of good Queen Bess. Morals they had none,
or none to boast of; they tippled, they swaggered,
they ran after petticoats and petticoats ran after
them ; but the spirit of the savage old literature ran
in their veins like blood, and they had the fine
qualities of their defects. Their very speech was
archaic, their very oaths were reminiscent of
Bardolph and Pistol. Tom Powerie, Henry Vivash,
Harry Ashley, George Vincent — these are some of
the names that recur to me as I think of those wild
young days. Powerie was the best Falconbridge I
ever encountered, either on or off the stage ; as
reckless, as fiery, as masterful as the great Bastard
himself. He died early, the victim of his own fierce
energy and abandonment. Henry Vivash drifted to
Youth, 1856-58 37
London and died there in harness. Ashley became
famous afterwards as a wonderful impersonator of
quaint ' old men/ especially in comic opera. George
Vincent came to London also, startling the city by his
wonderful performance of Melter Moss when the
*Ticket-of-leave Man' was first produced, and after-
wards, in other productions at the Olympic, showing
an extraordinary versatility.
" To the boy on the threshold of life, still a student
in his quieter hours, these men were wonderful beyond
measure, for they were, as I have suggested, Shake-
speare's men — virile, reckless, and strangely merry —
and their presence in that sad Sabbatarian City, from
whose blessings and sympathies they were outcast,
was to all seeming as wonderful as themselves. I
learned to know them well, and, as I have said, to
love them, and I still think that the hours I spent
with them were far from wasted. Among them, for
a short period, drifted a young player of another
nature, afterwards known to the world as Henry
Irving. A quiet, studious young man, even then
ambitious, but exhibiting little talent even as a
' walking gentleman,' I was much drawn to him by
his thoughtful personality, so different to the wilder
personalities of his companions, and I took him to
my father's house and introduced him to my mother.
He went away suddenly, and the last message I had
from him came in the shape of a long letter dated
from the British Museum in London." ^
The boy might have had a worse environment than
he was blessed with in Glasgow during those early
years when he inhaled the atmosphere of freethought
among his father's friends. At that time he had
several friends of his own, students like himself, but
• " Latter Day Leaves."
38
Robert Buchanan
none for whom he greatly cared, so he was thrown
for companionship into the society of grown men, all
many years his senior. In this respect, therefore, he
was somewhat lonely, until one day Providence sent
him a comrade only a few years older than himself,
but even more boyish and unsophisticated in the
world's ways. His name was David Gray, and he
was then, while preparing for the University, a
pupil teacher in connection with the Normal schools.
The two youthful poets, who were destined to
become such friends, first met at a cricket match on
Glasgow Green, to which they had both been invited
by a mutual friend, Mr, John Steven, and after the
match there was a supper given to the young
cricketers, at which both David Gray and Robert
Buchanan was present. David Gray was very
diffident and retiring by nature, but on that eventful
evening it seems he was the life and soul of the little
gathering.
From the beginning of their boyish friendship
David Gray, although he was the elder, always leant
upon his friend, and was influenced both for good
and evil by his more strenuous and pertinacious
character. There was also this curious feature in
their relationship, that Robert Buchanan had been
bred among comparatively educated people, superior
in social station to the peasantry among whom Gray
was reared. His knowledge of his lowly origin made
him very diffident, even to the extent of dreading and
avoiding cultivated society, more particularly that of
educated women ; he preferred to mix with men and
women of the lower classes, with whom he was
thoroughly at home.
" It always struck me as rather droll," said the
poet, " that I should stand in this relationship to my
Youth, 1856-58 39
friend, for my own family was certainly not aris-
tocratic in any sense of the word, but so it was, and
even my own dear mother regarded David as
practically a social inferior, very gauche in manner,
and almost boorish in his silent and bashful ways.
Few people saw him as I saw him — free, natural, and
unconstrained. Alone with me, or in the company
of kindred spirits like myself, he became transformed,
even physically ; his tongue was loosened, his eyes
flashed fire, and he was to all intents and purposes
another being. But despite all this I was generally
the one to lead, he the one to follow ; and he followed
me, I fear, into many queer scenes and into a great
deal of doubtful company.
" Poor David, not in one respect only but in a
hundred respects he was too frail and sensitive for
this rough world, and it is little wonder that he
withered up so soon at the first breath of its unkind-
ness. He was woman-like in both face and form,
and he was woman-like too in his sympathies and
disposition. His feelings were like running water,
for ever changing, passionately pure, ineffably soft
and tender, yet the sport of every wind that blew.
Of the two I was by far the most introspective, my
emotions being always tempered by purely mental
impressions. His only taste was for poetry pure and
simple — verse poetry from that of Shakespeare to
that of Burns, and neither religion nor philosophy
awakened his interest. Partly from natural disposi-
tion, partly through my early training, I was
altogether different. Poetry to me was merely the
handmaid of the severer Muses. True I ' lisped in
numbers,' but less for the mere music's sake than for
some strange clue it seemed to give to the subtler
business of life and thought. I had steeped myself
40 Robert Buchanan
in all the philosophical literature of the last century,
more particularly that of the English Deists and the
French materialists, and I was already beginning to
ask myself if there was any clue to life's mystery.
To David there was no mystery about it, to him life
was a golden wonder and delight flooded with the
memories of the great singers. He heard nothing
else, cried for nothing else ; poetry was his absolute
life and death. Nevertheless I shared his enthusiasm
and rapture when we began linking hands, as it were,
to thread our delightful way through the Wonderland
of the English Muses. We sat and read together,
often turning night into day, and comparing our
impressions of the books we read. In my father's
library was Anderson's edition of the English Poets,
closely printed in double columns and extending to
fourteen or fifteen volumes, including verse transla-
tions of the classics. We waded gladly and un-
weariedly through these enormous tomes, though
they consisted for the most part of sad rubbish. But
among the rubbish there was solid gold, of course.
It was in this edition that Gray first read Chaucer's
* Legend of Good Women ' and Drayton's poems, and
Milton's ' Paradise Lost ' and ' Paradise Regained,'
underlining all the precious passages." ^
Robert treasured those volumes all his life, and he
has often pointed out to me the " precious passages "
marked by Gray's own hand. " Neither of us at that
time cared much for the classic poets of Greece or
Rome. Gray was a fairly good Latin scholar, but
had very little Greek, and such poor scholarship as I
possess came to me afterwards, when I revived the
impression of what I had learned at school and
college. It seems to me singular now that although
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
Youth, 1856-58 41
I had a boy's familiarity with Homer and Virgil I
never seemed to go to those sources for the phrasing
which bewitched me so much in the poets of my
native land. To me they were class books, and little
more. The explanation is no doubt that Shake-
speare and the rest took such absolute possession of
me, that they left me no room to seek elsewhere the
verbal felicities which I loved so much." ^
It will be seen that even at that time he was begin-
ning to realise that poetry in its highest and best
aspect meant far more than mere phrases or beautiful
ideas. It was to him inspiration, imagination,
religion. The supreme tragedy of " King Lear " sof-
tened his character, and flooded his soul with human
pity. Next to that in influence came, I think, the
first reading of Wordsworth, whom he ever regarded
as one of the greatest of modern poets. The one-
volume edition of Wordsworth, published by Moxon,
had been given to him by his father as a present on
his fourteenth birthday. It was in every way a
priceless gift, and before long he had nearly all the
poems by heart. The other poets were to him
beautiful singers, but Wordsworth he felt was a
prophet and a seer. He alone knew Nature at the
fountain head, he alone delivered oracles, some of
which sounded to the boy's soul like the very voice
of Nature's God.
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
CHAPTER V
FLIGHT TO LONDON, 1 859
IN or about the year 1859 Robert Buchanan the
elder became insolvent, and a full chorus of his
friends and enemies averred that he had brought the
catastrophe upon himself by reckless speculation and
extravagant living. His wife shared this delusion
and resented, chiefly for her son's sake, the sudden
change in their fortunes. The boy had been reared
and educated in the belief that the newspaper
business which his father had established was a kind
of indestructible property guaranteeing for his son
and heir at least a competence for life. How the
lad's fortunes would have shaped had this really been
the case one cannot of course divine ; as it was, he
found himself at eighteen years of age without any
prospect before him (since he had been put to no
profession), and bereft at one blow of what had
seemed an independence. At that moment, however,
his sympathies appear to have been with his father ;
and partly perhaps because he did not quite realise
what the change in his own prospects meant, partly
because his sense of justice divined at once that the
change was the result of simple accident, he was
42
Flight to London, 1859 43
righteously indignant with those summer friends who
visited his father with such bitter blame.
In point of fact the very enterprise which had
enabled Mr. Buchanan to succeed was the sole or
chief cause of his ultimate downfall and ruin.
Coming almost unknown to Glasgow, he had practi-
cally founded the Glasgow Sentinel as an organ of
freethought and liberal opinion and had gradually
established in connection with that newspaper a
prosperous printing business. Encouraged by his
success he had added to his ventures the Glasgow
Times and the Penny Post. For years fortune
favoured him, and everything he touched succeeded.
It was not until he was tempted to extend his ven-
tures beyond the locality where he resided that the
tide of his fortunes seems to have turned. He
became involved in serious liabilities and finally
failed to meet his responsibilities.
The blow must have been a heavy one, but Mr.
Buchanan felt it chiefly on account of his wife — he
himself was too light-hearted, too hopeful, too unsel-
fish to fret much over his own misfortunes. " Even
had I never loved my father before, I should have
loved and venerated him then for the patience and
gentleness with which he accepted the blow. All
his friends, or nearly all, turned from him, and did
much to embitter his position, but he never moaned
or complained, he uttered no word of self-pity, and
he seemed utterly incapable of remembering, with
the slightest resentment, the cruel conduct of some
of those who had called themselves his friends. I
had long, even as a boy, perceived that goodness and
kindness as estimated by the world were very com-
posite qualities. My father, I know, was not a good
man — not, that is to say, a moral man in the strict
44 Robert Buchanan
sense — his relations with my mother were not happy,
and he was to no Httle extent to blame, and in many
respects he was weak as water. But looking back
over the years I see in him who had so many faults
a nobility, a loving-kindness which I have scarcely
seen in any other man. For the rest he was a
childish creature, dear and simple as a child. His
very faults were childish, nay, his very vices, but it is
much to be able to say of him — what could not be
said of one man in a thousand — that in all my recol-
lection of him I cannot remember one cruel or
unkind act, or even one unkind word." ^
The Scottish method of dealing with the insolvent
is swift and speedy, and Mr. Buchanan found himself
in a moment, as it were, stripped bare of his remaining
substance and thrust out into the streets to face the
world. Even then he was not daunted, but prepared
with reckless energy to start another newspaper !
It was at this juncture that the boy, who seemed to
have inherited a good deal of his father's dauntless
spirit, went to his mother and proposed to her that
he should start for London to seek his fortune. It
was clear, he said, that he could do nothing in
Glasgow, where he was only a burden on his father's
scanty resources. In London, on the other hand, he
could at least secure a maintenance of some sort.
Long and anxious were the talks he had with his
mother until, finding it quite impossible to gain her
consent to the separation, he, not, as he afterwards
said, without many regrets, made arrangements to
leave his home without her knowledge.
He had long dreamed of taking the world by
storm, for his boyish heart was full of recollections of
the mighty dead who had fallen or triumphed, and
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
Flight to London, 1859 45
even if his father had continued to prosper, I think
he would eventually have tried his fortune in London
as so many others had done, but of course he would
then have done so under less cruel a handicap — as it
was he had scarcely a shilling in the world.
For eighteen years he had never known what it
was to suffer privation or to want money ; he had
been reared in comparative luxury, in a bright and
happy home, the spoiled darling of a loving mother,
but he felt that in arranging to go from home, even
under circumstances so disadvantageous, he surely
could not come to harm. Thus it was that on
Saturday, the 5th of May, i860, he set forth from the
Central Railway Station, Glasgow, and, after he had
paid his third-class fare to London, had only a few
shillings in his pocket with which to face the world.
In one respect, however, he was better equipped than
most young literary adventurers — he had an ex-
cellent stock of clothes, and amongst it a sumptuous
silk-quilted dressing-gown, which his mother had
bought for him just before his father failed. Once
fairly started on his journey, he sat in a corner of the
carriage as miserable a lad as could be. " As one by
one my companions fell asleep in the darkness, my
heart swelled and my eyes were dim with tears, as I
realised for the first time that I was quite friendless
and alone. I thought of my dear mother praying for
me at home, and I longed to turn back and ask her
forgiveness for the pain I had caused her. Even
now I never take a railway journey in the night
without again realising the dismal heartache of that
midnight journey to London." ^
He had made no plans to guide him on entering
the great city, nor had he any personal acquaintances
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
46
Robert Buchanan
there who might give him a helping hand. Shortly
before his father's misfortune he had sent some
verses to Hepworth Dixon, who had printed them in
the AiJiencEwn, then under his editorship, and he had
some faint hope that Mr. Dixon might give him a
little work. He had corresponded also with George
Henry Lewes and Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall),
both of whom had strongly dissuaded him from
attempting to live by literature. Sydney Dobell,
another of his correspondents, lived far away from
London, and was unlikely to be able to be of much
service to him in the metropolis. He had no plans,
and literally no prospects.
As ill-luck would have it, he managed to lose his
railway ticket, and when it was asked for he had to
confess the loss. After some delay he was suffered
to proceed, but on his arrival at the terminus he was
treated like a culprit, and marched off to the super-
intendent's office. The result was that his luggage
was detained, pending inquiries at Glasgow, and he
walked away into the streets of London without any
personal effects whatever. But his heart was light.
The morning had brought bolder thoughts ; with
youth and strength on his side he seemed to be
ready for any emergency that might happen, so after
telegraphing to his mother that he was safe and well,
he swaggered forth into the Euston Road.
He must have breakfasted somewhere — possibly in
one of the numerous coffee-houses close to King's
Cross Station — but that episode he could never recall.
His next recollection was of strolling carelessly for-
ward in the early forenoon and making his way in
the direction of Regent's Park. Lonely and sick at
heart he wandered hither and thither, hungering to
accost one of the many strangers who passed him by,
Flight to London, 1859 47
but he was young, so he went on in silence till he
found a green spot in the Park, when he threw
himself down and began to think.
" As I lay thus seeing the bright sunlight through
a mist of boyish tears, I was conscious of a pair of
eyes steadfastly regarding me. They belonged to a
youth of about my own age, who was sprawling on
the grass and smoking a clay pipe. His head was
close-cropped and his general expression pugilistic,
but he looked good-humoured. He reminded me
instantly of the famous Mr. Dawkins, better known
as the Artful Dodger, and by that token he was
quite as ragged and disreputable-looking. We got
into conversation, and presently on hearing that I
was without a home, he invited me to accompany
him to his quarters in the neighbourhood of Shore-
ditch. I was so friendless and lonely that I would
have gone anywhere with the devil himself if he had
invited me, and late that afternoon I found myself
in the east of London, in a sort of low lodging-house,
or thieves' kitchen. It is all like a dream now, but
I remember my new friend was very kind to me, and
saved me from impolite attentions on the part of his
companions. The whole place reminded me of
' Oliver Twist,' and I fancy Fagin was there as well
as my friend the Dodger, whose bed I shared that
night, throwing myself full dressed upon it, and
sleeping like a top till morning. There were other
beds in the wretched room, and other youths and
men of my friend's persuasion, but no one molested
me, and, what is more wonderful, no one robbed me of
the small sum in my pocket. I rose up in the early
dawn and shook hands with my friend, who was still
half asleep. I never saw him again, but I often think of
him with gratitude for his kindness to me, a stranger.
48
Robert Buchanan
" I took some breakfast at a cofifee-stall in Shore-
ditch, and then strolled westwards through the
crowded streets, past the Bank, and along Newgate
Street to the Old Bailey, and thence into Fleet
Street and along the Strand. I had no particular
object and went along still like one in a dream, even
as a straw drifts with the current of a brook, indif-
ferent whither it goes or where it rests. I was in
London, that was enough for me; accident, fortunate,
or the reverse, would do the rest. The glory of my
youth was on me, I saw everything around me with
enchanted eyes ! " ^
He was still puzzled what to do, when he bethought
him of a schoolfellow who had been with him at
Merton, and whose father, one of the Socialistic
brotherhood, had a business somewhere in the
Edgware Road, which business turned out to be a
prosperous ham and beef shop, where food could be
purchased for home use, or consumed on the premises.
He did not find his schoolfellow, but he interviewed
the father, who stood behind the counter arrayed in
a white apron, and before many minutes had passed
Robert was seated at a table devouring a plateful
of ham and beef, while the good man stood over him
questioning him about his position. " I forget whether
he gave me any further assistance in the shape of
money, but I fancy that he did not, although he
made me promise to come to him again if I needed
assistance. It is more than likely that I concealed
from him the full extent of my poverty, although
I accepted gratefully his hospitable offer of a good
square meal. I was very doubtful as to where I
should look for my next night's longing, and was
still debating what to do, when I remembered a
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
Flight to London, 1859 49
friend who owed both my father and mother a large
debt of gratitude for kindness received. His name
was Merriman. At the time when my father was a
small newsvendor in Holywell Street, Merriman, then
a youth, had been a sort of errand boy. At the time
of my arrival in London he was studying for the law
after several years of busy journalism in the pro-
vinces, and, I had no doubt whatever that if I could
find him out I should at least obtain from him a
temporary shelter, I succeeded in finding him, and
no sooner had I appeared than I met with the
kindliest of welcomes." ^
Mr. Merriman was then living with his wife and
family in the Euston Road, not far from King's Cross
Railway Station, and when informed of the detention
of the luggage he accompanied his youthful guest
to claim the property. Information had come
from Glasgow that he had not travelled without a
ticket, and his small impedimenta were handed to
him with apologies, the authorities in Scotland having
conveyed the information that his father was a
prominent member of the newspaper press, who might
make the affair unpleasant.
A week or so later he left the shelter of Mr.
Merriman's roof, and betook himself to the afterwards
famous garret, No. 66, Stamford Street, Blackfriars,
where he settled down in earnest to begin life in the
Great City. The room which he occupied — a bed-
sitting-room — was situated at the very top of the
lodging-house, and the rent of it was seven shillings
a week, including attendance. The furniture was
very ramshackle, and the bed, a large old-fashioned
wooden one, with a festooned tent or awning over-
hanging it. There was an old, worn carpet on the
' Letter to Mr. Gentles.
5
50 Robert Buchanan
floor and a tumbledown armchair by the fireplace ;
but shabby and dismal as the room was, it was his
own, and he rejoiced accordingly. He was alone in
the Great City, but he was neither sad nor desolate.
In the first place he had his books, the few favourite
books which he had brought with him — the tiny
Pickering editions of Catullus, Dante, and the Greek
New Testament, an old copy of Horace, and the
poems of Keats and Shelley. When he had placed
them on the mantelpiece and lit his pipe (he smoked
a pipe in those days), he felt quite at home. All he
required besides was paper, a pen, and some ink, and
he was ready to storm the heights of Fame.
He generally took one meal at home — his break-
fast, and it consisted mainly of strong tea and bread-
and-butter. Now and then, not often, the London
egg appeared, as a relish. If he dined at home — and
V "^ it was very seldom — tea and bread-and-butter formed
the meal, but his favourite repast was taken at the
■^^ Caledonian Coffee House in Covent Garden, and
consisted of coffee and muffins, saturated with butter.
On Sundays, however, his landlady occasionally sent
him up a cut from her own joint. He was supposed,
as I have said, to have " attendance." This consisted
in the occasional apparition of a shock-headed Irish
servant, very much in the style of the " Marchioness,"
who tumbled up and down stairs in a most alarming
manner. Apart from this individual he saw no one,
except a fellow-lodger who occupied a room on the
same floor as his own. He was a printer, and was
generally in a state of intoxication. I have often
heard the story of how one morning he entered " the
garret " in his shirt sleeves, with an open razor in his
hand, and besought his neighbour to cut off" a button
on the neck of his shirt, which he had tried in vain
66, Stamford Strket.
I'o f(ice page 50.
Flight to London, 1859 5^
to undo. He was relieved from strangulation, where-
upon he retired to his own apartment and immediately
cut his throat.
Almost daily the young aspirant to literary fame
received a letter from his mother, full of loving in-
structions for his guidance. To one of these missives
the following is a reply : —
66, Stamford Street, S.
"Saturday afternoon.
" My very dear Mother, — I dash off a line or
two in answer to your letter, which I have just
received. My other letter has gone off, but it is of
no consequence.
" In the name of God don't credit for a moment
what the common liar says — stuff your ears when
those contemptible hounds talk slander into them.
If every married woman in the world was to break
down under the first falsehood levelled at her hus-
band, or even under the first unpleasant truth, good-
bye to Utopia. True or untrue, don't give ear to
those infernal tales. Anything, false or true circulated
for a sinister, vile purpose is morally an irretrievable
lie. Human nature learns to endure such things — it
must endure them. We have all our troubles ; and
the troubles resulting from matrimony, although
often the keenest, are seldom the most lasting.
" Take the worst like a stoic ! even if, as I do not
believe, the worst should come. I will earn enough
to keep the whole family, if it comes to that. I have
kind friends in London who will not see me overcome.
I can do something yet, thank God. So, for my sake,
keep up heart.
" A fall in life is very bitter and trying, but if a man
endeavours to climb a precipice and tumbles down in
52 Robert Buchanan
the attempt, the fall is not necessarily degradation.
Again, I say your duty demands woman's strength, —
stronger it is than man's strength in such a crisis after
all.
" Don't forget that / have still hands and a brain,
both of which may accomplish miracles. The world
is before me, and if I don't tear this lying tongue you
talk about out of its jaws, I am a swindler.
" With best and warmest love,
" Your affectionate son,
"Robert Buchanan."
This letter, stained and torn and marked with age,
came into my possession in a curious manner. I had
often heard his mother speak of it with pride— such
pride as I think would fill the heart of any woman
receiving such a letter from a son barely nineteen
years of age; and when she died, in 1894, I found
it hidden away among her most treasured belongings.
I gave it to her son. A few years later, after his own
death, I again found it when looking over his papers,
and I give it here, because it seems to me that the
spirit which then animated the boy was in after years
so eminently characteristic of the man.
CHAPTER VI
EARLY STRUGGLES, 1 859
IT was one thing to possess a lodging and to be
monarch of all he surveyed over the moonlit tiles
of Lambeth ; it was quite another thing to be able to
pay the rent, and to command if not the roast beef of
old England, at least bread-and-butter. His modest ^
calculation had been that a pound a week would be '^ys}-^
sufficient for all his needs, including tobacco, but how
to earn that pound was another question. Hepworth
Dixon, of the Athenceum, had given him a few unim-
portant books to review, in order (as he said) to " get
his hand in," but it was uncertain how soon those
contributions would be used, and the pay, ten shillings
and sixpence per column, was very small. He had
sent some papers to All the Year Round, but whether
they would be accepted or not was still uncertain.
His pocket was almost empty when he thought of
Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall), with whom he had
corresponded when in Glasgow, and who had, as I
have said, warned him not to attempt to live by
literature. " The work you now do with pleasure,"
he wrote, " will possibly become a torture to you, and
you will discover, as so many others have done, that
what you eat is turned to bitter bread." The boy,
full of enthusiasm for his art, had disregarded this
warning, and was therefore almost ashamed to present
53
54 Robert Buchanan
himself before the man who had given it in vain. So
he wrote to the poet telling him that he had come to
London, and asking for the honour of an interview.
He received an answer almost immediately appoint-
ing a meeting at Mr. Procter's house in Weymouth
Street, Portland Place. The next morning the youth
presented himself, " and I fear my appearance must
have been somewhat forlorn, for I vividly remember
the looks of gentle sympathy and pity which Procter
cast upon me. He was then growing old and was
somewhat infirm, but when we talked his eye sparkled
and he seemed to forget the burthen of his years. It
was pleasant no doubt for the old poet to meet with
even a boy-worshipper, one who knew well his works,
which the world had already almost forgotten. As I
looked into his gentle face I could not but feel reve-
rence for the man who had been the friend of Landor
and Southey, and who had lived so long among
literary giants. He repeated, with a sad smile, for
the mischief was done, his former warning against the
literary life, but he promised to help me as far as lay
in his power, and as we parted invited me to see him
soon again. While I held his hand he pressed into
mine something wrapped up in a piece of paper, and
as he did so I saw the tears in his eyes. When I got
into the street I opened the paper and found three
sovereigns ! I had said nothing of my extremity, but
I presume that the old man guessed it without much
prompting." ^
After that interview the two never met.
" Again and again I proposed going to him, but
from one cause or another I never did. It was not
that I was ungrateful or forgetful ; night after night
I thought of "Barry Cornwall," and named him in my
• Letter to Mr. Gentles.
Early Struggles, 1859 55
prayers, but I had drifted away with the tide of life,
and was a stranger even to some of my closest friends.
I remember Browning reminding me some years after-
wards that Procter had inquired after me, rather
wondering that he had never seen me again. Brown-
ing, when he was in London, visited the old poet
regularly every Sunday. To my shame let it be
chronicled that I forgot my duty in this instance, as in ^
many others. I shall always regret that I was so remiss.
Before I could make amends Procterhad passed away." ^
In those days, so far as his fellow-craftsmen were
concerned, Robert Buchanan was not a little of a
recluse, and the habit of keeping apart from profes-
sional company remained with him more or less
all his life. Hating all intellectual pretensions, and
preferring to be simply a man among men, he sought
every kind of society save that called " literary," and
was at home everywhere except among literary men.
This habit of seclusion grew rather than diminished
with age — indeed, during the latter years of his life it
became almost a mania with him. On the occasion
of our returning from a visit we paid to New York in
the year 1885 he was rather taken with one of our
fellow-passengers, and during the evenings the two
would frequently pace the deck of the ship in earnest
conversation, each not having the least idea of the
identity of the other. As our journey was nearing
its end the stranger came to me one morning and
said how sorry he was that we were about to part.
" I have quite enjoyed my conversations with your
brother," he said, "he seems to be so fond of poetry ! "
The admiration which he was unwilling to court he
was just as unwilling to give. He was never a hero-
worshipper ; strength, either of mind or body, did not
' Letters to Mr. Gentles.
S6
Robert Buchanan
attract him, while gentle deeds and modest worth
invariably did. In point of fact he was a born
Bohemian, and cared nothing whatever for the pros-
perous or successful men. I do not mention this to
explain or palliate his forgetfulness with regard to
Mr. Procter, or rather I should say his carelessness
in acknowledging his obligation to him, for he never
forgot a kindness or failed, if occasion came, to repay
it. Had the old man been in need of his sympathy,
he would have acted differently, but he was happy
and prosperous, and so the youth did not hurry to
recall himself to his memory.
Another motive may have weighed greatly with
him. He was proud as Lucifer, and he hesitated to
greet the good old poet again till he could show him
that he was no longer a pauper, and that he had done
some good work to justify his belief in him. He sent
him his first books, and was preparing to follow them
into the kindly presence, when he heard to his great
regret that the poet was dead.
Meantime he stayed on in his " garret " earning
scarcely enough to keep body and soul together, but
he never gave up hope or lost heart.
He was not unhappy, indeed he looked back upon
that time as one of the happiest in his life. It was
only now and then that a sense of desolation came upon
him, and he realised his helplessness in the world.
The light of Fairyland was still following him, and he
had all his young illusions to keep him strong and glad.
But his pride of heart and gladness in mere life
were not to be without qualification. His first great
experience of the world's sorrow was coming to him,
for his dear comrade and companion, David Gray,
was about to join him, wounded and broken, after his
first flight into the great world of London.
CHAPTER VII
DAVID GRAY, 1860
IN the year i860, when Robert Buchanan left
Glasgow for London, he had arranged to make
the journey in the company of his friend. Why he
did not do so he himself has told so graphically, in
his admirable sketch of the life of his comrade, that
I give the story in his own words : —
"In the spring of i860 we both found ourselves
without an anchorage : each found it necessary to do
something for daily bread. For some little time the
London scheme had been in abeyance ; but, on the
3rd of May, i860, David came to me, his lips firmly
compressed, his eyes full of fire, saying, ' Bob, I'm off
to London.' ' Have you funds ? ' I asked. ' Enough
for one, not enough for two,' was the reply. ' If you
can get the money anyhow, we'll go together.' On
parting we arranged to meet on the evening of the
5th of May, in time to catch the five o'clock train.
Unfortunately, however, we neglected to specify
which of the two Glasgow stations was intended.
At the hour appointed David left Glasgow by one
line of railway, in the belief that I had been unable
to join him, but determined to try the venture alone.
With the same belief and determination I left at the
57
58
Robert Buchanan
same hour by the other line of railway. We arrived
in different parts of London at about the same time.
Had we left Glasgow in company, or had we met
immediately after our arrival in London, the story
of David's life might not have been so brief and
sorrowful.
" Though the month was May, the weather was dark,
damp, cloudy. On arriving in the metropolis, David
wandered about for hours, carpet bag in hand. The
magnitude of the place overwhelmed him ; he was
lost in that great ocean of life. He thought about
Johnson and Savage, and how they wandered through
London with pockets more empty than his own ; but
already he longed to be back in the little carpeted bed-
room in the weaver's cottage. How lonely it seemed 1
Among all that mist of human faces there was not
one to smile in welcome : and how was he to make
his trembling voice heard above the roar and tumult
of those streets ? The very policemen seemed to
look suspiciously at the stranger. To his sensitively
Scottish ear the language spoken seemed quite
strange and foreign : it had a painful, homeless
sound about it that sank nervously on the heart-
strings. As he wandered about the streets he
glanced into coffee-shop after coffee-shop, seeing
'Beds' ticketed in each fly-blown window. His
pocket contained a sovereign and a few shillings, but
he would need every penny. Would not a bed be
useless extravagance ? he asked himself. Certainly.
Where then should he pass the night ? In Hyde Park !
He had heard so much about this part of London
that the name was quite familiar to him. Yes, he
would pass the night in the Park. Such a proceeding
would save money and be exceedingly romantic ; it
would be just the right sort of beginning for a poet's
David Gray, i860 59
struggle in London ! So he strolled into the great
Park, and wandered about its purlieus till morning.
In remarking upon this foolish conduct, one must
reflect that David was strong, heartsome, full of
healthy youth. It was a frequent boast of his that
he scarcely ever had a day's illness. Whether or not
his fatal complaint was caught during this his first night
in London is uncertain, but some few days afterwards
David wrote thus to his father : ' By the bye, I have
had the worst cold I ever had in my life. I cannot
get it away properly, but I feel a great deal better to-
day.' Alas ! violent cold had settled down upon his
lungs, and insidious death was already slowly approach-
ing him. So little conscious was he of his danger,
however, that I find him writing to a friend : ' What
brought me here? God knows, for I don't. Alone
in such a place is a horrible thing. . . . People don't
seem to understand me. . . . Westminster Abbey ; I
was there all day yesterday. If I live I shall be
buried there — so help me God ! A completely
defined consciousness of great poetical genius is my
only antidote against utter despair and despicable
failure.'
" I suppose his purposes in coming to Babylon were
about as definite as my own had been, although he
had the advantage of being qualified as a pupil
teacher. We tossed ourselves on the great waters as
two youths who wished to learn to swim, and trusted
that by diligent kicking we might escape drowning.
There was the prospect of getting into a newspaper
office. Again, there was the prospect of selling a few
verses. Thirdly, if everything failed, there was the
prospect of getting into one of the theatres as super-
numeraries. Beyond all this, there was of course the
dim prospect that London would at once, and with
n
60 Robert Buchanan
acclamations, welcome the advent of true genius,
albeit with seedy garments and a Scotch accent. It
doubtless never occurred to either that besides mere
' consciousness ' of power, some other things were
necessary for a literary struggle in London — special
knowledge, capability of interesting oneself in trifles,
and the pen of a ready writer. What were David's
qualifications for a fight in which hundreds miserably
fail year after year? Considerable knowledge of
Greek, Latin, and French, great miscellaneous reading,
a clerkly handwriting and a bold purpose. Slender
qualifications, doubtless, but while life lasted there
was hope.
" We did not meet for some time after our arrival in
London. Finally we came together. David's first
impulse was to describe his lodgings, situated in a
by-street in the Borough : ' A cold, cheerless bed-
room, Bob ; nothing but a blanket to cover me. For
God's sake get me out of it ! ' We were walking
side by side in the neighbourhood of the New Cut.
'Have you been well?' I inquired. 'First rate,'
answered David, looking as merry as possible. Nor
did he show any indications whatever of illness ; he
seemed hopeful, energetic, full of health and spirits ;
his sole desire was to change his lodging. It was not
without qualms that he surveyed the dingy, smoky
neighbourhood where I resided. The sun was
shedding dismal, crimson light on the chimney-pots,
and the twilight was slowly thickening. We climbed
up three flights of stairs to my room : dingy as it was,
this apartment seemed, in David's eyes, quite a palatial
sanctum ; and it was arranged that we should take up
our residence together. As speedily as possible I
procured David's little stock of luggage ; then, settled
face to face as in old times, we made very merry.
David Gray, i860 61
"My first idea, on questioning David about his
prospects, was that my friend had had the best of luck.
You see, the picture drawn on either side was a golden
one ; but the brightness soon melted away. It turned
out that David, on arriving in London, had sought out
certain gentlemen whom he had formerly favoured
with his correspondence, among others, Mr. Richard
Monckton Milnes, now Lord Houghton.^ Though
not a little astonished at the appearance of the
boy-poet, Mr. Milnes had received him kindly,
assisted him to the best of his power, and made some
work for him in the shape of manuscript-copying.
The same gentleman had also used his influence with
literary people — to very little purpose, however. The
real truth turned out to be that David was dis-
appointed and low-spirited. ' It's weary work. Bob ;
they don't understand me : I wish I was back in
Glasgow.' It was now that David told me all about
that first day and night in London, and how he had
already begun a poem about ' Hyde Park,' how Mr.
Milnes had been good to him, had said that he was
a ' poet,' but had insisted on his going back to Scot-
land and becoming a minister. David did not at all
like the notion of returning home. He thought he
had every chance of making his way in London.
About this time he was bitterly disappointed by the
rejection of ' The Luggie ' by Mr. Thackeray, to whom Yjl^
Mr. Milnes had sent it, with a recommendation that
it should be inserted in the Cornhill Magazine. . . .
It has been seen that Mr. Milnes was the first to
perceive that the young adventurer was seriously ill.
After a hurried call on his patron one day in May,
' Lord Houghton, who afterwards became an intimate friend
of Robert Buchanan, died in 1885, and was succeeded by his
son, the present Earl of Crewe.
62 Robert Buchanan
David rejoined mc in the near neighbourhood.
* Milnes says I'm to go home and keep warm, and
he'll send his own doctor to me.' This was done.
The doctor came, examined David's chest, said very
Httle, and went away, leaving strict orders that the
invalid should keep within doors and take great care
of himself. Neither David nor I liked the expression
of the doctor's face at all.
"It soon became evident that David's illness was of
a most serious character. Pulmonary disease had set
in ; medicine, blistering, all the remedies employed in
the early stages of his complaint, seemed of little
avail. Just then David read the ' Life of John
Keats,' a book which impressed him with a nervous
fear of impending dissolution. He began to be filled
with conceits droller than any he had imagined in
health. ' If I were to meet Keats in heaven,' he
said one day, ' I wonder if I should know his face
from his pictures ? ' Most frequently his talk was of
labour uncompleted, hope deferred ; and he began to
pant for free country air. ' If I die,' he said on one
occasion, ' I shall have one consolation ; Milnes will
write an introduction to the poems.' At another
time, with tears in his eyes, he repeated Burns's
epitaph. Now and then, too, he had his fits of frolic
and humour, and would laugh and joke over his
unfortunate position. It cannot be said that Milnes
and his friends were at all lukewarm about the case
of their young friend ; on the contrary, they gave him
every practical assistance. Mr. Milnes himself, full
of the most delicate sympathy, trudged to and fro
between his own house and the invalid's lodgings,
his pockets laden with jelly and beef-tea and his
tongue tipped with kindly comfort. Had circum-
stances permitted, he would have taken the invalid
David Gray, i860 63
into his own house. Unfortunately, however, David
was compelled to remain, in company with me, in a
chamber which seemed to have been constructed
peculiarly for the purpose of making the occupants
as uncomfortable as possible. There were draughts
everywhere : through the chinks of the door, through
the windows, down the chimney, and up through the
flooring. When the wind blew, the whole tenement
seemed on the point of crumbling to atoms ; when
the rain fell, the walls exuded moisture ; when the
sun shone, the sunshine only served to increase the
characteristic dinginess of the furniture. Occasional
visitors, however, could not be fully aware of these
inconveniences. It was in the night-time, and in bad
weather, that they were chiefly felt : and it required a
few days' experience to test the superlative discomfort
of what David (in a letter written afterwards) styled
' the dear old ghastly bankrupt garret.' His stay in
these quarters was destined to be brief Gradually
the invalid grew homesick. Nothing would content
him but a speedy return to Scotland. He was care-
fully sent off by train, and arrived safely in his little
cottage-home far north. Here all was unchanged as
ever. The beloved river was flowing through the same
fields, and the same familiar faces were coming and
going on its banks ; but the whole meaning of the
pastoral pageant had changed, and the colour of all
was deepening towards the final sadness.
" Great, meanwhile, had been the commotion in the
handloom weaver's cottage after the receipt of this
bulletin : ' I start off to-night at five o'clock by the
Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, right on to London,
in good health and spirits,' A great cry arose in
the household. He was fairly ' daft ' ; he was throw-
ing away all his chances in the world ; the verse-
6+
Robert Buchanan
writing had turned his head. Father and mother
mourned together. The former, though incompetent
to judge Hterary merit of any kind, perceived that
David was hot-headed, only half educated, and was
going to a place where thousands of people were
starving daily. But the suspense was not to last
long. The darling son, the secret hope and pride,
came back to the old people, sick to death. All
rebuke died away before that pale sad face and
feeble tottering body: and David was welcomed to
the cottage hearth with silent prayers.
" It was now placed beyond a doubt that the disease
was one of mortal danger ; yet David, surrounded
again by his old cares, busied himself with many
bright and delusive dreams of ultimate recovery.
Pictures of a pleasant, dreamy convalescence in a
foreign clime floated before him morn and night,
and the fairest and dearest of the dreams was Italy.
Previous to his departure for London he had con-
cocted a wild scheme for visiting Florence, and
throwing himself on the poetical sympathy of Robert
Browning. He had even thought of enlisting in the
English Garibaldian corps and by that means gain-
ing his cherished wish. ' How about Italy ? ' he
wrote to me after returning home. ' Do you still
entertain its delusive notions ? Pour out your soul
before me ; I am as a child,' All at once a new
dream burst upon him. A local doctor insisted that
the invalid should be removed to a milder climate,
and recommended Natal. In a letter full of coaxing
tenderness David besought me, for the sake of old
days, to accompany him thither. I answered indeci-
sively, but immediately made all endeavours to grant
my friend's wish. Meanwhile I received the follow-
ing :—
David Gray, i860 65
" ' Merkland, Kirkintollock,
" ' loth November, i860.
" ' Ever dear Bob, — Your letter causes me some
uneasiness; not but that your objections are numerous
and vital enough, but they convey the sad and firm
intelligence that you cannot come with me. It is
absolutely impossible for you to raise a sum sufficient !
Now you know it is not necessary that I should go
to Natal ; nay, I have, in very fear, given up the
thoughts of it ; but we, or I, could go to Italy or
Jamaica — this latter, as I learn, being the more pre-
ferable. Nor has there been any " crisis " come, as
you say. I would not cause you much trouble
(forgive me for hinting this), but I believe we could
be happy as in the dear old times. Doctor — (whose
address I don't know) supposes that I shall be able
to work (?) when I reach a more genial climate ; and
if that should prove the result, why, it is a consum-
mation devoutly to be wished. But the matter of
money bothers me. What I wrote to you was all
hypothetical, i.e., things have been carried so far, but
I have not heard whether or no the subscription has
been gone on with. And, supposing for one instant
the utterly preposterous supposition that I had
money to carry us both, then comes the second
objection — your dear mother ! I am not so far gone,
though I fear far enough, to ignore that blessed feel-
ing. But if it were for your good ? Before God, if
I thought it would in any way harm your health
(that cannot be) or your hopes, I would never have
mooted the proposal. On the contrary, I feel from
my heart it would benefit you ; and how much would
it not benefit we ? But I am baking without flour.
The cash is not in my hand, and I fear never will be ;
the amount I would require is not so easily gathered.
6
66 Robert Buchanan
"'Dobell^ is again laid up. He is at the Isle of
Wight, at some establishment called the Victoria
Baths. I am told that his friends deem his life in
constant danger. He asks for your address. I shall
send it only to-day ; wait until you hear what he has
got to say. He would prefer me to go to Brompton
Hospital. / ivould go anywhere for a change. If I
don't get money somcJiow or soviewJiere I shall die of
ennui. A weary desire for change, life, excitement
of every, a^iy kind possesses me, and without you
what am I ? There is no other person in the world
whom I could spend a week with and thoroughly
enjoy it. Oh, how I desire to smoke a cigar and
have a pint and a chat with you.
" ' By the way, how are you getting on ? Have you
lots to do ? and well paid for it ? Or is life a lottery
with you ? and the tea-caddy a vacuum ? and a snare ?
and — a nightmare ? Do you dream yet on your old
rickety sofa in the dear old ghastly bankrupt garret
at No. 66 ? Write to yours eternally, David Gray.'
" The proposal to go abroad was soon abandoned,
partly because the invalid began to evince a nervous
home-sickness, but chiefly because it was impossible
to raise a sufficient sum of money. Yet be it never
said that this youth was denied the extremest loving
sympathy and care. As I look back upon those days
it is to me a glad wonder that so many tender faces,
many of them quite strange, clustered round his sick-
bed. When it is reflected that he was known only as
a poor Scotch lad, that even his extraordinary lyric
^ <^ faculty was as yet only half guessed, if guessed at all,"^
the kindness of the world through his trouble is extra-
• "Sydney Dobell, author of 'Balder,' 'The Roman,' &c.,
whose kindness to David, whom he never saw, is beyond all
praise."
David Gray, i860 67
ordinary. Milnes, Dobell, Dobell's lady-friends at
Hampstead, tired never in devising plans for the salva-
tion of the poor consumptive invalid — goodness which
sprang from the instincts of the heart itself, and not
from that intellectual benevolence which invests in
kind deeds with a view to a bonus from the Almighty,
" The best and tenderest of people, however, cannot
always agree ; and in this case there was too much
discussion and delay. Some recommended the long
sea voyage ; one doctor recommended Brompton
Hospital ; Milnes suggested Torquay in Devonshire.
Meantime Gray, for the most part ignorant of the
discussions that were taking place, besought his
friends on all hands to come to his assistance. Late
in November he addressed the editor of a local news-
paper with whom he was personally acquainted and
who had taken interest in his affair : ' I write you in
a certain commotion of mind, and may speak wrongly.
But I write to yon because I know it will take much
to offend you when no offence is meant ; and when
the probable offence will proceed from youthful heat
and frantic foolishness. It may be impertinent to
address you, of whom I know so little, and yet so
much ; but the severe circumstances seem to justify it.
" ' The medical verdict pronounced upon me is
certain and rapid death if I remain at Merkland.
That is awful enough, even to a brave man. But
there is a chance of escape ; as a drowning man
grasps at a straw I strive for it. Good, kind, true
Dobell writes me this morning the plans for my
welfare which he has put in progress and which
most certainly meet my wishes. They are as
follows : Go immediately and as a guest to the house
of Doctor Lane in the salubrious town of Richmond ;
thence, when the difficult matter of admission is over-
68 Robert Buchanan
come, to the celebrated Brompton Hospital for chest
diseases, and in the spring to Italy. Of course, all
this presupposes the conjectural problem that I will
slowly recover. " Consummation devoutly to be
wished ! " Now you think, or say, what prevents
you from taking advantage of all these plans ? At
once, and without any squeamishness, Dwney for an
outfit. I did not like to ask Dobell, nor do I ask
you ; but, hearing a " subscription " had been spoken
of, I urge it with all my weak force. I am not in
want of an immense sum, but say £,\2 or ^15. This
would conduce to my safety as far as human means
could do so. If you can aid me in getting this sum
the obligation to a sinking fellow-creature will be as
indelible in his heart as the moral law,
" ' I hope you will not misunderstand me. My
barefaced request may be summed thus : If your
influence set the affair a-going, quietly and quickly,
the thing is done and I'm off. Surely I am worth
£\^, and for God's sake overlook the strangeness
and the freedom and the utter impertinence of this
communication. I would be off for Richmond in
two days, had I the money, and sitting here thinking
of the fearful probabilities makes me half-mad.'
" It was soon found necessary, however, to act with
decision. A residence in Kirkintolloch throughout
the winter was, on all accounts, to be avoided. A
lady therefore subscribed to the Brompton Hospital
for chest complaints for the express purpose of
procuring David admission.
" One bleak, wintry day, not long after the receipt
of the above letter, I was gazing out of my lofty
lodging-window when a startling vision presented
itself, in the shape of David himself, seated, with
quite a gay look, in an open Hansom cab. In a
David Gray, i860 69
minute we were side by side, and one of my first
impulses was to rebuke David for the folly of
exposing himself during such weather, in such a
vehicle. This folly, however, was on a parallel
with David's general habits of thought. Sometimes,
indeed, the poor boy became unusually thoughtful,
as when, during his illness, he wrote thus to me :
' Are you remembering that you will need clothes ?
These are things you take no concern about, and so
you may be seedy without knowing it. By all means
hoard a few pounds if you can (I require none) for
any emergency like this. Brush your excellent top-
coat ; it is the best and warmest I ever had on my
back. Mind, you have to pay ready-money for a
new coat. A seedy man will not get on if he requires,
like you, to call personally on his employers.'
" David had come to London in order to go either
to Brompton or to Torquay — the hospital at which
last-named place was thrown open to him by Mr.
Milnes. Perceiving his dislike for the Temperance
Hotel, to which he had been conducted, I consented
that he should stay in the ' ghastly bankrupt garret '
until he should depart to one or other of the hos-
pitals. It was finally arranged that he should accept
a temporary invitation to a hydropathic establish-
ment at Sudbrook Park, Richmond. Thither I at
once conveyed him. Meanwhile, his prospects were
diligently canvassed by his numerous friends. His
own feelings at this time were well expressed in a
letter home : ' I am dreadfully afraid of Brompton ;
living among sallow, dolorous, dying consumptives
is enough to kill me. Here I am as comfortable as
can be : a fire in my room all day, plenty of meat
and good society, nobody so ill as myself; but there,
perhaps, hundreds far worse (the hospital holds 218
70 Robert Buchanan
in all stages of the disease ; ninety of them died last
report), dying beside me, perhaps — it frightens me.'
" About the same time he sent me the following,
containing more particulars : —
"'SuDBROOK Park, Richmond,
" ' Surrey.
" ' My dear Bob,— Your anxiety will be allayed
by learning that I am little worse. The severe hours
of this establishment have not killed me. At eight
o'clock in the morning a man comes into my bed-
room with a pail of cold water, and I must rise and
get myself soused. This sousing takes place three
times a day, and I'm not dead yet. To-day I told
the bath-man that I was utterly unable to bear it,
and refused to undress. The doctor will hear of it —
that's the very thing I want. The society here is
most pleasant. No patient so bad as myself No
wonder your father wished to go to the water cure for
a month or two ; it is the most pleasant, refreshing
thing in the world. But / am really too weak to
bear it. Robert Chambers is here ; Mrs. Crowe the
authoress ; Lord Brougham's son-in-law ; and at
dinner and tea the literary tittle-tattle is the most
wonderful you ever heard. They seem to know
everything about everybody but Tennyson. Major
(who has a beautiful daughter here) was
crowned with a laurel-wreath for some burlesque
verses he had made and read last night. Of course
you know what I am among them — a pale, cadaverous
young person, who sits in dark corners, and is for the
most part silent, with a horrible fear of being pounced
upon by a cultivated unmarried lady, and talked to.
" ' Seriously, I am not better. When the novelty of
my situation is gone, won't the old days at Oakfield
David Gray, i860 71
Terrace seem pleasant ? Why didn't they last for
ever?
" ' Yours ever,
"'David Gray.'"
" All at once David began, with a delicacy peculiar
to him, to consider himself an unwarrantable intruder
at Sudbrook Park. In the face of all persuasion,
therefore, he joined me in London, whence he shortly
afterwards departed for Torquay.
" He left me in good spirits, full of pleasant anti-
cipation of Devonshire scenery. But the second
day after his departure he addressed to me a wild
epistle, dated from one of the Torquay hotels. He
had arrived safe and sound, he said, and had been
kindly received by a friend of Mr. Milnes. He had
at first been delighted with the town and everything
in it. He had gone to the hospital, had been re-
ceived by ' a nurse of death ' (as he phrased it), and
had been inducted into the privileges of the place;
but on seeing his fellow-patients, some in the last
stages of disease, he had fainted away. On coming
to himself he obtained an interview with the matron.
To his request for a private apartment, she had
answered that to favour him in that way would be
to break written rules, and that he must content
himself with the common privileges of the establish-
ment. On leaving the matron he had furtively stolen
from the place and made his way through the night
to the hotel. From the hotel he addressed the fol-
lowing terrible letter to his parents : —
" ' Torquay, January 6, 1861.
" ' Dear Parents, — I am coming home — home-
sick. I cannot stay from home any longer. What's the
72 Robert Buchanan
good of me being so far from home, and sick and ill ?
I don't know whether I'll be able to come back —
sleeping none at night — crying out for my mother,
and her so far away. O God ! I wish I were home
never to leave it more ! Tell everybody that I'm
coming back — no better — worse, worse. What's
about climate — about frost or snow or cold weather
when one is at home? I wish I had never left it.
" ' But how am I to get back without money, and
my expenses for the journey newly paid yesterday ?
I came here yesterday scarcely able to walk. O
how I wish I saw my father's face — shall I ever see
it ? I have no money, and I want to get home,
home, home ! What shall I do, O God ? Father,
I shall steal to see you again, because I did not use
you rightly — my conduct to you all the time I was
at home makes me miserable, miserable, miserable !
Will you forgive me? — Do I ask that? Forgiven,
Forgiven, Forgiven ! If I can't get money to pay
for my box, I shall leave box and everything behind.
I shall try and be at home by Saturday, January 12th.
Mind the day — if I am not home — God knows where
I shall be. I have come through things that would
make your hearts ache for me — things which I shall
never tell to anybody but you, and you shall keep
them secret as the grave. Get my own little room
ready quick, quick ; have it all tidy and clean and
cosy against my home-coming. I wish to die
there, and nobody shall nurse me except my own
dear mother ever, ever again. O home, home,
home !
" ' I will try and write again, but mind the day.
Perhaps my father will come into Glasgow if I can
tell him beforehand how, when, and where I shall be.
I shall try all I can to let him know.
David Gray, i860 73
" ' Mind and tell everybody that I am coming back,
and cannot stay away. Tell everybody ; but I shall
come back in the dark, because I am so utterly
unhappy. No more, no more. Mind the day.
" * Yours,
" ' D. G.
" * Don't answer — not even think of answering.'
" Before I had time to comprehend the state of
affairs, there came a second letter stating that David
was on the point of starting for London. ' Every
ring at the hotel bell makes me tremble, fancying
they are coming to take me away by force. Had
you seen the nurse ! Oh that I were back again at
home — Mother ! mother ! mother ! ' A few hours
after I had read these lines in miserable fear, arrived
Gray himself, pale, anxious, and trembling. He
flung himself into my arms with a smile of sad
relief ' Thank God ! ' he cried, ' that's over, and
I am here ! ' Then his cry was for home ; he would
die if he remained longer adrift ; he must depart at
once. I persuaded him to wait for a few days, and
in the mean time saw some of his influential friends.
The skill and regimen of a medical establishment
being necessary to him at this stage, it was naturally
concluded that he should go to Brompton ; but
David, in a high state of nervous excitement,
scouted the idea. Disease had sapped the foun-
tains of the once strong spirit. He was now bent
on returning to the North, and wrote more calmly
to his parents from my lodgings : —
" ' London, Thursday.
" ' My very dear Parents, — Having arrived in
London last night my friends have seized on me
74 Robert Buchanan
again and wish me to go to Brompton. But what
I saw at Torquay was enough, and I will come home,
though it should freeze me to death. You must not
take literally what I wrote you in my last. I had
just yu7i aivay from Torquay Hospital, and didn't
know what to do or where to go. But you see I
have got to London, and surely by some means
or other I shall get home. I am really home-sick.
They all tell Die my life is not worth a farthing
candle if I go to Scotland in this lueather, but what
about that. I wish I could tell my father when to
come to Glasgow, but I can't. If I start to-morrow
I shall be in Glasgow very late, and what am I to do
if I have no cash. If he comes into Glasgow by the
twelve train on Saturday I may, if possible, see him
at the train, but I would not like to say positively.
Surely I'll get home somehow. I don't sleep any at
night now for coughing and sweating. I am afraid
to go to bed. Strongly hoping to be with you soon.
" ' Yours ever,
"'David Gray.'
" ' Home — home — home ! ' was his hourly cry. To
resist these frantic appeals would have been to
hasten the end of all. In the midst of winter I saw
him into the train at Euston Square. A day after-
wards David was in the bosom of his father's
household, never more to pass thence alive. Not
long after his arrival at home he repented his rash
flight, ' I am not at all contented with my position.
I acted like a fool ; but if the hospital were the sine qua.
non again my conduct would be the same.' Further,
' I lament my own foolish conduct, but what was
that quotation about i^npellunt in Acheron ? It was
all nervous impulsion. However, I despair not, and
David Gray, i860 75
least of all, my dear fellow, to those whom I have
deserted wrongfully.'
" Ere long poor David made up his mind that he
must die, and this feeling urged him to write some-
thing that would keep his memory green for ever.
' I am working away at my old poem. Bob ;
leavening it throughout with the pure, beautiful
theology of Kingsley.' A little later : * By the
bye, I have about six hundred lines of my poem
written, but the manual labour is so weakening that
I do not go on.' Nor was this all. In the very
shadow of the grave, he began and finished a series
of sonnets on the subject of his own disease and
impending death. This increased literary energy
was not, as many people imagined, a sign of in-
creased physical strength ; it was merely the last
flash upon the blackening brand. Gradually, but
surely, life was ebbing away from the young poet.
"In March, 1861, I formed the plan of visiting Scot-
land in the spring, and wrote to David accordingly.
His delight at the prospect of a fresh meeting —
perhaps a farewell one — was as great as mine,
"' Merkland, March 12, 1861.
" ' Mv DEAR Bob, — I am very glad to be able to
write you to-day. Rest assured to find a change
in your old friend when you come down in April.
And do, old fellow, let it be the end of April, when
the evenings are cool and fresh, and these east-winds
have howled themselves to rest. When I think of
what a fair worshipful season is before you, I advise
you to remove to a little room at Hampstead, where
I only wish too, too much to be with you. Don't
forget to come North since you have spoken about
it ; it has made me very happy. My health is no
76
Robert Buchanan
better — not having been out of my room since I
wrote, and for some time before. The weather here
is so bitterly cold and unfavourable that I have not
walked a hundred yards for three weeks. I trust
your revivifying presence will electrify my weary
relaxed limbs and enervated system. The mind,
you know, has a great effect on the body. Accept
the wholesome commonplace. . . . By the way, how
about Dobell ? Did your mind of itself recognise,
or even against itself recognise, through the clothes a
man — a poet? Young speaks well : —
" ' " I never bowed but to superior worth,
Nor ever failed in my allegiance there. . . ."
Has he the modesty and make-himself-at-home
manner of Milnes ? '
" The remainder of this letter is unfortunately lost.
"In April I saw him for the last time, and heard
him speak words which showed the abandonment of
hope. ' I am dying,' said David, leaning back in his
armchair in the little carpeted bedroom ; ' I am
dying, and I've only two things to regret : that my
poem is not published and that I have not seen
Italy.' In the endeavour to inspire hope, I spoke of
the happy past, and of the happy days yet to be.
David only shook his head with a sad smile. ' It is
the old dream — only a dream, Bob — but I am content.'
He spoke of all his friends with tenderness, and of his
parents with intense and touching love. Then it was
' farewell.' ' After all our dreams of the future,' he
said, ' I must leave you to fight alone ; but shall there
be no more " cakes and ale " because I die ? '
" I returned to London ; and ere long heard that
David was eagerly attempting to get ' The Luggie '
David Gray, i860 77
published. Delay after delay occurred. ' If my book
be not immediately gone on with I fear I may never
see it. Disease presses closely on me . . . the merit
of my MSS. is very little — mere hints of better things
— crude notions harshly languaged ; but that must be
overlooked. They are left not to the world (wild
thought !), but as the simple, possible, sad, only legacy
I can leave to those who have loved and love me.'
To a dear friend and fellow-poet, William Freeland,
then sub-editor of the Glasgow Citizen, he wrote at
this time, ' I feel more acutely the approach of that
mystic dissolution of existence. The body is unable
to perform its functions, and like rusty machinery
creaks painfully to the final crash. . . . About my
poem — it troubles me like an ever-present demon.
Some day I'll burn all that I have ever written — yet
no ! They are all that remain of me as a living soul.
Milnes offers five pounds towards its publication. I
shall have it ready by Saturday first.' And to Free-
land, who visited him every week, and cheered his
latter moments with a true poet's converse, he wrote
out a wild dedication, ending in these words : ' Before
I enter that nebulous, uncertain land of shadowy
notions and tremulous wonderings — standing on the
threshold of the sun and looking back, I cry thee, O
beloved ! a last farewell, lingeringly, passionately,
without tears.' At this period I received the
following : —
" ' Merkland, N.B. Sunday Evening.
" ' Dear, dear Bob, — By all means and instantly,
"move in this matter" of my book. Do you really and
without any dream work, think it could be gone about
immediately? If not soon I fear I shall never behold
it. The doctors give me no hope, and with the yellowing
of the leaf changes likewise the countenance of your
78
Robert Buchanan
friend. Freeland is in possession of the MSS., but
before I send them (I love them in so great temerity)
I would like to see, and, if at all possible^ revise them.
Meanwhile, act and write. Above all. Bob, give me
(and my father) no hope unless on sound foundation.
Better that the rekindled desire should die than
languish, bringing misery. I cannot sufficiently im-
press on you how important "this book" is to me: with
what ignoble trembling I anticipate its appearance ;
how I shall bless you should you succeed.
" * Do not tempt me with your kindness. The family
have almost got over the strait, only my father being
out of work. It is indeed a "golden treasury" you
have sent me. Many thanks. My only want is new
interesting books. I shall return it soon when I get
Smith. Do not, like a good fellow, disappoint an old
friend by forgetting to send that work. With what
interest (thinking of my own probable volume) shall
I examine the print, &c. / am sure, sure to return it.
" ' When you complain of physical discomfort I
believe. What is the matter ? Your letters now are
a mere provoking adumbration of your condition. I
know positively nothing of you, but that you are
mentally, and bodily depressed, and that you will
never forget Gray. In God's name let us keep
together the short time remaining.
" ' You tell me nothing ; write sooner too. Re-
collect I have no other pleasure. How is your
mother ? and all ? Are your editorial duties oppres-
sive ? Is life full of hope and bright faith, yet, yet ?
Tell me. Bob, and tell me quickly.
" ' What a fair, sad, beautiful dream is Italy ! Do
you still entertain its delusive notions? Pour out
your soul before me ; — I am as a child.
" ' Yours for ever,
" ' David Gray.' "
David Gray, i860 79
Still later, in an even sweeter spirit, he wrote to
an old schoolmate, Arthur Sutherland, with whom he
had dreamed many a boyish dream, when they were
pupil teachers together at the Normal school : —
" ' As my time narrows to a completion you grow
dearer. I think of you daily with quiet tears. I
think of the happy, happy days we might have spent
together at Maryburgh ; but the vision darkens. My
crown is laid in the dust for ever. Nameless too !
God, how that troubles me ! Had I but written one
immortal poem, what a glorious consolation ! But
this shall be my epitaph if I have a gravestone
at all—
" ' " 'Twas not a life,
'Twas but a piece of childhood thrown away."
O dear, dear Sutherland ! I wish I could spend two
healthy months with you ; we would make an effort,
and do something great. But slowly, insidiously,
and I fear fatally, consumption is doing its work,
until I shall be only a fair odorous memory (for I
have great faith in your affection for me) to you — a
sad tale for your old age.
" ' " Whom the gods love, die young."
Bless the ancient Greeks for that comfort. If I was
not ripe do you think I would be gathered ? Work
for fame for my sake, dear Sutherland. Who knows
but in spiritual being I may send sweet dreams to
you — to advise, comfort, and command ! who knows ?
At all events, when I am viooly, may you be fresh as
the dawn.
" ' Yours till death, and I trust hereafter too,
" ' David Gray.'
^^
80 Robert Buchanan
"At last, chiefly through the agency of the unweary-
ing Dobell, the poem was placed in the hands of the
printer. On the 2nd of December, 1861, a specimen-
page was sent to the author. David, with the
shadow of death even then dark upon him, gazed
long and lingeringly at the printed page. All the
mysterious past — the boyish yearnings, the flash of
anticipated fame, the black surroundings of the great
city — flitted across his vision like a dream. It was
' good news,' he said. The next day the complete
silence passed over the weaver's household, for David
Gray was no more. Thus, on the 3rd of December,
1 86 1, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he passed
tranquilly away, almost his last words being, ' God
has love and I have faith.' The following epitaph,
written out carefully a few months before his decease,
was found among his papers : —
"'My Epitaph.
" ' Below lies one whose name was traced in sand —
He died, not knowing what it was to live :
Died while the first sweet consciousness of manhood
And maiden thought electrified his soul :
Faint beatings in the calyx of the rose.
Bewildered reader, pass without a sigh
In a proud sorrow ! There is life with God,
In other kingdom of a sweeter air ;
In Eden every flower is blown. Amen.
" ' David Gray.'
'" September 2^^, 1861.'" '
" You will never forget Gray ! " wrote the dying poet
to his friend ; and surely his faith was justified, for
David Gray owes his reputation as much to Robert
Buchanan as to his own undoubted genius. At the
time when Gray was living in Stamford Street, several
' " David Gray and other Essays."
David Gray, i860 81
visitors went to see him — Lawrence Oliphant, Charles
Mackay, besides the ever kindly Monckton Milnes —
but of those visitors the youthful Robert Buchanan
saw little or nothing, being too proud and inde-
pendent to seek their patronage or friendship for
himself. Whenever a visitor was announced he
went away downstairs into the streets, not returning
until his companion was again alone. Friends he
himself had none, nor was he disposed to seek for
them until he could meet them on equal terms. He
sought no sympathy and he needed none, for he was
strong and able to fight his own way. Nevertheless,
he once or twice felt a little sore when some of the
good people, whose sympathies Gray's illness had
awakened, appeared to assume that he himself was
an interloper in his own lodgings, a sort of hanger-on
to his sick friend. He must have felt how infinitely
his love and friendship transcended theirs. Except
for his succour Gray would still have been adrift,
without companionship, without a tender hand to
minister to his wants, as Robert Buchanan did, by
night and by day, until the morning when the two
parted at the railway station at Euston Square, when
Gray returned home to the little cottage at Merkland
where he died.
But even with the death of his friend his responsi-
bilities in this connection were not laid aside, for
though he had his own way to make in the world,
though part of his earnings had to go to his father
(who was too old and broken to start life afresh), he
yet found enough, by practising great self-denial, to
enable him to extend a helping hand to the relatives
of his dead friend.
"The book of poems written, and the writer laid
quietly down in the auld aisle burying-ground, had
7
82 Robert Buchanan
David Gray wholly done with earth ? No ; for he
worked from the grave on one who loved him with a
love transcending that of woman. In the weaver's
cottage at Merkland subsisted tender sorrow and
affectionate remembrance ; but something more.
The shadow lay in the cottage ; a light had departed
which would never again be seen on sea or land ; and
David Gray, the hand-loom weaver, the father of the
poet, felt that the meaning had departed out of his
simple life. There was a great mystery. The world
called his darling son a poet — and he hardly knew
what a poet was ; all he did know was that the coming
of this prodigy had given a new complexion to all the
facts of existence. There was a dream-life, it appeared,
beyond the work in the fields and the loom. His
son, whom he had thought mad at first, was crowned
and honoured for the very things which his parents
had thought useless. Around him, vague, incompre-
hensible, floated a new atmosphere, which clever
people called poetry, and he began to feel that it
was beautiful — the more so, that it was so new and
wondrous. The fountains of his nature were stirred.
He sat and smoked before the fire o' nights, and found
himself dreaming too ! He was conscious now that
the glory of his days was beyond that grave in the
kirkyard. He was like one that walks in a mist, his
eyes full of tears. But he said little of his griefs —
little, that is to say, in the way of direct complaint.
' We feel very weary now David has gone ! ' was all
the plaint I knew him to utter ; he grieved so silently,
wondered so speechlessly. The new life, brief and
fatal, made him wise. With the eager sensitiveness of
the poet himself he read the various criticisms on
David's book ; and so subtle was the change in him
that, though he was utterly unlearned, and had
David Gray, i860 83
hitherto had no insight whatever into the nature of
poetry, he knew by instinct whether the critics were
right or wrong, and felt their suggestions to the very
roots of his being.
" With this old man, in whom I recognised a great-
ness and sweetness of soul that has broadened my
view of God's humblest creatures ever since, I kept
up a correspondence — at first for David's sake — but
latterly for my correspondent's own sake. His
letters, brief and simple as they were, grew fraught
with delicate and delicious meaning ; I could see how
he marvelled at the mysterious light he understood
not, yet how fearlessly he kept his soul stirred towards
the eternal silence where his son was lying. ' We
feel very weary now David has gone ! ' Ah, how
weary ! The long years of toil told their tale now ;
the thread was snapt, and labour was no longer a
perfect end to the soul and satisfaction to the body.
The little carpeted bedroom was a prayer-place now.
The Luggie flowing, the green woods, the thymy hills,
had become haunted ; a voice unheard by other
dwellers in the valley was calling, calling, and a hand
was beckoning ; and tired, more tired, dazzled, more
dazzled, grew the old weaver. The very nauies of
familiar scenes were now a strange trouble ; for were
not these names echoing in David's songs ? Merk-
land, ' the summer woods of dear Gartshire,' the
' fairy glen of Wooilee,' Criftin, * with his host of
gloomy pine-trees,' all had their ghostly voices.
Strange rhymes mingled with the humming of the
loom. Mysterious ' poetry,' which he had once
scorned as an idle thing, deepened and deepened
in its fascination for him. All he saw and heard
meant something strange in rhyme. He was drawn
along by music, and he could not rest.
8+
Robert Buchanan
" Beside him dwelt the mother. Her face was
quite calm. She had wept bitterly, but her heart was
now with other sons and daughters. David was with
God, and the minister said that God was good — that
was quite enough. None of the new light had
troubled her eyes. She knew that her beloved had
made a ' heap o' rhyme ' — that was all. A good
loving lad had gone to rest, but there were still bairns
left, bless God !
" But the old man lingered on, with hunger in his
heart, wonder in his soul. This could not last for ever.
In the winter of 1864 he warned me that he was
growing ill ; and although he attributed his illness to
cold, his letters showed me the truth. There was
some physical malady, but the aggravating cause was
mental. It was my duty, however, to do all that
could be done humanly to save him ; and the first
thine to do was to see that he had those comforts
which sick men need. I placed his case before Lord
Houghton ; but generous as that man is, all men are
not so generous. ' It is exceedingly difficult to get
people to assist a man of genius himself,' wrote Lord
Houghton gloomily ; ' they won't assist his relations.'
Lord Houghton, however, personally assisted him, and
was joined by a kind colleague, Mr. Baillie Cochrane.
" I felt then, and I feel now, that the condition of the
old man was even more deeply affecting than the
condition of David in his last moments, as deserving
of sympathy, as universal in its appeal to human
generosity ; and I felt a yearning, moreover, to pro-
vide for the comfort of David's mother, and for the
education of David's brothers. Who knew but that,
among the latter, might be another bright intellect,
which a little schooling might save for the world ?
After puzzling myself for a plan, I at last thought
David Gray, i860 85
that I could attain all my wishes by publishing a
book to be entitled ' Memorials of David Gray,' and
to contain contributions from all the writers of
eminence whom I could enlist in the good cause.
Such a thing would sell, and might, moreover, be
worth buying. The fine natures were not slow in
responding to the appeal, and I mention some names
that they may gain honour. Tennyson promised a
poem ; Browning another ; George Eliot agreed to
contribute ; Dickens, because he was too busy to
write anything more, offered me an equivalent in
money. All seemed well, when one or two objections
were raised on the score of propriety ; and it was even
suggested that * it looked like begging for the father
on the strength of Gray's reputation.' Confused and
perplexed, I determined to refer the matter to one
whose good sense is as great as his heart, but (luckily
for his friends) a great deal harder. ' Should I or
should I not, under the circumstances, go on with my
scheme?' His answer being in the negative, the
book was not gone on with, and the matter dropped.
" Meantime the old man was getting worse. On
the 27th of April I received this letter : —
'"Merkland.
" ' Dear Mr. Buchanan, — We hope this will find
you and Mrs. Buchanan in good health. I am not
getter any better. The cough still continues. How-
ever, I rise every day a while, but it is only to sit by
the fire. Weather is so cold I cannot go out except
sometimes I get out and walks round yard. / am not
looking for betterness. I have nothing particular to
say, only we thought you would be thinking us
ungrateful in not writing soon.
" ' I remain, yours ever,
'"David Gray.'
86 Robert Buchanan
" On the 9th of May he wrote, ' I have Dr. Stewart
to attend me. He called on Sunday and sounded
me — he says I am a dying man, and dying fast. You
cannot imagine what a weak person I am ; I am
nearly bedfast.' On the i6th of May came the last
lines I ever received from him. They are almost
illegible, and their purport prevents me from printing
them here. A few days more, and the old man was
dead. His green grave lies in the shadow of the
obelisk which stands over his beloved son. Father
and child are side by side. A little cloud, a pathetic
mystery, came between them in life ; but that is all
over. The old hand-loom weaver, who never wrote a
verse, unconsciously reached his son's stature ere he
passed away. The mysterious thing called ' poetry,'
which operated such changes in his simple life, became
all clear at last — in that final moment when the world's
meanings become transparent, and nothing is left but
to swoon back with closed eyes into the darkness,
confiding in God's mercy, content either to waken at
His footstool, or to rest painlessly for evermore." ^
Thus it will be seen that even at a period of
his career when most young men are sowing their
"wild oats" Robert Buchanan was dispensing that
blessed charity for which he afterwards became so
famous.
" He could hear of no case of poverty or suf-
fering (wrote Mr. Henry Murray, who knew him
intimately for years) and rest until he had relieved it,
and for many years he was the milch-cow of every
impecunious scribbler in London. His nationality
must have cost him many scores of pounds per
annum, because, at all times open to the moving
influence of a tale of woe, he would always reward
' " David Gray and other Essays."
David Gray, i860 87
with a double gratuity any such tale that was told
with a Scotch accent. The actor who had fallen on
evil times dined sumptuously on the day he met
Buchanan. Often laughing at himself for being the
dupe of people he knew to be morally unworthy, he
never knotted his purse-strings for such a reason. It
was enough that the applicant was poor. He had
little faith in ' organised ' charity, and detested the
self-advertisement of the published subscription list.
He felt that charity was hardly charity at all unless
the alms could pass from hand to hand, accompanied
by a word of hopeful cheer which doubled the value
of the sift." I
to*
' " Robert Buchanan and other Essays."
CHAPTER VIII
FRIENDSHIPS, 1864
WITH the death of David Gray his loneliness
in the Great City became complete ; almost
his only acquaintances being Hepworth Dixon of
the AthencEiwi, and other editors for whom he did
a little work. His only recreation was the playhouse,
and it was one night as he sat in the gallery of the
Strand Theatre that he recognised on the stage the
face of a player whom he had known slightly during
his boyhood in Glasgow. His delight at the recog-
nition was great. He hung round the stage door
after the performance, waiting for the "extras" to
come out, and when the one he sought emerged he
eagerly reminded him of their acquaintance. The
name of this actor was Edwin Danvers, famous
shortly afterwards for his extraordinary perform-
ances in Byron's burlesques. At that time Mr.
Danvers was not much better off than the boy who
had so providentially found him (for the salaries
received by actors then were very different to those
of the present day), and he had, moreover, a wife and
a large family to support, but poor as he was he
had the kindly heart and warm hand of a true
Bohemian, and he gave his youthful friend a
Bohemian's welcome.
88
Friendships, 1864 89
They adjourned together to a neighbouring bar,
and there drank and spoke of old times till late into
the night, and when they parted, with an arrange-
ment to meet speedily again, the boy walked home
across the Bridge of Sighs with a lighter heart. At
last he had discovered some one whom he knew, some-
one to whom he could speak of the things he loved
— of Scotland, of old friends there, of the wild life
among the players, some one who was a fellow-fighter
for bread, impecunious yet cheerful, like himself Of
course the pair had little or nothing in common,
for Mr. Danvers was not in any sense of the word
" literary," and he had little or no interest in the art
which the youth so passionately loved, but he was
frank and free, and perhaps this companionship did
more for the poet at that crisis of his career than
a more solemn or more learned acquaintance could
have done.
For several Sundays following this first meeting he
went by invitation to join the Danvers family at their
midday meal, but after a time the two drifted apart,
yet the memory of this little gleam of friendship,
coming as it did at a time when it meant so much to
him, was never erased from his mind. Many years
later the two heard of each other again, and now
it was the poet who held forth a succouring hand,
while the poor old actor, who had fallen upon evil
days, had every reason to bless the name of Robert
Buchanan.
The life he led in those days was not altogether
that of a serious student. True he worked very hard
by day and far into the night, but whenever he had a
little money to spare he spent it in the simple dissipa-
tions of the Great City. Sometimes, in company with
Mr. Danvers or some other " poor player," he would
90 Robert Buchanan
sail down the river and dance by mooi)light in Rosher-
r' ville Gardens. Curiously enough, the pleasantest
thing that remained with him was the memory of
1^ those little Sunday dinners in Gerrard Street, Soho,
where Mr. Danvcrs welcomed him to take " pot luck "
with his wife and family, and where the joint cooked
at the neighbouring baker's formed the centre of
attraction.
A few years before his death he had rooms in
Gerrard Street, and he took me to the window and
pointed out the house where Mr. Danvers had lived and
where those Sunday dinners had been eaten. " Ah,
those days ! " he said, with a sigh. " The merry days
when I was young! I shall never again feast so
royally or dream so happily as I did then ! "
Meantime, he knew one or two houses where he
was kindly entertained. One of these was the house
f 1 of Westland Marston, near Primrose Hill. There he
encountered sundry Bohemian journalists and players
— Hermann Vezin, Adelaide Neilson, W. G. Wills,
and many others. Westland Marston was an earnest
and very able man who had written one or two
successful dramas, the best known of these being
the " Patrician's Daughter," but whose intellectual
standards were somewhat old fashioned, either for
original creations or great immediate popularity.
His wife was very kind to all the young aspirants
who frequented her house, and his eldest daughter
Nellie interested the poet exceedingly. It seems
to have been a curious household. Nearly all the
members kept late hours, and did at midnight the
work which ought to have been done by day. Mrs.
Marston was an ardent spiritualist, and on one
occasion the subject of these memoirs was present
when she consulted the spirits about the eyes of her
Friendships, 1864 91
little son Philip, who was even then almost totally
blind. It was at the house of Westland Marston
that Robert Buchanan met Dinah Muloch, the
authoress of " John Halifax, Gentleman." She was
some years his senior, and they had no sooner met
than she carried him off to her little cottage on the
verge of Hampstead Heath, and placed her small
library at his command. " You will be a great man,"
she wrote to him, and he was very proud of the com-
pliment. His old friend Hermann Vezin deserves
more than a passing mention in these pages, for he
is one of the kindest of men, earnest, scholarly, and
sympathetic beyond measure to all young strugglers.
He it was who " discovered " James Albery and also
W. G. Wills, who for a long time had had a terrible
fight with fortune. For Mr. Vezin's genius as an
actor the poet had then, as always, the profoundest
admiration. " No greater piece of acting," I have
heard him say, " has been done within my memory
than Vezin's ' Man o' Airlie.' " The " Man o' Airlie "
was the hero of a play by W. G. Will.% it was founded
on some German play and had for its theme the life
and death of the poet Burns. My sister, too, was
always a warm admirer of Hermann Vezin, and
though she differed from her husband on a good
many points, she was always at one with him when
he spoke with such enthusiasm of the genius of his
friend.
But despite such acquaintances as those which
I have mentioned he was still, to use a homely
expression, " like a fish out of water." " Many of
the men and women whom I met were amusing
enough" (he wrote), "but I speedily perceived that
literature, instead of widening their ideas and
enlarging their views, narrowed both hopelessly.
92 Robert Buchanan
Wherever I went I heard tittle-tattle, not con-
versation — tittle-tattle about books and journals,
good and bad notices, and views of what Carlyle
called 'able editors.' I remembered with regret
nobler talk to which I had listened in my boyhood
at my father's table. Many of the individuals I met
seemed to me not only ill read and ignorant, but
radically unintelligent, and I searched in vain for
some young man of my own age with whom I
could cultivate a friendship."
Then it was that he made the acquaintance
W^ of Charles Gibbon, who was a year or so younger
r than himself. The pair first met at Heme Bay,
whither they had gone for a few days' recreation,
and on their return to London they set up house-
keeping together. Gibbon going to share the
"bankrupt garret" in Stamford Street. Besides
assisting his friend in the production of copy for
Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Gibbon wrote a good deal of
fiction on his own account. Although their earnings
at that time were not great they were both at work
far into the watches of the night, reading, writing,
studying, like young fellows cramming for an exami-
nation. Every night a pot of strong coffee was set
upon the hob, and out of this pot they refreshed
themselves, fighting hard against the natural desire
for sleep, and again and again tumbling off into a
troubled doze till daylight came and they crept
wearily to bed. There was no absolute necessity
for their burning the midnight oil in this fashion,
and indeed the poet never contracted this ugly habit
until Mr. Gibbon became his companion. When the
poet had a few shillings to spare they were now spent
in books, for he was essaying a double task : to earn
a living by his pen, and to complete his interrupted
i
.*
Friendships, 1864 93
education. In those vigils he learned his Horace
and his Catullus almost by heart, and beginning to
study German, soon mastered Goethe's " Faust " from
the first page of the first, to the last page of the second
part.
" It was about this time that I seriously thought
for the first time in my life of winning instant and
certain immortality by killing a publisher ! I had
been contributing articles and verses to divers
magazines, including Temple Bar and the St. James s
Magazine, then under the ownership of Mr. John
Maxwell, and in the natural course of things I soon
became acquainted with that gentleman — indeed, he
sent for me, and made me certain overtures with
regard to my contributions. He was a big, burly,
florid-faced, loud-spoken Irishman, far from unkindly
by disposition, and I am now quite sure, on reviewing
my connection with him, that he was of no little
service to me in my hard struggle for bread ; indeed,
he believed in me when few other people did, and
but for him my sufferings in those days would
certainly have been acuter. It became my custom to
take him from time to time a bundle of manuscript,
the length of which he would estimate without read-
ing, and for which he would pay me a given sum,
' on the nail.' But his manners had not that repose
which distinguishes the cast of Vere de Vere, and as
I was very young and proud, I sometimes felt acutely
and resented bitterly the style in which he occa-
sionally received me. I was, no doubt, a trying
young person, full of my own importance, but
Maxwell, on the other hand, had a knack of rubbing
my vanity the wrong way, and of making me feel
myself, as I literally was, a pauper. Add to this,
that I was often kept waiting for hours on the
94 Robert Buchanan
premises in Fleet Street, and that I had sometimes
to go away angry and disgusted, without an inter-
view at all ; now and then, moreover, the great man
was crusty, and wouldn't buy what I wanted to sell,
so that I had to depart in despair. Well, for some
reason or other, rightly or wrongly, I conceived the
idea that Maxwell had used me very badly. I had
called once or twice and failed to see him, and the
style in which the Publisher's myrmidons received me
deepened in me a sultry sense of wrong. So one
morning, after several hungry days, I packed up a
parcel of manuscript, procured a thick cudgel, and
left my lodging with this intimation to my companion
in wretchedness, the late Charles Gibbon : ' I am
going to see Maxwell — I will see him, and if he is
offensive as usual, I will beat out what brains the
ruffian possesses and offer him up as a sacrifice to the
Muses.' My friend laughed and thought I was
joking, but I was really in earnest, and contemplated
assault and battery. Off I strode, cudgel in hand, on
this truly Christian errand. I cannot tell how it
came about, but on entering the Publisher's shop and
asking for its master, I was received with effusion,
shown up at once into the presence and — well, then
and there in the friendliest manner imaginable, Mr.
Maxwell bought my manuscript and handed me his
little cheque !
" Many a time since then I have laughed over this
episode, wondering what would have happened if I
had proceeded to extremities. I daresay I might
have come off worse, for Maxwell was a powerful man
and the weights were tremendously in his favour.
But if I had assaulted him successfully, how all my
future life would have been changed ! I might even
have been hanged for killing a Publisher and gone
Friendships, 1864 95
to the gallows with a flower in my buttonhole, sure
of the worship of future generations of impecunious
authors !
" Seriously I had no real casus belli, for, I repeat,
Maxwell had been very kind to me. He was, I am
certain, a thoroughly good fellow, while I, no doubt,
was an aggressive young imp. Moreover, he never
knew how hard my struggle was, and how dangerously
near I sometimes was to starvation. A little after
this period he gave me the editorship of one of his
publications, the moribund Welcome Guest, and it
was while I was editing this publication that he sent
to me the lady whom he afterwards married, Miss
M. E. Braddon. I ran her first story through the
Guest and about the same time reviewed in the
Atkencsum, at Maxwell's request, her first and only
volume of verse. I remember our first interview on
the ground floor of the house where I lived in Stam-
ford Street, Blackfriars. She was a plump, fair-haired
unassuming young girl, while I was a curly-headed,
diffident boy, and she must have been amused, I fancy,
by my assumption of editorial airs. I trust that I
have not conveyed the impression that my first
publisher was either ungenerous or inconsiderate.
He had no doubt his faults, but he was after all a
very different person from some others whom I after-
wards encountered. One of these had a playful way
of insulting his authors, particularly when they came
to him for money which they had earned. It was
this gentleman, I am told, who said of me, apropos of
a call I had made upon him : ' I can't stand that
young fellow — he came into my office and he talked
to me as if he was God Almighty, or Lord Byron /'"^
By this time his father and mother had come to
' " Latter Day Leaves."
9^ Robert Buchanan
London and were living in lodgings in the neighbour-
hood of the Euston Road. His father found some
work on the newspapers, and was also trying
his hand at the manufacture of cheap fiction.
Nothing seemed to daunt him, yet already the weight
of trouble was beginning to bow him down, and he
had grown quite grey, Mrs, Buchanan, who was
some years his junior, had still the bloom of her early
womanhood upon her. She had but one thought in
life, the welfare of her son, and when that son pre-
sented a happy face to her she was happy too.
In course of time Mr. and Mrs, Buchanan took
lY' a small house in Kentish Town, and scraped together
some fragments of furniture to make it habitable. It
was a very small house, but it sufficed for their simple
needs, and once settled in it Mrs. Buchanan implored
her son to come and reside with her. He could not
resist the appeal, so he moved to Kentish Town, his
companion Charles Gibbon accompanying him, and
the two lived together for some time under his father's
roof
At this period he turned his attention to the
stage, and was soon busily engaged upon a poetical
drama in four acts entitled " The Witch-finder."
The scene of this play was laid in New England,
at the period of the memorable State persecu-
tions for witchcraft, and the leading character was
an inspired bigot, who became instrumental, after
destroying many helpless women, in procuring the
condemnation of his own daughter. The dialogue
was in blank verse, with the exception of certain
comic scenes, which were written in a sort of Shake-
spearean prose. Such literary strength as he
possessed at the time was put into this somewhat
ambitious play and the result was not altogether
Friendships, 1864 97
undramatic. He sent this drama to Fechter, then in
management at the Lyceum, who informed him that
it was a fine work, but so sad and dismal that it
oppressed him Hke an evil dream. He then offered
it to Phelps, who was quite enthusiastic over it, but
for one reason or another hesitated to produce it
While the fate of the " Witchfinder " was still
undecided, its author collaborated with Charles
Gibbon on a dramatisation of Banim's powerful story
" Crohoore of the Billhook." This piece, a lurid
melodrama, was offered to Richard Edgar, then
managing the Standard Theatre in Shoreditch and
Sadler's Wells in Islington, and was at once accepted
and paid for, the purchase money being the munificent
sum of twenty pounds !
The " Rathboys," as the dramatisation was called,
was produced in due course at the Standard Theatre,
and ran successfully for some weeks. The leading
character was played by Edmund Phelps, the son of
the famous tragedian, and the " comic Irishman," by
Thomas Thorne, with whom one of the authors
was to have delightful business relations many years
later. Before the play was withdrawn from repre-
sentation the authors appeared in it themselves, Mr.
Gibbon taking the part of a young lover, and Mr.
Buchanan that of the hero, called Shadrack the
Shingawn. As they knew the play by heart they
had no rehearsals. The part played by Mr. Buchanan
was that of a hunchback falsely accused of murder,
and he made the character so hideously disfigured a
monster that somebody inquired whether he was
representing Shakespeare's Caliban. Plowever, the
audiences out eastward were not critical, and the
performance passed off with a certain measure of
applause. The crux of the performance came in the
8
98
Robert Buchanan
penultimate act, when Shadrack had to rescue the
heroine from a violent death, descending by a rope
from the top of a precipice, seizing the heroine in his
arms as she swung over the abyss from the branch of
a tree, and ascending with her to the cliffs above.
For this effect, which demanded an athlete rather
than an actor, there had, as I have said, been no
rehearsal, and it is more than probable that the
aspiring actor showed some little doubt and trepida-
tion, for the lady whom he was to save was in agonies
of terror. However, all went well. Shadrack
descended by a rope from the flies, clasped the lady
in his arms, and was drawn back amid round after
round of deafening applause.
In a kindly notice of Mr. Buchanan, written just
after his death (1901), and published in M.A.P.,
Mr. T. P. O'Connor said : " In his reminiscences I do
not find any mention of one stage in Buchanan's life
which was very interesting. He was employed as a
small actor, if I mistake not, at the Britannia, or some
other of the popular suburban theatres, and I think
I have heard that his somewhat bulky form was one
night precipitated from the rope on which, as Myles-
na-Coppaleen in Boucicault's play, he was crossing
the Lake of Killarney."
The episode which I have related is doubtless the
one referred to, only it has got altered in the telling.
Anyhow, Mr. Buchanan was never a salaried actor,
and he never, to my knowledge, played the part of
Myles-na-Coppaleen. Encouraged by the success of
the " Rathboys," Mr. Edgar arranged for the produc-
tion of the poetical play, the " Witchfinder," at Sadler's
Wells, and it met with an excellent reception. The
leading male part, Matthew Holt, was played by the
late George Melville, while the late Miss Mariot
Friendships, 1864 99
personated a mad youth, one Elijah Holt, whose
brain had been turned by the denunciation of his
mother by himself, and by her subsequent execution
for witchcraft. The other characters were well sus-
tained, and the piece had a fair local run, but it was
the last attempt made by the poet for many years to
conquer a foothold on the stage. After the " Witch-
finder" had had its run, he turned aside from the
theatre, and for some time devoted himself to litera-
ture pure and simple.
CHAPTER IX
MARRIAGE, 1 86 1
■•}
IT was towards the close of the year 1861 that he
married my sister, who was not yet out of her
teens, and who was afterwards known among his
friends as " Buchanan's lovely wife." " She was "
(wrote Mr. O'Connor in M. A. P.) "a very beautiful
woman, stately and statuesque in figure, with beauti-
fully chiselled, regular features, fine eyes, and a gay
and almost bubbling spirit. But early in her married
life she was attacked by one of those painful internal
maladies which are the death of health and domestic
happiness, and often she suffered tortures. Indeed, I
remember seeing her once laughing and chattering
like some bright singing bird, and in the midst of it
a shade suddenly fell upon her face, and turning to
me she said : ' If you speak to me, I shall have to
burst into tears.' I was young in years and even
younger in experience, and knew nothing at that
time of that strange world of laughter and tears, of
heroic suffering and tragic depression, which is the
world of the invalid woman, but the moment remained
with me afterwards, an illuminating glimpse into the
unfathomable depths of secret and silent sorrow and
pain in which we move unconsciously among our
fellow men and women."
Mary Bfchanax.
(The Poet's Wife.)
To fac* -paqn lOO.
Marriage, 1861 10 1
At one period of her life Mr. O'Connor knew her
extremely well, and she on her side always enter-
tained a very warm feeling of friendship for him, but
his knowledge of her did not begin till many years
after her marriage, and in writing the above he is
speaking of a time when her beauty would of neces-
sity have become dimmed by a foreshadowing of
the terrible anguish through which she was destined
to pass.
Shortly after his marriage Mr. Buchanan went to
Denmark. " Being one of the very few Englishmen
of that day who knew the Danish language, he went
to Schleswig-Holstein towards the end of the war as
correspondent of the Morning Star. It was on his
return from thence that he wrote so freely on
Scandinavian literature, an unknown world to the
bookmen of that day." i He was accompanied on
this expedition by his father (who also, I should
imagine, went in some official capacity), and during
the absence of the pair the young wife went to stay
with her mother-in-law, who at that time was living
in the neighbourhood of Shepherd's Bush. It was
during that visit to Denmark that he met Hans
Christian Andersen ; he also visited the famous
Thorwaldsen Museum, and was so much impressed
by the figures of Christ and the Apostles, that he
purchased the one of Christ and brought it home as
a present to his wife. For a further record of those
days I must give his own words,
" I did some occasional work for All the Year
Round, and received for it a more liberal remunera-
tion. These desultory contributions would hardly
have served to keep me in bread and butter, had they
not been supplemented by a leader on current
' Pearson's Weekly.
I02 Robert Buchanan
politics sent weekly to a newspaper in Ayr. One
literary engagement, however, soon led to another ;
and I was in high spirits indeed on the morning I
received a letter from Edmund Yates informing me
that he was subediting, under Sala, a new magazine to
be called Temple Bar^ and that Dickens had given
him my name, among others, as that of a useful con-
tributor. " Let me have your copy as soon as
possible," Yates concluded, without even a suggestion
that it might be disapproved. Shortly afterwards,
when Temple Bar started, I became a constant con-
tributor, and the pay, compared to what I had hitherto
received, was princely.
"In after years, when he fell foul of me for an
article from my pen, called the ' Newest Thing in
Journalism,' ^ poor Yates asserted that his first know-
ledge of me was when ' I went to him with a letter
of introduction from John Hollingshead.' This was
a mistake, though it is quite true that I did have such
a letter in my possession, and that I possibly presented
it afterwards ; it had been procured for me from
Hollingshead, whom I did not then know, by Sydney
Dobell. It was not until I was an accepted contribu-
tor to Temple Bar that I met Yates in his rooms at
the General Post Office, where he was a sort of under-
secretary. He was a bright, cheery, somewhat loud-
spoken young man, who had drifted into journalism
via Thackeray and the Garrick Club, and he might
be described as a very favourable specimen of the
litterateur who was not essentially, or by tempera-
ment and education, literary. He wrote gossips for
the journals — chatty, personal gossip of a kind not
then so familiar as it is nowadays ; and in the course
of his lightsome work he had written with unpleasant
' Published in the Contemporary Review.
Marriage, 1861 103
personality of Thackeray's nose. Thackeray protested
that Yates, a fellow-member of the Garrick Club, had
broken the code of honour among gentlemen by
utilising his knowledge as a club-man to insult him,
Thackeray, and as a result, in spite of a strong
remonstrance from Dickens, Yates was expelled. It
was an unpleasant business, very contemptible and
very trivial. I am quite certain that Yates erred out
of sheer gaite de cceur, and not from malice ; indeed,
his respect for the great novelist was almost idolatrous.
Afterwards, when I visited him at his house in St.
John's Wood, I found a large portrait of Thackeray
hanging over his study table. He told me the whole
story over whiskey and water, and the tears rolled
down his manly cheeks as he did so, avowing both his
sorrow and his adoration.
" All this time, while working diligently to make
the pot boil, I was studying hard and writing verses
to please myself. I had a few friends, the brightest
and happiest influence upon me was that of Thomas
Love Peacock, the friend of Shelley, and the kindliest
and most wise of scholars. He was living at Lower
Halliford, on the Thames, and in order to be near
him I took lodgings at Chertsey, only sleeping occa-
sionally under his hospitable roof It was rest and
inspiration indeed to pass from the roar of Grub
Street and the strident Sixties into the peaceful
atmosphere of the brave old pagan's dwelling, to
drink May Rosewell's cowslip wine, and to boat on
the quiet river with Clari Leigh Hunt, a bright-eyed
little maid of fifteen and Peacock's special pet. It
was under Peacock's influence that I wrote many
of my pseudo-classic poems, afterwards gathered
together in my first volume, ' Undertones.' " ^
■ M. A. P. (" In the Days of my Youth ").
u
104 Robert Buchanan
Another friend of those early days was the late
^V Mr. William Black, ^ now so well and widely known
as a writer of fiction. The two saw a good deal of
each other at one time, but afterwards, through some
misunderstanding, he and the poet drifted apart. His
sister, Mrs. J, G. Morten, whom he described in his
novels as " Queen Titania," was ever our warm friend,
as also his niece. Miss Honnor Morten, who is known
far and wide as an authority on hospital nursing and
charitable works in general.
' Mr. Black died at Brighton in 1898, and was buried at
Rottingdean.
CHAPTER X
G. H. LEWES AND ROBERT BROWNING, 1 862
AVERY powerful influence was that of the
late G. H. Lewes, whose name, coupled with
that of the lady so well and widely known as
" George Eliot," appears very frequently both in the
published work and private letters of Mr. Buchanan.
" At the time when my friend and companion David
Gray was in busy correspondence with Sydney Dobell,
I was first opening up communication with George
Henry Lewes. Lewes was well known to me as a man
of letters and a powerful critic, as well as the friend
and adviser of 'George Eliot;' and I was attracted to
him by a certain catholicity or liberality of temper
which animated those of his works with which I was
familiar. About that time I had completed, in
addition to divers poems in the classical manner, a
number of blank verse idyls or pastorals, in which I had
utilised to some extent my knowledge of Nature, and
which, though crude enough, were certainly attempts
in a praiseworthy direction. Altogether undecided
as to the value of my attempts, and anxious to secure
an authoritative opinion, I one day despatched to
Lewes a formidable parcel, consisting of all sorts of
poems, and accompanied with a letter, in which I
requested him to tell me honestly if, in his opinion, I
was a Poet. The reply came very speedily, in a long
105
io6 Robert Buchanan
and kindly letter which began by putting my pseudo-
classical efforts as comparatively unimportant, and
then proceeded as follows : ' But in the pastorals I
recognised a different talent, and perhaps a future poet.
I say "perhaps" because I do not know your age, and
because there are so many poetical blossoms which
never come to fruit ; but these poems are original, or,
at any rate, individual. If you would keep them by
you for a time, strengthening the weak lines, as
Tennyson elaborately does, I have no doubt that the
best sort of success would attend them. If my
advice is of any value, however, write as much as you
feel impelled to write at present, but publish nothing.
If you publish now you will get classed. The public
will come to know you as a clever verse-writer, and
will be slow, very slow, to believe anything else,
whatever you may have become.' He ended by
conjuring me to wait, at any rate some years, before
thinking of publication." ^
Some years later, when the boy had become a man
and had settled down in London, he wrote to Mr. Lewes
to remind him of their correspondence. The answer
to this letter was cordial in the extreme, and Mr.
Lewes begged that his youthful friend would present
,/, himself at the Priory, North Bank, Regent's Park,
where he was then living. It was an invitation of
which he was not slow to avail himself; and thus the
two met for the first time. " Remembering Douglas
Jerrold's description of him, I was agreeably surprised
to meet a little, bright, not ill-looking man of between
forty and fifty, with a magnificent forehead, bright,
intelligent eyes, and a manner full of intellectual
grace. True, he was not physically beautiful. The
great defects of the face were the coarse, almost
' " Latter Day Leaves."
Lewes and Browning, 1862 107
sensual-looking mouth, with its protruding teeth,
partly covered by a bristly moustache, and the small,
retreating chin ; but when the face lighted up and
the eyes sparkled and the mouth began its eloquent
discourse, every imperfection was forgotten.
" Lunching one day at the Priory, tete-d-tcte with
* George Eliot ' and Lewes, I told them, among
other stories of my youthful experience, the story of
David Gray — his wild, dreamy youth, his strange
ambition, his early death. Both of my hearers were
deeply moved, and Lewes, with tears in his eyes,
exclaimed when I had finished, ' Tell that story to
the public too ! Tell it as simply and vividly as
you have told it to us this morning, and let Smith
and Elder publish it in their magazine.' Upon this
hint I wrote my little memoir, which was eagerly
accepted for publication in the Cornhill, then under
the editorship of Frederick Greenwood. About this
time I was busily engaged in writing, or rather com-
pleting, a series of Scotch stories in verse, afterwards
published under the title of ' Idyls and Legends of
Inverburn.' Not without trepidation I showed one
of the poems, ' Willie Baird,' to Lewes, and, to my
great delight, he praised it enthusiastically. ' Publish
a volume of such stories,' he said, ' and your fortune
is made.' I then sent him the long narrative poem
called ' Two Babes.' ' Better and better,' he wrote
immediately upon reading it. Not content with
empty praise, he communicated with Mr. George
Smith, of Smith and Elder, and urged him to secure
the work without delay." ^
Though his relations with Mr. Lewes seem to have
been of a very friendly character, he was evidently
not so well disposed towards the lady of the house.
' " Latter Day Leaves."
io8 Robert Buchanan
He hated anything Hke pretence or affectation, and
the airs of mysterious greatness which George EHot
thought fit to assume were particularly repugnant to
him.
*' She posed behind a curtain, and Lewes acted as
showman. No one could approach the oracle save
with reverence, fear, and bated breath. If she was
'composing' she must not be disturbed ; if she
descended from the tripod, it was a godlike con-
descension ; if she deigned, in that deep voice of hers,
to make a remark about the weather, it was celestial
thunder ; if she joked, which she did ' wi' difficulty,'
as we say in Scotland, her joke was summer lightning
on Minerva's brow. This state of affairs was com-
plicated by the fact of her peculiar relationship to
Lewes. She had few female acquaintances, and those
only worshippers, and her attitude towards the out-
side world, while sternly contemptuous, was at the
same time morbidly uneasy.
" I am obliged to confess that my attitude towards
the Sybil, when I was introduced to her by Lewes,
was always somewhat irreverent. I was an impu-
dent youngster, but I hated absolutism in any form.
Towards any godhead which I really worshipped —
towards Dickens, for example — I could have abased
myself in the dust. But it unluckily happened that
the works of George Eliot had never stirred me very
deeply, and that I was rather amused than awed by
her personality. Of course I kept my heterodoxy to
myself as much as possible, but I am afraid that it
oozed through my otherwise respectful manner, and
at times I frankly suggested that not even great
Genius had any right to assume airs of superiority
towards broad Humanity. With Lewes himself,
moreover, I had to be very careful ; he was very
Lewes and Browning, 1862 109
kind to me, but as the price of his sympathy he
demanded a certain acquiescence which I could not
always give, and my impudence more than once
provoked him into angry remonstrance. Once,
indeed, when I asserted myself a little too strongly,
he threatened that if I did not behave myself he
would give me the cold shoulder, to which my reply
was, I fear, ' Give me the cold shoulder, and be
hanged.'
" The last time I met Lewes was shortly after I
published my diatribe on the * Fleshly School of
Poetry,' and when I was being shot at from all the
countless batteries of coterie criticism. He was
walking in Regent's Park, not far from Clarence
Gate, and George Eliot, now Mrs. Lewes, was with
him. Both looked worn and old. The Sybil wore a
black silk skirt over a crinoline, an old-fashioned
bonnet and mantle ; she stooped very much, and
looked quite an aged woman. I stopped and spoke
to them for a few moments, and then the Sybil
walked on while I still held Lewes by the hand. He
said very little, but his manner was so cold and pecu-
liar, that at last I released him and let him go. That
night I wrote to him and asked if I had offended him
in any way. He sent me a long, rambling letter in
reply, from which I vaguely gathered that he thought
I had done something very dreadful, showing (he
said) an indifference to the rights of others of which
he should not have thought me capable. He alluded,
no doubt, to my article in the Contemporary Review^
and to the subsequent pamphlet, but beyond that
allusion I knew lay the knowledge that I had written
somewhat coldly of George Eliot's poetry. I was not
much surprised, for I knew that Lewes had many
close friends among the pre-Raphaelite critics, but I
no Robert Buchanan
was so angry with his attitude towards me that I
sent him an angry reply, I saw him once or twice
afterwards, but we never came face to face again.
" It was at Lewes's house that I first met Robert
Browning, whom I had long regarded with idolatry.
I had heard he was in London, and had begged
George Eliot to introduce me to him if possible, and
the opportunity came at a little gathering to which
both he and I were invited. It was shortly after the
publication in the Corn/nil Magasme of my memorials
of David Gray, in the course of which I mentioned
that my friend, in one of his wild moods, had
thought of 'going to Italy/ and 'throwing himself
on the sympathy of Robert Browning.' I found to
my delight that Browning had been much pleased
and interested by this allusion, and in the course of
our first conversation he assured me that he would
have given the poor boy a kindly welcome.
" We had a long and pleasant talk together, and
after we had shaken hands with an arrangement to
meet again, George Eliot took me aside, and said,
smiling, ' Well, are you disappointed ? Does he
realise your expectations ? ' My reply was candour
itself. I said that I was disappointed, though heaven
knows what I had expected ! I was little more than
a boy, very full of Quixotic fancies, and very ignorant
of the world, and perhaps I expected to find in
the poet, whom I so greatly admired and revered, a
less commonplace and more romantic personality.
According to Lewes, with whom I afterwards dis-
cussed my new acquaintance, Browning was morbidly
sensitive to criticism, and eager for any kind of
praise ; indeed Leigh Hunt had said, Lewes assured
me, that Browning was so hungry for general
approval, that he ' coveted that even of his own
Lewes and Browning, 1862 iii
washerwoman!' There can be no doubt whatever
that the poet was somewhat disheartened by his
continuous failure to reach the great public, and by
the contemptuous treatment generally accorded him
by the newspaper critics. He had just published
' Dramatis Personae,' and I had reviewed it at con-
siderable length, with boyish ardour and enthusiasm,
in a monthly magazine. It was the remembrance of
this earliest enthusiasm that caused Browning to
describe me, in answer to the statement that I had
no appreciation of my own contemporaries, as ' the
kindest critic lie had ever had ! '
" Our relations though friendly were never those of
unreserved intimacy. I was many years his junior,
and had been reared in a rougher school ; I had
neither his dilettante tastes nor his dilettante omni-
science. My attitude towards him, moreover, was
that of a pupil to a teacher, to one whose intellectual
position was assured, while mine was, to say the best
of it, uncertain. But for this very reason I was pre-
pared to recognise the moral greatness in him, and
even to exaggerate the signs of a superior wisdom.
I realised, however, very reluctantly, that, apart from
his books, which were still a priceless treasure to me,
he had little or no intellectual stimulus to give me.
Many of his opinions seemed narrow, some of them
even childish. They seemed to me essentially the
opinions of a man in good society, less concerned
with the great movements of Humanity than with
the fleeting artistic phenomena of the hour. On
some of the great subjects which concern our happi-
ness as conditioned beings, he scarcely seemed to
have thought at all.
" I was greatly struck by this fact, just before the
publication of his poem ' La Saisiaz.' He had
112 Robert Buchanan
returned from an excursion to Switzerland in com-
pany with his sister Sarah Ann and a lady to whom
he was much attached — Miss Egerton Smith, pro-
prietoress of the Liverpool Meixury. One morning
just as they w^ere preparing for a mountain excursion,
Miss Smith had died suddenly and painlessly, with-
out any previous warning whatever of indisposition.
Well, he came to my rooms in Gloucester Place,
Regent's Park, and we had scarcely shaken hands
before he began volubly to tell me of what had
occurred, and to express his natural amazement and
sorrow at the catastrophe. His feelings appeared to
me those of simple horror, or, if I may use the word
without any suggestion of personal timidity, of
terror. ' If such things can be,' he cried, 'there is
nothing safe in life whatever. At any moment we
may be struck down suddenly and swept away ! '
I wondered, remembering many of the beautiful
things he had written on the subject of death, and
quoted to him, I remember, certain lines of verse
without telling him that they were my own : —
" ' We mortals are as men on ships at sea,
And oft forget how Ihin a plank divides
Our lives from the abyss in which we sail.'
But this particular occurrence, he suggested, was
so extraordinary, so unanticipated — he had been
familiar with Death before, but it had always
approached with some kind of warning, and he
proceeded to describe in detail, as he afterwards
described in his poem, the piteous circumstances of
the event which had so amazed him. His manner
was that of a child startled amid its play, by a
lightning-flash which strikes down one of its com-
Lewes and Browning, 1862 113
panions. He was completely agitated and unstrung.
Early in our acquaintance we had several verbal
battles, in which, I need hardly say, I was easily
vanquished. On one occasion, when I was lunching
at his house, I was unsuspecting enough to avow my
deep admiration for the American Poet, Walt Whit-
man. No sooner had I done so than I found that I
had loosened an avalanche.
" No words were strong enough, no terms indignant
enough, to express my host's loathing and contempt
for poor Walt, and chiefly on moral grounds ! As
far as I was able, I stuck up for the defence of the
man whom I reverenced this side of idolatry ; but it
was of no use, I was buried under the attack of
Browning's copious vocabulary, and could only pant
for breath. The squabble, the first serious one I
had ever had with Browning, lasted until I rose to
go, very glad indeed to get out of range. The next
morning, to my amazement, I received a letter from
the poet, which, for reasons of propriety, I am unable
to print verbatim. The mischief was out, however.
Although it did not appear that Browning had
studied Whitman at all (which was singular seeing
what an omnivorous reader Browning was) he was
ready to pass judgment on him and to condemn him
to instant execution, simply on the score of some
miserable and possibly garbled quotation carried to
him at secondhand.
" This struck me as neither right nor generous,
and I had looked for something different from the
poet of the ' Ring and the Book.' I suppose I had
pitched my note of praise too high, and so my
admiration of another modern poet was resented as
an act of disloyalty, for I was busy just then in
asserting, through the medium of the Athenceuin and
9
\ . ^
114 Robert Buchanan
other journals, that Browning was the biggest
literary force we had had since Shakespeare. I have
modified my opinion since then, but I am still con-
vinced that Shakespeare had no more doughty
descendant, and that the words of the modern man
contain passages which it would be difficult to
surpass, even in the writings of his great Master.
" My last meeting with him was at one of the
Royal Academy soirees, which follow the annual
dinner. By that time we had fallen asunder a good
deal, though we never had had any open disagree-
ment, but as years wore on my enthusiasm had
lessened, and I was not in the way of being useful
to him as a friendly critic. We had only exchanged
a handshake and a few words, but I felt that his
manner was a little chilly, I was informed after-
wards that at the Academy dinner, when Lecky, in
responding to the toast of Literature, had startled
the company by generously and warmlyl eulogizing
my ' City of Dream,' Browning had murmured to
his next neighbour, ' Of whom is he speaking ? Of
Buchanan, the writer of plays?' I was just then
collaborating with Sims on a melodrama for the
Adelphi, and the question was construed by those
who heard it, as an expression of ironical contempt.
" Naturally enough Browning may have fancied
that in writing plays for the market I was selling my
birthright for a mess of pottage, but he knew better
than most men that I had no option — it was either
that or practical starvation. Had he been less in the
world and more liberal-minded, he might have
remembered that to hew wood and draw water as a
means of subsistence does not necessarily imply any
loss of self-respect, and he would have observed that,
so far at least as my work was concerned, I was
Lewes and Browning, 1862 115
passing higher and higher towards my own ideal.
On former occasions he had proclaimed his admira-
tion for my work in terms as strong as any used
by Lecky, and I cannot help thinking that, had I
still been writing criticism, he might have been more
tolerant of my occasional backslidings in literature.
I well remember our meeting just after I had pub-
lished ' White Rose and Red ' anonymously. He
bounded into my rooms with outstretched hands, and
almost before we had exchanged a word launched
out into eager eulogy of the work. I said something
in smiling deprecation, but he did not listen. * O,
it's a beautiful poem ! a beautiful poem ! ' he cried
again and again, with florid emphasis on the
adjective. I think he was honest, and I am sure
I hope so ; but I had powerful organs at my com-
mand at that time, and he knew it."
M
CHAPTER XI
FIRST BOOKS, 1 863-66
E AN WHILE the young poet who was
working very steadily, was taking Mr.
Lewes's advice "not to publish too hastily." But
much as he valued the opinion of his friends he
longed to challenge public opinion, and as a result
his first volume of poems was given to the world.
The volume, which was entitled " Undertones," was
^ published by Moxon and Co., towards the close of
the year 1863, and the reception of it was cordial
enough to satisfy even the wildest dreams of its
author, for not only had he justified Mr. Lewes's faith
in him, but he had secured for himself, at one bound,
the much-coveted title of " Poet." His second volume
of verse, " Idyls and Legends of Inverburn," was pub-
lished in May, 1865, and the reception given to this
book was even more encouraging than that which
was accorded to his first venture. " The reputation
X ^ which the earlier poems of Mr. Buchanan have
acquired for him among all lovers of poetry cannot
fail," said the Sunday Times, " to be greatly enhanced
by this latest production of his ripening muse. It is
by no means a constant rule that the promise con-
tained in the early poems of an author is fulfilled in
his later career. Youth is as completely associated
116
First Books, 1863-66 117
with poetry as Spring with blossoms, but with most
men the leaves of poetry are soon shed, and the
bloom, after its first short day of beauty, disappears
and is seen no more. The publication of a first
volume of poems implies therefore little, the ap-
pearance of a second volume, on the contrary
implies much. It means that poetry is not the mere
delight of youthful days, but the chosen and acknow-
ledged profession of a life, that the author claims
frankly to be received into that noble confraternity of
bards from whose lips we have received our most
noble teaching, and at whose hands we obtain all that
refines and makes pleasant our life. On the present
volume, then, if what we have stated be true, Mr.
Buchanan rests his claim to be considered as a poet, and
that claim few will be found to deny him. The voice of
poetry seldom spoke more plainly or more loud than
it does in the ' Idyls and Legends of Inverburn,' and
those whom the exquisite fancy and rich sensuous
grace of ' Undertones ' had prepared for much, will
find, we think, in this volume their most sanguine
anticipations outgone." The second volume was
published by Alexander Strahan, who at the same
time took over the volume of " Undertones " from
Moxon and Co. With this business transaction
began a friendship between Mr. Buchanan and his
publisher which only terminated with the poet's
death. On hearing of this Mr. Strahan wrote : " It
is with a pang of regret that I hear of the terrible
blow which has fallen upon you and upon your wide
circle of friends, to say nothing of the world at large,
who are indebted to Robert Buchanan for many
priceless works which will touch their hearts to noble
issues for many a day to come. He certainly did not
live in vain, although had he been spared to live a
-V
^
ii8 Robert Buchanan
little loiif^er, he would undoubtedly have enriched the
world still more than he has done. Peace be with
him. His good qualities, and they were not few,
were always appreciated and admired by me, and
the world will not be the same to me now that this
brave, unselfish man has gone from us — that the
throbs of his wildly beating heart have ceased for ever.
" I suppose it is the case that all true passion makes
us dumb — the deepest grief as well as the highest
happiness seizes us too violently to be expressed by
our words. At all events I am made to feel, in
presence of this calamity, that silence is the per-
fectest expression of sorrow, for I should be but little
grieved if I could say how much."
Just before the publication of " Idyls and Legends
of Inverburn " the state of my sister's health became
such as to make it quite clear that a permanent
residence in London was not to be thought of, so the
young couple removed to the (then) little village of
|\i\ Bexhill, and settled down for a time in a quaint
gabled house built of red brick and surrounded with
wonderful stretches of garden ground and orchard.
The cottage was owned by a retired cobbler of
Socialistic leanings, who attended to the garden,
while his wife acted as general servant. After a time
their domestic circle was enlarged by the appearance
upon the scene of the late Mr. Gentles and Mr.
'^' Walter Maclaren, who has since become so well and
widely known as a painter of Italian scenes. Another
and a deeper friendship also dates from this time, for
it was in the summer of 1865 that the subject of these
memoirs made the acquaintance of the Hon. Roden
'^^* Noel, for whom, all his life, he entertained feelings of
deep affection. At the time of which I write Mr.
Noel was staying at Hastings with his father, the late
First Books, 1863-66 119
Earl of Gainsborough, and he walked over one fine
day and sent in his card while the Bohemians were
at dinner. In those days Robert Buchanan was
Radical to the finger-tips, and the prefix " honour-
able " on the young patrician's card awoke a strong
prejudice within him, but no sooner had he come face
to face with his visitor, and shaken his hand, and
looked into his eyes, than he was spellbound with
the thrill of love which began that day between them
and lasted till the day Mr. Noel died.
" It is a far cry to that time now (wrote Mr.
Buchanan in 1884), to the time when we swam
together in the tumbling waters of the Channel,
wandered in the Sussex lanes and talked of the old
poets and the old gods. I got one of my first lessons '-i^
in toleration when I first met and talked with the
aged Earl of Gainsborough, simple, child-like, a
Christian, and with that beautiful soul his Countess,
a peerless woman and a loving mother. From this
good and gracious stock came Roden Noel, fortunate
in an inheritance of sane and gentle blood. His early
youth had been spent at his father's seat in Rutland-
shire, and at the Irish seat of his maternal grand-
father, the Earl of Roden. At twenty he went to
Cambridge with a view of studying for the Church,
but religious scruples intervened and he never took
orders. Soon after taking his degree he spent two
long years in the East, visiting Egypt and the Holy
Land, Lebanon, Greece, and Turkey, and gathering in
the course of many romantic adventures the materials
for some of his finest poetry. His marriage took
place during this pilgrimage, and was a little romance
in itself. Struck down with fever at Beyrout, he was
nursed back to life by Madame de Broe, wife of the
director of the Ottoman Bank, and he married her
I20 Robert Buchanan
eldest daughter Alice shortly after his recovery.
That marriage, I think, was the crown of a fortunate
life ! It has kept this poet calm and happy at a time
when most of us are troubled and storm-tossed, and
it has given to him the consecration of a pure
domestic love. While others have been fiehtinQ- with
windmills and struggling for bread, peace and rest
have dwelt with the young wayfarer from Hellas ; and
if he has known, as all must know, the acute agonies of
human sorrow, if his hearth has been darkened by the
wings of the destroying Angel, the issue has still been
holy, thanks to the faith that comes to us throucrh
Love alone. Often as his thoughts may wander back
to Hellas, while the pagan stirs within his blood and
he hears from afar the voices of the Dryad and the
Naiad, the Satyr and Sylvanus, he has learnt by his
own fire the one great modern lesson — that the god
of Humanity has conquered and subdued to his own
likeness all the gods of the world that lies beneath
his feet." i
It was in the year 1894 that this dear friend was
stricken down in death, when on his way to Stuttgart,
and on hearing of the sad calamity the poet made
the following entry in his diary : —
" If I survive beyond this lingering cloud of Time,
those whom I have loved will survive with me, and
not least of these is the beloved friend who was taken
from me yesterday. He has been writing verses and
publishing them for nearly half a century, yet few
readers even know his name. A noble-hearted man,
he has dwelt upon the skirts of life and literature,
independent of all necessity to work for bread, and
yet eager and willing to take his part in the great
' Preface to the Poems (Canterbury Edition) of the Hon.
Roden Noel.
First Books, 1863-66 121
strife of modern thought. If any writer of verse
possessed the deep poetic heart, it was certainly
Roden Noel."
The first visit paid by Mr. Noel to the good old
cobbler's cottage was only the prelude to many
others, for the friendship, begun so auspiciously,
throve apace.
" Even as I saw him approaching many years ago,
my heart went out to meet him in the full certainty
that he could speak to me of the hidden things of
Hellas, of the vanished Wonderland where gods were
born. This he surely did, so that for me, as for
Sainte-Beuve, Ganymede, Pan^ and the Water-Nymph
lived again. ... I do not know, I have not cared to
inquire to what extent and in what measure Roden
Noel accepts the popular religion (to my thinking a
poet's opinions are of little consequence so long as
they do not imply belief in baseness), but it is from
popular religion that he derives his second great
quality as a poet, that of moral exaltation. No singer
of our time is so eager to perceive, so quick to appre-
hend the problem of Evil ; in poem after poem he
shows himself alive, not merely to personal sorrow,
but to the pain of Humanity at large; yet no singer of
our time of equal gifts is so stirred to exalted utter-
ance by a spiritual message. Let it be noted that the
poet's religious mood is as childlike and primitive, as
direct and simple, as his former mood of pagan
sensuousness. Nowhere in our language is personal
sorrow more supremely expressed than in the noble
series of poems called with touching tenderness, ' A
Little Child's Monument' This is a book for all
loving souls, above all for the bereaven, and I am
glad to know that its popularity with the great public
has been in proportion to its merits as poetry. It is
122 Robert Buchanan
not only with his own suffering as an individual,
however, that the poet has to deal. His personal
sorrow is merely a key to the great heart of humanity.
Just as surely as he felt the joy and sunlight of the
pagan world, does he feel the storm and stress of the
post-Christian. The same vivid keenness of perception,
of insight, is brought to bear here as there. Every-
where in the poem, ' Poor People's Christmas,' there
is the same haunting sense of the details of misery
and the eyes of the Christ look out upon us from the
printed page.
" ' The poor are Mine, that I may heal,' says the
voice from the Cross. Roden Noel's so-called
spiritual poems have, moreover, one great merit to
distinguish them from the latter-day poetry of
Christian apology ; they are seldom or never rec-
tangular and argumentative. The poet approaches
the truth in the frank, free spirit of the lost paganism,
eager to see all, to learn all, and to suffer and
sympathise with all, and he finds his answer to the
problem of Evil in his own heart-beats by becoming
(according to the precept) even as a little child. . . .
Fortunately for himself all the shafts of modern doubt
have failed to penetrate the white armour of his
fully reasoned faith. He has passed his forty days in
the wilderness of moral despair only to return secure
in insight and certain of his mission, which is to offer
the good things of Hope to all men. He is, in other
words, the poet of Christian Thought. Surely a strange
sight is here ; the young pagan fresh from the wood-
lands of Pan, and from the dark, shadow mountains
of modern speculation, flinging himself down on his
knees at the foot of the Cross !
" If we miss this fact in Roden Noel's poetry we
shall miss its whole power and purpose. He is a
First Books, 1863-66 123
Christian thinker, a Christian singer or nothing. Not
that I conceive for one moment that he accepts the
whole impedimenta of Christian orthodoxy, he is far
too much of a pagan ever to arrive at that. But he
believes, as so many of us have sought in vain to
believe, in the absolute logic of the Christian message :
that logic which is to me a miracle of clear reasoning
raised on false premises, and which to others is false
premises and false reasoning all through. To me the
historical Christ, the Christ of popular teaching, is a
Phantom, the Christ-God a very Spectre of the
Brocken, cast by the miserable pigmy Man on the
cloudland surrounding and environing him. I con-
ceive only the ideal Christ as an Elder Brother who
lived and suffered and died as I have done and must
do ; and while I love him in so far as he is human
and my fellow-creature, I shrink from him in so far
as he claims to be Divine. With Roden Noel, as
with so many other favoured souls, it is different.
Where we can find little comfort and no solution he
finds both. He embraces in full affluence of sympathy
and love that ghostly godhead, and credits him with
all the mercy, all the knowledge, all the love and
power which we believe to be the common birthright
of Humanity, the accumulation of spiritual ideals from
century after century. But where I and those who
think with me are at one with Roden Noel is in the
absolute moral certainty that, in the estimate of the
Supreme Intelligence, what we believe counts for
nothing, in so far as it merely represents what we
know. The atheist and the Christian, the believer
and the unbeliever meet on the same platform of a
common beneficence. Faith in Love is all-sufficient
without faith in any supernatural or godlike form of
Love. There is nothing nebulous, however, about
124 Robert Buchanan
Roden Noel's religious belief. It is clear, direct, and
logically reasoned out. He is, moreover, in the highest
sense of the word a spiritualist, as all true poets must
be. The pessimism of Schopenhauer and Leopardi is
as far away from his sympathy as the gross materialism
of Holbach and Zola. Even disease transmutes itself
under his tender gaze into images of loveliness and
hope. At the present epoch of our progress thinkers
of this kind are sadly wanted. The history of our
poetry for the last twenty years has been a melancholy
record of mere artificiality and verbalism ; and in spite
of the splendid flashes of power shown by one or two
of our prosperous poets, there has been little or no
effort to touch the quick of human life. True, the
miasmic cloud of Realism which is darkening and
destroying all literature by robbing it of sunshine and
fresh air, has not yet reached our poetry, the majority
of those who write in verse being neither realists nor
idealists, only triflers who imagine verse to be a school-
boy's exercise or an idle man's amusement. If Poetry
is ever to resume again its old prophetic function, and
to regain any influence over the lives and thoughts of
men, it will be through the help of such writers as
Roden Noel." ^
Such was the man who, stepping into the place
left vacant by the death of David Gray, became the
most intimate and lifelong friend of Robert
Buchanan.
' Preface to the Poems of the Hon. Roden Noel (Canterbury
Edition).
CHAPTER XII
RETURN TO SCOTLAND, 1 866
THE first sojourn at Bexhill was followed by a
brief visit to France where, in the little village
of Etretat, in Normandy, the poet familiarised himself
with the scenes which were afterwards so graphically
described in his romance, the " Shadow of the Sword."
Returning to Bexhill in the spring of 1866, with the
completed MS. of a new volume of poems ready for
the press, he was met by the news of the dangerous
illness of his father. Mr. Buchanan, who never really
recovered from the blow which fell upon him in
Scotland, had been stricken down in London, and
there he was speedily joined by his son. My sister,
who was always more or less an invalid, was at that
time suffering from rheumatism in such an acute
form that she had to be carried from room to room.
She was therefore unable to accompany her husband
on his visit to the sick-bed of his father, so at her
earnest solicitation he was removed with all speed to
Bexhill, where he received every possible attention.
After his death his widow took up her residence
with her son, with whom she spent the remaining
years of her life.
In times of supreme sorrow the poet turned for
consolation to the only thing which ever interested
125
126 Robert Buchanan
him— his beloved poetry. While mourning his dear
comrade, David Gray, he wrote one of the most
beautiful poems in the English language, " To David
in Heaven "- — and in this, his second great sorrow, he
conceived and commenced to write the poem, which
was afterwards published under the title of " The
Wandering Jew." It was not until some thirty
years later that this poem was given to the world,
and then the poet in some beautiful lines dedicated it
to his father, who had been its inspiration.
Meanwhile the MS. which he had brought back
with him from France had been sent to the printers.
The book, under the title of " London Poems," was
issued by Mr. Strahan, and its reception was such as
to secure for its author a permanent place in the very
foremost rank of English poets.
In the year 1896, in taking a general survey of
^\^\ Mr. Buchanan's poetry, Mr. William Canton said : " It
was in ' London Poems ' that Mr. Buchanan touched
most acutely the quick of life ; and I do not think it
rash to say that never since has any one touched the
same quick with such telling effect. Who that has
read ' Liz ' can have forgotten the poor slum-child's
first venture from London into the green fields — the
high green hill and the unclouded sun, and the
smokeless blue, the trees and the soft winds and
the singing birds, and who has surpassed in verse
the poignant misery of ' Jane Lewson ' ? "
In the dedication to Mr. Hepworth Dixon, with
which the book opens, Mr. Buchanan says : " ' London
Poems ' are the last of what I may term my ' poems
of probation,' wherein I have fairly hinted what I am
trying to assimilate in life and thought. However
much my method may be confounded with the
methods of other writers, I am sure to get quartered
Return to Scotland, 1866 127
(to my cost perhaps) on my own merits by
and by."
In connection with this book the author told a
story which it may here be interesting to recall.
" When the FortnigJitly Review was started, under
the editorship of George Henry Lewes, I was
among its first contributors, and published in it one
of the longest of my ' London Poems ' — the story of
the flower-girl ' Liz.' Afterwards, when my poems of
London life appeared in a volume, I sent an early
copy to my friend and critic, who replied to the gift
in a letter expressing disappointment. He did not
like the book, and frankly said so — a serious blow to
me, despite the praise of the journals and the work's
phenomenal popularity. A few weeks afterwards,
however, came a letter of cordial recantation. ' I
have been in the country ' (Lewes wrote) ' and
have read your poems amongst different sur-
roundings, in a fresh spirit and in solitude. I
cannot now convey to you my full impression
concerning them, but it is enough for the present
to say that they moved and delighted me.' Another
illustration of the truth that a good critic may form
very contradictory impressions of the same work
according to the spirit in which he reads and the
nature of his environment."
Again in writing of this book, Mr. Buchanan
said : —
"In 'London Poems' I was a great deal juster to
the rude forces of my life, my sympathy was bolder
and more confident, my soul clearer and more trust-
worthy as a medium, however poor might be my
power of perfect artistic spiritualisation. As common
life was approached more closely, as the danger of
vulgarity threatened more and more to interfere with
128 Robert Buchanan
the readers' sense of beauty, the stronger and tenderer
was the lyrical note needed. In writing such poems
as ' Liz ' and ' Nell ' the intensest dramatic care was
necessary to escape vulgarity on the one hand and
false refinement on the other. ' Liz,' although the
offspring of the very lowest social deposit, possesses
great natural intelligence, and speaks more than once
with a refinement consequent on strange purity of
thought. Moreover, she has been under spiritual
influences. She is a beautiful, living soul, just
conscious of the unfitness of the atmosphere she is
breathing, but, above all, she is a large-hearted woman,
with wonderful capacity for loving. She is, on the
whole, quite an exceptional study, although in many
of her moods typical of her class. ' Nell ' is not so
exceptional, and since it is harder to create types
than eccentricities, her utterance was far more
difficult to spiritualise into music. She is a woman
quite without refined instincts, coarse, uncultured,
impulsive. Her love, though profound, is insufficient
to escape mere commonplace, and it was necessary
to breathe around her the fascination of a tragic
subject, the lurid light of an ever-deepening terror.
In the language of both these poems I followed
Nature as closely as possible, so far as poetic speech
can follow ordinary speech. I had to add nothing,
but to deduct whatever hid instead of expressing the
natural meaning of the speakers ; for to obtrude slips
of grammar, misspelling, and other meaningless
blotches — in short, to lay undue emphasis on the mere
language employed— would have been wilfully to
destroy the artistic verisimilitude of such poems.
Every stronger stress, every more noticeable trick of
style, added after the speech, was sufficient to hint
the quality of the speaker, was so much over truth
Return to Scotland, 1866 129
offending against the truth's harmony. The object
was, while clearly conveying the cast of the speakers,
to afford an artistic insight into their souls, and to
blend them with the great universal mysteries of
Life and Death. Vulgarity obtruded is not truth
spiritualised and made clear, but truth still hooded
and masked and little likely to reveal anything to the
vision of its contemplators. By at least one critic I
have been charged with idealising the speech a little
too much. Both ' Liz ' and ' Nell,' it is averred,
occasionally speak in a strain very uncommon in
their class. In reply to this I may observe how
much mispronunciations, vulgarisms, and the like,
have blinded educated people to the wonderful force
and picturesqueness of the language of the lower
classes. They know nothing of the educated luxury
of using language in order to conceal thought, but
speak because they have something to say, and try
to explain themselves as forcibly as possible."
While his new volume of poems was delighting the
world the poet himself was strangely sick and sad at
heart. After his father's death he found himself
unable to settle down comfortably in Bexhill, so as
soon as his book was fairly launched, and its success
assured, he set his face northward, and after pausing
here and there in his flight he finally went to Oban,
and settled down in what was afterwards known as
" The White House on the Hill." Here is his own
description of it in the " Land of Lome."
" In a kind of dovecot, perched on a hill far from
human habitation, the Wanderer dwelt and watched,
while the gloomy gillie came and went, and the dogs
howled from the rain-drenched kennel. The weasel
bred at the very door in some obscure corner of a
drain, and the young weasels used to come fearlessly
10
130 Robert Buchanan
out on Sunday morning and play in the rain. Two
hundred yards above the house was a mountain tarn,
on the shores of which a desolate couple of teal were
trying hard to hatch a brood ; and all around the
miserable grouse and grayhens were sitting like
stones, drenched on their eggs, hoping against hope.
In the far distance, over a dreary sweep of marshes
and pools, lay the little town of Oban, looking, when
the mists cleared away a little, like the woodcuts of
the City of Destruction in popular editions of the
' Pilgrim's Progress.' Now and then, too, the figure
of a certain genial Edinburgh Professor,^ with long
white hair and flowing plaid, might be seen toiling
upward to Doubting Castle, exactly like Christian
on his pilgrimage, but carrying instead of a bundle
on his back, the whole of Homer's hexameters in his
brain. Few others had courage to climb so high in
weather so inclement, and, wonderful to add, the
Professor did not in the least share the newcomer's
melancholy, but roundly vowed in good Doric that
there was no sweeter spot in all the world than the
' bonnie Land of Lome.'
" The town of Oban, prettily situated along the skirts
of a pleasant bay, and boasting a resident population
of some two thousand inhabitants, has been fitly
enough designated the ' Key of the Highlands ' ;
since from its quaint quay, composed from the hulk
of an old wreck, the splendid fleet of Highland
steamers start for all parts of the western coast
and adjacent islands. In summer-time a few visitors
occupy the neat villas which ornament the western
slopes above the town, and innumerable tourists, ever
coming and going to the sharp ringing of the steam-
boat bell, lend quite a festive appearance to the little
' Professor Blackie.
Return to Scotland, 1866 131
main street. As a tourist the Wanderer first made
the acquaintance of Oban and its people, and resided
among them for some weeks, during which time there
was a general conspiracy on the part of everybody to
reduce him to bankruptcy : extortionate boatmen,
grasping small tradesmen, greedy car-drivers, all
regarding him as a lawful victim. He was lonely,
and the gentle people took him in ; he was helpless,
and they did for him ; until at last he fled, vowing
never to visit the place again. Fate, stronger than
human will, interposed, and he became the tenant of
the White House on the Hill. He arrived in the
fallow season, before the swift boats begin to bring
their stock of festive travellers, and found Oban
plunged in funereal gloom — the tradesmen melan-
choly, the boatmen sad and unsuspicious, the hotel
waiters depressed and servile instead of brisk and
patronising. The grand waiter at the Great Western
Hotel, one whom to see was to reverence, whose
faintest smile was an honour, and who conferred a
lifelong obligation when he condescended to pour
out your champagne, still lingered in the south, and
the lesser waiters of the lesser hotels lingered afar
with the great man. All was sad and weary, and at
first all looks were cold. But speedily the Wanderer
discovered that the people of Oban regarded him with
grateful affection. He was the first man who for no
other reason than sheer love of silence and pic-
turesqueness had come to reside among them ' out
of the season.' In a few weeks, he not only discovered
that the extortioners of his former visit were no such
harpies after all, but poor devils anxious to get hay
while the sun shone ; he found that these same
extortioners were the merest scum of the town, the
veriest froth, underneath which there existed the
132 Robert Buchanan
sediment of the real population, which for many
mysterious reasons no mere tourist is ever suffered
to behold. He found around him most of the High-
land virtues — gentleness, hospitality, spirituality. No
hand was stretched out to rob him now. Wherever
he went there was a kind word from the men and
a courtesy from the women. The poor, pale faces
brightened, and he saw the sweet spirit looking
forth, with that deep inner hunger which is ever
marked on the Celtic physiognomy. Every day
deepened his interest and increased his satisfaction.
He knew now that he had come to a place where life
ran fresh and simple, and to a great extent unpolluted.
" Not to make the picture too tender, let him add
that he soon discovered for himself — what every one
else discovers sooner or later — that the majority of
the town population was hopelessly lazy. There was
no surplus energy anywhere, but there were some
individuals who for sheer unhesitating, unblushing,
wholesale indolence, were certainly unapproachable
on this side of Jamaica. It so happened that the
Wanderer wanted a new wing added to the White
House, and it was arranged with a 'contractor,' one
Angus Maclean, that it should be erected at a trifling
expense within three weeks. A week passed, during
which Angus Maclean occupied himself in abstruse
meditation, coming two or three times to the spot
dreamily chewing stalks of grass, and measuring
imaginary walls with a rule. Then, all of a sudden
one morning, a load of stones was deposited at the
door, and the workmen arrived, men of all ages and
all temperaments, from the clean methodic mason to
the wild and hirsute hodsman. In other parts of
the world houses are built silently, not so in Lome ;
the babble of Gaelic was incessant. The work crept
Return to Scotland, 1866 133
on surely if slowly, relieved by intervals of Gaelic
melody and political debate, during which all labour
ceased. Angus Maclean came and went, and of
course it was sometimes necessary to advise with
him as to details ; and great was his delight whenever
he could beguile the Wanderer into a discussion as to
the shape of a window or the size of a door, for the
conversation was sure to drift into general topics,
such as the Irish Land Question, or the literature of
the Highlands, and the labourers would suspend their
toil and cluster round to listen while Angus explained
his 'views.' In a little more than a month the
masonry was completed, and the carpenter's assistance
necessary. A week passed and no carpenter came.
Summoned to council, Angus Maclean explained
that the carpenter would be up ' the first thing in the
morning.' Two days afterwards he did appear, and
it was at once apparent that, compared with him, all
the other inhabitants of Oban were models of human
energy. With him came a lazy boy, with sleep-dust
in his round blobs of eyes. The carpenter's name
was Donald Mactavish — ' a fine man,' as the con-
tractor explained, ' tho' he takes a drap.' The first
day Donald Mactavish smoked half a dozen pipes
and sawed a board. The next day he didn't appear —
' it was that showery and he was afraid of catching
cold ' ; but the lazy boy came up, and went to sleep
in the unfinished wing. The third day Donald
appeared at noon, looking very pale and shaky.
Thus matters proceeded. Sometimes a fair day's
work was secured, and Donald was so triumphant
at his own energy that he disappeared the following
morning altogether. Sometimes Donald was unwell,
sometimes it was ' o'er showery.' Tears and entreaties
made no impression on Mactavish, and he took his
134 Robert Buchanan
own time. Then the slater appeared with a some-
what brisker style of workmanship. Finally a moody
plasterer strolled that way, and promised to white-
wash the walls 'when he came back frae Mull,'
whither he was going on business. To cut a long
story short, the new wing to the White House was
complete in three months, whereas the same number
of hands might have finished it in a fortnight.
" Thus far we have given only the dark side of the
picture. Turning to the bright side, we herewith
record our vow, that whenever we build again we will
seek the aid of those same workmen from Lome.
Why, the Wanderer has all his life lived among wise
men, or men who deemed themselves wise, amons-
great book-makers, among brilliant minstrels, but for
sheer unmitigated enjoyment, give him the talk of
those Celts— flaming Radicals every one of them, so
radical forsooth as to have about equal belief in Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. They had their own
notions of freedom, political and social. ' Sell my
vote ? ' quoth Angus ; ' to be sure I'd sell my vote ! '
and he would thereupon most fiercely expound his
convictions, and give as good a reason for not voting
at all as the best of those clever gentlemen who laugh
at political representation. At heart, too, Angus was
a Fenian, though not in the bad and bloodthirsty
sense. Donald Mactavish, on the other hand, was of
a gentle nature, inclined to acquiesce in all human
arrangement, so long as he got his pipe and his glass,
and was not hurried about his work. With playful
humour he would ' draw out ' the fiery Angus for the
Wanderer's benefit. Then the two would come sud-
denly to war about the relative merits of certain
obscure Gaelic poets, and would rain quotations at
each other until they grew hoarse. They had both
Return to Scotland, 1866 135
the profoundest contempt for English literature and
the English language, as compared with their beloved
Gaelic. They were both full of old legends and quaint
Highland stories. The workmen, too, were in their
own way as interesting — fine natural bits of humanity,
full of intelligence and quiet affection. Noteworthy
among them was old Duncan Campbell, who had in
his younger days been piper in a Highland regiment,
and who now, advanced in years, worked hard all day
as a hodsman, and nightly, clean-washed and shaven,
played to himself on the beloved pipes till over-
powered with sleep. Duncan was simply delicious.
More than once he brought up the pipes and played
on the hillsides, while the workmen danced. These
pipes were more to him than bread and meat. As he
played them his face became glorified. His skill was
not great and his tunes had a strange monotony
about them, but they gave to his soul a joy passing
the glory of battle or the love of women. He was
never too weary for them in the evening, though the
day's work had been ever so hard and long. Great
was his pride and joy that day when the house was
finished, and with pipes playing and ribbons flying,
he headed the gleeful workmen as they marched
away to the town.
" From that day forward the White House on the
Hill remained silent in the solitude. Though the
summer season came, and with it the stream of
tourists and visitors, the Wanderer abode undis-
turbed. Far off he saw the white gleam of the little
Town, but he seldom bent his footsteps thither, save
when constrained by urgent business. Nevertheless,
faces came and went, and bright scenic glimpses rose
and passed, while day after day he found his love
deepening for the Land of Lome."
136
Robert Buchanan
Amid these scenes some of his best work was
done. Following his " London Poems " came " Ballad
Stories of the Affections" (1866), "North Coast
and Other Poems" (1868), "The Book of Orm "
(1870), "Napoleon Fallen" (1870), "The Drama
of Kings" (1871), and "St. Abe and his Seven
Wives" (1872). While in prose he issued "David
Gray and other Essays," " The Land of Lome," and
" Master Spirits."
CHAPTER XIII
SPORT
HUNGRY at all times for any form of ex-
perience, and driven to various devices in
his constant search for health, Mr. Buchanan was for
many years what is known as a " sportsman " — in
other words, he wandered forth with gun and rod
intent, in the usual manner of Englishmen, on
" killing something." He was never wantonly cruel,
or a mere pot-hunter, and he disdained the savageries
of the battue, preferring rather to seek game under the
wildest conditions, at as much personal inconvenience
and even peril as possible. There was a time in his
life, indeed, when he thought that to lie out for
wild duck among the marshes, hidden up to the
neck among reeds, was the brightest pleasure in
existence.
He was first persuaded to take a gun into his hand
by Mr. William Black, who went down to Bexhill one
snowy wintertide and persuaded him to go shooting
over the marshes in the direction of Pevensey. I "^^
do not think he shot anything on that occasion, but
Mr. Black killed one or two fieldfares, over which he
was quite jubilant. When Mr. Buchanan went to
Scotland one of his earliest experiences was wild-
137
138
Robert Buchanan
goose shooting in the wilds of Uist, of which he gave
some account in his Hebridean sketches.
" I shoot very little, but I have a fancy for having
shooting round me — the wilder the better. I never
^o in for slaughter, even on a small scale. I find if
I walk without some excitement I simply get ill,
because my mind continues working out of doors ;
and so in the depths of winter I pursue snipe, grouse,
and wild fowl. But I like fishing best, both because
my conscience never quite acquits me for shooting at
all, and because it is altogether a gentler art. You
must know I have to humour my health, just as
Bright kept his by salmon fishing." ^
Of course, as a sportsman he learned a great deal
which he could hardly have learned in any other way.
When he first went to Oban he hardly knew the
difference between a cuckoo and a sparrow-hawk ;
indeed, he took the first cuckoo he saw for a small
hawk, and was only instructed rightly by its cry.
With regard to this same cry of the cuckoo, it has
been described in the common English song —
"The cuckoo is a pretty bird,
It sings as it flies ; "
he then learned that it did nothing of the kind, so
he wrote —
" From rock to rock I saw him fly,
Silent in flight, but loud at rest."
It was delightful for him to learn those things, but I
have heard him regret again and again that he did
not learn them without the shedding of innocent
' Letter to Mr. William Canton.
Sport
139
blood. At that time he never realised that what he
did was cruel ; indeed, he would have resented the
charge with indignation. To harm or kill a living
thing in cold blood, to pursue sport as some so-called
sportsmen pursue it, in the manner of slaying tame
or farmyard fowl, was always distasteful to him ; but
if he had to face the elements and to seek the soli-
tudes and to climb the mountains— if there was
difficulty and fatigue and needful skill in pursuing
his quarry, he thought himself justified in taking the
life of grouse, or wild duck, or any other edible thing.
Wantonly he never worked, never killing for the sake
of killing, always justifying himself by the fact that
what he killed was meant for human food. At the
time when he thought sport justifiable he was more
or less exercised on religious subjects, for he wrote
the " Coruisken Sonnets " and the " Book of Orm,"
the motto of which was Milton's line —
" To vindicate the ways of God to Man."
At no time in his life was he so tenderly observant ot
natural objects, so alive to the terrors and beauties of
nature, or so pitiful to the sorrows of his fellow-
men. Had he not lived in the solitudes and felt
their spell to the soul, he could never have written
such lines as those descriptive of autumn among the
mountains —
The heather fadeth ; on the treeless hills,
O'er rusht with the slow-decaying bracken,
The sheep crawl slow with damp and red-stain'd wool,
Keen cutting winds from the Cold Clime begin
To frost the edges of the cloud — the Sun
Upriseth slow and silvern — many Rainbows
People the desolate air. . . ."
140 Robert Buchanan
Or these lines descriptive of his own condition —
"The World was wondrous round me— God's green World—
A W^orld of gleaming waters and green places
And weirdly woven colours in the air.
Yet evermore a trouble did pursue me —
A hunger for the wherefore of my being,
A wonder from what regions I had fallen.
I gladdened in the glad things of the World.
Yet crying always, Wherefore, and Oh, wherefore?
What am I ? Wherefore doth the World seem happy ? "
And so on and so on, the poem being full of one
long wail to the effect that there must be a God, and
that that God would certainly not let even the basest
of men perish. He arrived at fine imagery and great
poetry when he reached his " Vision of the Man
Accurst," which he could not compose without tears,
and which has moved many a man and woman to
compassion. I have heard him say that the blot on
the " Book of Orm " is the fact that, with all its
great pity for Humanity, it has not one word on the
subject of our duty to the things beneath us. " I
have often thought that if Jesus of Nazareth had lived
among the civilised savages of the West, instead of in
a land where the woes of human beings were para-
mount, another and a wonderful chapter would have
been added to the New Testament, and in addition
to the beautiful blessing spoken on little children we
should have had such words as: 'Suffer the dumb
beasts and the birds of the air to come to Me, for of
such is the kingdom of heaven.' For really and
truly that is the lesson which is forced more and more
as evolution advances in the soul of every thinking
man, that is the teaching imminent in the teaching of
my beloved master, Herbert Spencer, when he sees
in developing altruism the hope and potency of the
Sport
141
human race. For the most beautiful of all the beau-
tiful things in the development of the modern scien-
tific spirit (not the spirit of the vivisection-room or of
the Pasteur Institute, but the loving and piteous
spirit of advancing knowledge) is the revolt against
cruelty in any shape, not merely to our fellow-men,
but to all the gentle things that dwell beneath the
sun." I I never could understand how it was that he,
a man full of loving impulses, ever came to pursue the
savage pleasures of the average Britain. That he
loved animals will be seen in the following letter to
Mr. Canton.
" I am just now quite heartbroken. I have lost my
best friend who loved me faithfully for nine years — a
little Dog. He died, after months of pathetic suffering,
on Friday last, just as I finished a letter to you ; and
I have not rested or worked since. He lies close by
me now, but I must bury him to-morrow and it tears
my heartstrings. He was born just nine years ago,
when my father was dying, and in the same house.
I don't know if you ever learned to fathom a dog's
living soul, but if you ever did, you'll know my grief
is not the mere trifle some would think it. I have
not cried for nine years, but since Friday my eyes
have never been dry. I bury him to-morrow close to
the door, in a spot they call the ' Fairies' Knoll'
It will be a miserable day to me. My household
Fairy will lie there." 2
Now the evolution of supreme pity, which is only
another word for justice, is often very slow, and it
was slow in his case. I well remember his telling me
that as a little boy in Norwood he was taken by a
friendly butcher boy to the slaughter-house, and saw
with complete equanimity the killing of sheep and
' Letter to Mr. Wylic. ' Letter to Mr. Canton.
142 Robert Buchanan
oxen. He felt perhaps a little horror, but had no
perception that what he saw was cruel. Later on,
when a boy at school, he witnessed other brutalities,
and not at first did he even sympathise with the
sufferings of human beings. Gradually, however, his
own sense of justice, conditioned by his mother's
constant teachings of beneficence, awoke in him the
enthusiasm of humanity, " I look upon the sporting
episode as the crowning wickedness of my life, at
any rate nothing that I can remember seems to tell
so strongly against my claim to a comparatively
decent manhood. There are times when the thing
haunts me, and a voice seems to say ' Die and be
forgotten as you deserve ! ' for all that time I was
praying to God and wondering if my miserable soul
was worth saving. I was clinging wildly to the
dream of a personal immortality, and arguing that
the sufferings of men deserved some eternal recom-
pense. The sufferings of man ? What of the suffer-
ings of the gentle things which man, with diabolic
and pitiless obtusity, tortures daily and hourly for
his wretched pleasure ? What of the poor wounded
hare, the panting deer surrounded by man-taught
hounds, the fox pursued from copse to copse and
'enjoying' (as the egregious Trollope put it) the
run to his death? Thank God, if I forgot for a time
the poet's birthright of pity, the great poets of
mankind had not forgotten it. Poor world-worn,
sensual, tippling Burns had tears of compassion even
for the field-mouse, ruined and beggared by the
plough. It has been argued again and again that
Nature herself is cruel, that animals wantonly destroy
each other, and that, so far as the wild game is con-
cerned, they must either be reserved as sport and
food for men or be abandoned altogether. The pre-
Sport
H3
ponderance of their experience, moreover, is (it is
urged) on the side of enjoyment. Such arguments,
to my thinking, are neither here nor there. The
whole evolution of altruism is a revolt against nature,
headed by the most supremely pitiful of men, the
Nazarene. If it were only for its evil action on the
higher nature of man himself, quite apart from the
question of the suffering so wantonly distributed by
man, cruelty in any form would be evil, and would
make in the end for Humanity's deterioration and
finally for its destruction." ^
• Letter to Mr. Wylie.
CHAPTER XIV
HUMANITARIAN ISM
By Henry S. Salt
I AM asked to write my impressions of Robert
Buchanan as a humanitarian, and I do so the
more gladly because I think this aspect of his many-
sided genius has generally been overlooked, though
to some of his readers it constitutes not the least of
his numerous claims to their gratitude and admiration.
Whatever else may be said of him, in praise or dis-
praise, this can never be denied — that a passionate
love of humanity lay at the root of his most memor-
able work, and that his great powers were enlisted on
behalf of the weak and suffering, and in defiance of
the tyrannous and strong. It will be said, perhaps,
that humanitarianism is concerned with the lower
animals as well as with mankind, and that Mr.
Buchanan, who was at one time an ardent lover of
sport, cannot be classed as an out and out humani-
tarian. I have no wish to lay undue stress on one
side of his character, but it will be seen that, in his
latter years, his sympathies were so widened as to
include not only human beings but all sentient life.
It was, I believe, through our mutual friend, the
Hon. Roden Noel, that I became acquainted with
144
Humanitarianism 145
Mr. Buchanan some ten or twelve years ago, and in
1892 and 1893 I h^*^ correspondence with him about
the inclusion of some of his poems in an anthology
of ' Songs of Freedom ' which I was then editing,
and on other literary matters. On March 4, 1893, he
wrote to me as follows : —
"Many thanks for the brochure on Tennyson.
It contains, to a great extent, the truth as I feel it,
though I could not, owing to my personal relations
with the poet, give it expression. Bunting asked me
to write a memorial article on T. for the Contemporary,
but I refused, on the score that if I wrote at all I
should have to express my honest convictions.
" What a satire on literature it is, to find the whole
world flocking to worship the poets of Good Taste,
while a singer like James Thomson dies neglected !
We are ringed all round with shams — sham sweetness
and light, sham criticism, sham morality, sham
Christianity ; and the man who tries to break
through must assuredly pay the penalty of his fool-
hardihood. To exist comfortably, one must dance
like a tame bear in the middle of Society's charmed
circle, and then the world will cry, ' How pretty ! how
self-controlled ! how full of beautiful ideas ! ' — those
' beautiful ideas ' which are the death of all honest
manhood."
On August 10, 1894, he became a member of the
Humanitarian League, of which I was Hon. Secretary.
" I will gladly join your League," he wrote, " as I
sympathise outright with all its objects." In the
same letter he expressed a wish to see Francis Adams's
" Songs of the Army of the Night," a copy of which I
accordingly sent him. On this subject he wrote a
few days later as follows : —
" Many thanks for the poems, which I have just
II
146
Robert Buchanan
received on returning from a few days' run into
Normandy ; also for the pamphlets which have
arrived. A glance at the newspaper notice reminds
me of the piteous circumstances under which poor
Adams died, and which impressed me very sadly at
the time.
" I have only just glanced at the poems, and to be
frank, feel rather repelled by some of them, finely
human though they are. The indignation seems
somewhat overdone, and the sympathy not too
healthy. But I reserve all judgment till by and by,
when I know the book, as far as my nature will allow
me to know it. Of late years (I suppose it is because
I am growing old) I am less in accord than I used to
be with some forms of democracy, and I look forward
with anxiety to a millennium of labour. Certainly
the problem of human suffering will have to be solved,
but will its solution come from the many-headed god,
Demos ? I doubt it. Is it not rather the inclination
of Demos to suppress individual happiness, and to
reduce life to a tyrannical rule of thumb? Is there
much difference between a tyranny of one person and
the tyranny of an organisation ?
"■And why do the labour people adopt the jargon
of Christianity ? Adams does so habitually. Surely
the time has come to show that the mistakes of
Christianity were the mistakes of its Founder ? "
In 1894 Mr. Buchanan sent me a copy of his poem
" The Devil's Case," referred to in the following letter,
dated March 31st : —
"I am specially glad that you like \\\Qforni of the
' Devil's Case,' for it was chosen after long thought,
and I myself feel that no other form was possible.
Not one of the idiots who have described it as easy
and careless have perceived that it is subtly assonantic
Humanitarianism 147
and very difficult to manage. Your suggestion for a
'Satanic Series' is distinctly good, and I shall seriously
think of it."
Readers of the " Devil's Case " will remember that
it contains some magnificent humanitarian passages —
" Cast thy thought along the Ages !
Walk the sepulchres of Nations !
Mourn, with me, the fair things perish'd !
Mark the martyrdoms of men !
Say, can any latter blessing
Cleanse the blood-stain'd Book of Being ?
Can a remnant render'd happy
Wipe out centuries of sorrow ?
Nay, one broken life outweigheth
Twenty thousand lives made perfect !
Nay, I scorn the God whose pathway
Lieth over broken hearts !
Man, thou say'st, shall yd be happy ?
What avails a bliss created
Out of hecatombs of evil.
Out of endless years of pain ?
Even now the life he liveth
Builded is of shame and sorrow !
Even now his flesh is fashion'd
Of the creatures that surround him.
From the sward the stench of slaughter
Riseth hourly to his nostrils.
By his will the beast doth anguish,
And the wounded dove doth die."
In 1897 Mr. Buchanan, who had been one of the
signatories of the memorial against the Royal Buck-
hounds, was asked to write a preface to a pamphlet
entitled "The Truth about the Game Laws," which
Mr. J. Connell was then preparing for the Humani-
148
Robert Buchanan
tarian League. On October loth he wrote to me as
follows : —
" I shall be glad to see proofs of pamphlet, but I
have to confess with shame that I was for years an
ardent sportsman myself! I don't know whether 'tis
merely sour grapes and advancing years, but I feel
very differently now on the subject, and if I write for
you should resemble the ' converted clown.' "
The same confession was made by him in the
preface itself, but this did not hinder him from writing
a very strong and trenchant criticism of the sportsman
and the game-preserver : —
" When all is said and done, however, sport, in so
far as it embraces the hunting and killing of wild
animals, is invariably more or less demoralising — is,
in fact, a relapse from civilisation to barbarism.
Therein lies its real fascination for men bored with
the proprieties and duties of the nineteenth century.
The instincts of the primeval man — food-hunting,
predatory, self-preserving — re-emerge in the modern ;
moral sanctions are disregarded, the rights of inferior
races are forgotten, and the hunter feels himself,
figuratively speaking, naked, savage, bloodthirsty, and
unashamed. Sportsmen for this reason are invariably
selfish and conservative. A sportsman who is a
Radical in politics and a pioneer in social science is
an impossibility.
" It is hopeless, therefore, to expect from sportsmen
any sympathy whatever with the agitation against
the cruel and iniquitous Game Laws. The agitation
began, and it must continue, among the men who
shrink from cruelty of any kind, and prefer the
amenities of civilisation to the coarse pleasures of
barbarism. Now, more than ever, the fight in the
higher planes of life is between philanthropy and
Humanitarianism 149
savagery, culture and brutality, the pleasures of the
thinking being and the amusements of the naked
man."
Nor was it only on the question of sport that
Mr. Buchanan had avowed humanitarian sympathies.
There is a terrible and most impressive passage in
his " City of Dream," in which he describes the
vivisection of a dog in the Temple of Science —
" I look'd no more ;
But covering up mine eyes, I shrieked aloud
And rush'd in horror from the accursed place ;
But at the door I turn'd, and turning met
The piteous eyeballs fix'd in agony
Beneath a forehead by the knife laid bare ! "
And in a later contribution to the Zoophilist
(June I, 1899) he reaffirms the same judgment on
the tortures of the laboratory : —
" That which has hitherto been deemed most
godlike in humanity, that which has brought comfort
and hope and moral salvation to countless human
beings, is the one thing which the arch-priests of
a false science seek to eliminate for ever from the
human conscience — the sentiment of Pity, which is
only another name for the idea of Justice. If animals
have no rights, then men and women have no rights ;
if men and women have no rights, then the conception
of a Divine Providence, of a Law which works invari-
ably for righteousness, is no more than a drunkard's
dream."
A few months after the publication of the Game
Laws pamphlet the League was permitted to reprint
a notable article on the " Law of Infanticide " which
Mr. Buchanan had contributed to the Star, with
reference to the case of Kate Shoesmith, the " Hetty
150 Robert Buchanan
Sorrel " of the occasion. " No words of mine," he
wrote, " could express the horror and the pity of the
whole business ; yet the story is as old as our marriage
market and is repeated with heartbreaking variations
every day. ... In truth we are still a savage and
uncivilised people, able and willing to mow down
with artillery such subject races as are not of our way
of thinking, but utterly blind and indifferent to the
sorrows of the weak and the sufferings of the martyred
poor."
On November 2, 1898, he wrote to me with
reference to his last volume of poems : —
" I am about to publish my ' New Rome ; Ballads
and Poems of our Empire,' and much of it will appeal,
I think, to your circle, though the critics generally will
cordially detest it. It is an attack on our civilisation
all round, in the name of Humanity. One poem in it,
' The Song of the Fur Seal,' was suggested by passages
in your journal.^ I shall really be glad of any sym-
pathy you can show me, for I am certain to get very
scant justice in other quarters. I have poured out
the belief that is in me, however, and I don't think it
will be altogether wasted."
" The New Rome " is indeed inspired by the most
passionate humanitarian feeling. Under the title
" Songs of Empire " the poet denounces the selfish
and aggressive militarism which was then practising
on native races the barbarities which have since
reached their climax in the war on the South African
Republics. His " Song of the Slain " breathes the
true democratic spirit, and no more trenchant satire
has been written of late years than his " Ballad of
' " The Cost of a Sealskin Cloak," by Joseph CoUinson,
reprinted irom Humanity, a.s one of the Humanitarian League's
pamphlets.
Humanitarianism 151
Kiplingson " and " The Chartered Companie." Nor
are the poems conceived in a spirit of mere denuncia-
tion ; for many of them express with consummate
tenderness and beauty the new gospel of Humaneness.
Here, for example, are some stanzas from " God
Evolving," which might be taken as the hymn of
Humanitarianism : —
"Where'er great pity is and piteousness,
Where'er great Love and Love's strange sorrow stay,
Where'er men cease to curse, but bend to bless,
Frail brethren fashion' d like themselves of clay.
Where'er the lamb and lion side by side
Lie down in peace, where'er on land or sea
Infinite Love and Mercy heavenly-eyed
Emerge, there stirs the God that is to be !
His hght is round the slaughter'd bird and beast
As round the forehead of Man crucified, —
All things that Hve, the greatest and the least,
Await the coming of this Lord and Guide ;
And every gentle deed by mortals done,
Yea, every holy thought and loving breath,
Lighten poor Nature's travail with this Son
Who shall be Lord and God of Life and Death !
No God behind us in the empty Vast,
No God enthroned on yonder heights above.
But God emerging, and evolved at last
Out of the inmost heart of human Love !"
On social questions Buchanan's outlook was not
less humane, and his abiding sense of the close kin-
ship of all sentient life is shown in many of his poems
— in none perhaps more nobly than in the magnificent
verses that have reference to " fallen women " : —
" How? Thou be saved, and one of these be lost ?
The least of these be spent, and thou soar free ?
Nay ! for these things are ihou — these tempest-tost
Waves of the darkness are but forms of thee.
152 Robert Buchanan
Shall these be cast away ? Then rest thou sure
No hopes abide for thee if none for these.
Would'st thou be hcal'd ? Then hast thou these to cure ;
Thine is their shame, their foulness, their disease."
Nor were the lower animals excluded from his
sympathies, as is testified by the stanzas on " Man of
the Red Right Hand," " Be Pitiful," " The Song of
the Fur Seal," and many others. It is on this one-
ness of mankind, and of all sentient life, that Humani-
tarianism, if it be more than a passing sentiment,
must be based, and this is the spirit in which " The
New Rome " is written.
" I had been taught by sharp experience," says
Buchanan in his preface, " that such poems were not
wanted by the public." This sort of admonition,
however, was always disregarded by him, and herein,
perhaps, is the reason why his great poetical qualities
have been so strangely undervalued in dominant
literary circles. No thoughtful lover of poetry can be
unaware that Mr. Buchanan's equipment, intellectual
and artistic, would have been sufficient to fit out some
half-dozen of the popular poets whom Society delights
to honour ; but his inveterate habit of calling a spade
a spade almost condemned him to the role of a
prophet crying in the wilderness. All the more,
then, do humanitarians owe a tribute of gratitude
to this most humane and fearless writer, whose poems
are a living testimony to the fact that true poetry
does not lose, but is greatly a gainer, by association
with compassionate feeling. It is right that this side
of Robert Buchanan's genius should receive the appre-
ciation which it deserves.
CHAPTER XV
READINGS, 1868-69
WHEN he returned to Scotland the shadow
against which Bryan Procter first warned
him had not yet descended upon him. He was free,
for the time being, to write poetry, and to dream that
it would procure both bread and a foothold in the
world. His " London Poems" had succeeded beyond
his expectations. Encouraged by the success of his
translations from the Danish, published under the
title of " Ballads of the Affections," and consisting
for the most part of renderings from the " Danske
Viser," Messrs. Dalziel had offered him four hundred
pounds for his next book of poems, on the condition
that they might issue it, as they had issued the
"Ballads," with illustrations. This they did, and
the volume, containing some of his best work, was
published under the title of " North Coast and other
Poems." I fancy that the work failed for one reason
or another to show a profit to the publishers, such
original poetry as it contained being quite out of the
way of those who buy expensive illustrated books.
The poems which it contained, however, were mag-
nificently noticed by the Press.
By this time he was settled comfortably at Oban,
and was living the life of a regulation country gentle-
153
154 Robert Buchanan
man. His tastes were expensive, and he gratified
them. He had his shooting and his fishing, while his
yacht was riding at anchor in Oban Bay, From time
to time as the humour seized him he boarded this
Httle craft and made sundry excursions among the
outer Hebrides, gaining in each of these expeditions
fresh poetical inspiration such as that which came to
him when he stood upon the lonely shores of Loch
Coruisk and conceived the series of poems which
were afterwards published under the title of " Coru-
isken Sonnets." It was from Loch Slighan, Isle of
Skye, that he wrote the following letter : —
"August, 1868.
" Dear Noel, — You will think me a beast for my
silence, and indeed I reproach myself daily for my
neglect of you and other dear friends. I cannot,
however, help being a bad correspondent ; and more-
over each letter is so much taken from my scant literary
hours. Were I to write to you as often as I think
of you, and as kindly, you would be sick — with sugar.
We have had a long wander, roughing it a good
deal both literally and figuratively, and we have
drunk much wonder by eye and ear. The little craft
we sail in has behaved bravely and gone through her
work like a lady of the old Norwegian school- — with a
fierce grace. I have thought much and written Httle,
eat little and walked much. I don't know that I am
much the better in health for this cruise — the cuisine
has been a little ^00 bad ; but I shall enjoy civilisation
better when I next enter an eating-house.
* How goes your book ? You never told me what
Chapman said, or how he said it ; and you never sent
me that Heroditan romance, of course. My horrid
bigotry revolts you. Well ! you will think my
Readings, 1868-69 155
views larger some day, when I have had my full
say. Meantime I am merely mumbling an odd
music with little meaning to the foreign. That I do
not love all you love, that I do not see all you see,
that I do not hope all you hope are misfortunes ; but
with a little clearer light, some day, we shall find we
agree better than we think. I am doubtless silly and
fantastical when your Arnolds and your Swinburnes,
even your Tennysons, do not anyway move me, any
more than my crude stuff moves them. I really do
believe it is some vice in myself; yet were you to
know me alone, when I have been reading of Sancho's
government, or of the Miltonic epos, or of poor
Jack Falstaff's death — of these and a thousand other
beloved things — you would know I could love some-
thing, much. It is my vice that I must love a thing
wholly, or dislike it wholly. Of contemporaries, I
love only a few wholly. You see I have only been
half educated, and my tastes are very raw.
" But one thing let me confess — my total obtusity
about Clough. I have not read a line of him since,
yet all at once the light has grown on me of its own
accord, and I see that Clough was a star — not one in
the same heaven with my Chaucer and my Shake-
speare, and my Burns and my Cervantes — but a pure
scholastic light, real and everlasting.
" I don't know what will come next, but I shall try
to get to London for a month soon, when I hope to
get a little more of your company. I have great
bothers of course, and am still troubled ; but the
clouds clear. I was shipwrecked in the night, but I
swam for shore, and am looking out for another ship.
Where will you be in October ? Write to
" Yours always,
" Robert Buchanan." »
' Letter to the Hon. Roden Noel,
156
Robert Buchanan
As will be seen from the above, the cloud was
descending, for he was beginning to feel the dis-
comfort caused by a small income and a heavy
expenditure. Added to this the writing of poetry,
which was always a great strain upon him, was
beginning to affect his health. " You do not re-
member," wrote one of his old friends to me during
his last illness, " because you were only a child, but I
remember that as far back as those Oban days he
had a slight stroke of some kind. He was very ill
then, and his brave young wife nursed him back to
life."
The cause of this breakdown arose partly from
overwork, and partly from the privations which he
had endured when he first came to London. There
is a general impression abroad that he was a self-
made man — that he rose, if not exactly from the
gutter, at any rate from very poor surroundings, and
that he never knew what it was to eat a good dinner
till he was able to earn it by his pen. That this
impression is a perfectly erroneous one I have shown
in the earlier chapters of this memoir. His up-
bringing, until he reached the age of eighteen, was
princely, for his indulgent mother never left a single
wish of his ungratified, so that when at length
poverty came to him, the very novelty of the
situation helped to rob it of its repulsiveness. He
took to it very much as a young aristocrat might
take to " slumming," and all the time he was happy
in the knowledge that it would certainly not last long.
The few months spent in the garret at Stamford
Street, when he was waited upon by shockheaded
" Belinda " and compelled to eat stale eggs for
breakfast, became an episode in his career, and one
to which he was never tired of referring. The struggle
Readings, 1868-69 ^57
for existence which darkened his whole Hfe was
mainly the result of his early training — a taste for
luxury of all kinds had been instilled into him by
his mother, while from his father he inherited a love
of speculation. From neither had he learned the
value of money ; when he had it he spent it like a
lord, when he hadn't it he lived upon credit, and then,
finding himself in difficulties, he endeavoured to
extricate himself by hard work, or by plunging into
hazardous speculations which very often had the
effect of sinking him still deeper in the mire.
To such a man a wife fashioned on the lines of
Jane Welch Carlyle would have proved a blessing,
but my sister had unfortunately been cast in much
the same mould as himself She had no idea of
managing, or saving, or thinking of to-morrow.
" Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" was her
motto, and so like a couple of babies they muddled
through life, tasting sometimes of its joys, but oftener
of its sorrows.
Up to this time (1868) five years had elapsed since
the publication of his first volume of poems, and
during those five years he had published many more,
yet in spite of the large sums which he received from
these volumes, and in spite of much ignoble pot-
boiling, he found himself at the close of the year 1868
in such monetary difficulties that he was compelled
to face the situation and cast about in his mind for
some kind of work which would be more lucrative
than that of literature, with the result that after a good
deal of deliberation he determined to follow in the
footsteps of Dickens — to emerge from his solitude
and give readings from his own works on the public
platform. This he did, on January 25, 1869, ap-
pearing at the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover
158
Robert Buchanan
Square. His appearance in public created no little
1(^ stir, and the audience which he drew was an excep-
tional one. " In front of him sat Lord Houghton, on
his right was Robert Browning, near him Dr. West-
land Marston and the Rev. Newman Hall. The
body of the room was full of literary men, critics,
editors, publishers, but he was not afraid of his
critical audience ; he faced them boldly, read manfully
and well, and wrung from them for his best passages
the tribute of enthusiastic applause." There cannot
be a doubt that he was in every way well fitted to
succeed in the path which he had elected to tread ;
" he had a pleasing and distinct delivery, a voice of
compass and power, and a prepossessing appearance."
" If all our writers" (said the Examiner) "were as
capable as he of doing histrionic justice to their
works, we should consider them not only unwise but
positively culpable in not treading the same path as
that so manfully traversed by Charles Dickens and
Robert Buchanan."
The success of the second reading, which took place
in March, was as great as that of the first, and had he
been blessed with even moderate health all would
have been well with him. Offers to read and lecture
came from all parts of the country, and a prosperous
future opened before him, but his highly strung
nervous system was unable to bear the strain of
these public appearances, and after the second
reading had been given he returned to Oban, so
broken in health that for a time at least every kind
of work had to be abandoned. It was at this period
of his career that the late Mr. Gladstone granted him
a Government pension of a hundred pounds a year,
which sum he received until his death.
CHAPTER XVI
THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY, 1870
IT was in the summer of 1870, when he was still
living at Oban, that Mr. Buchanan read the
poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which had been re-
ceived with much praise by the entire newspaper press,
to the accompaniment of rapturous salvoes from the
writer's friends and personal admirers. In all the
ocean of eau sucrce which surrounded the new poet ^
there had not been one drop of gall ; and the cliques
were ringing with the pretensions of the whole
school to which the poet-painter belonged. By
temperament, instinct, and literary education Robert
Buchanan was opposed to that school, and the voice
of calumny whispered that insults had been heaped
upon his own friends and sympathisers. He remem-
bered too things which still rankled in his mind, and
to which allusion will be made later on. Unfortu-
nately for himself he yielded partly to the desire to
express his opinion of the poems which criticism was
praising, he thought, too vehemently, and partly to
the temptation to be smart and funny at the expense
of a clique whose antics were, to his thinking at least,
highly absurd. The result was an article published in
159
i6o Robert Buchanan
the Contemporary Revieiv signed " Thomas Maitland,"
and entitled " The Fleshly School of Poetry,"
The story of that article is now old literary history,
but I must traverse it again with a view to the partial
exculpation of the one who, ever since the publication
of the article in question, has been made the subject of
endless slander and misconception.
" My own career " (he wrote) " may be cited as an
example of the difficulties which must beset any
individual who is rash enough to despise coterie
friendships altogether. No man loves praise more
than I do, and few men of equal gifts have got so
little, ever since the time when my natural indiscre-
tion conquered me and I began to express decided
opinions. I have had many friends, but few of them,
alas ! have been professional Critics, and I alienated
those few long ago by refusing to accept their judg-
ments as authoritative or to express complete con-
fidence in their integrity. But here again, what has
it mattered ? I should have been more loved had
I been more lovable, and doubtless I have only got
my deserts, I may flatter my vanity at times by
assuming that I am not properly appreciated, but
I know well in my heart of hearts that a man as a
rule gets what sympathy he earns, and that I have
earned exactly what I have received. I may affirm
or insinuate that I am an honest creature, while all
the Critics of the Coteries are either knaves or fools,
but I know well in my heart that I am not a bit
better than they are, and am indeed as arrant a
Logroller as any one of them. Blood is thicker than
water, and Love is stronger than Criticism, Let me
illustrate the fact again in my own person. I pub-
lished many years ago an article called the ' Fleshly
School of Poetry.' It created a tremendous stir and
The Fleshly School of Poetry i6i
provoked endless recriminations, and the question
which I am about to answer now is, Was it an honest
article, i.e., did it actually represent my honest belief?
To answer that question I must refer to the fons et
origo of the whole affair. Not long before its publi-
cation Mr. Swinburne the poet had gone out of his
way to print, in a note to one of his prose essays, an
insulting allusion to the friend of my boyhood, David
Gray, whose premature death I still mourned deeply.
He spoke contemptuously and cruelly of Gray's ' poor
little book,' an allusion emphasised, I was assured, by
other spiteful comments of the Coterie to which Mr.
Swinburne belonged. I showed the note to Lord
Houghton ; he was much surprised and vexed, and
said (I quote his actual words) : ' O he (Swinburne)
did this to annoy vie ! ' Whatever motive inspired
the allusion, it seemed to me most ill-timed, offensive,
and cruel ; and I vowed then and there to avenge it if
ever I had the opportunity. I am not justifying my
conduct ; I am simply describing it. I am not natu-
rally revengeful, but remember I was very young and
my dead friend was very dear to me. Well, I bided
my time. I forgot the provocation I myself had
given by my review of Mr. Swinburne's ' Poems and
Ballads' in the Athenceum, — a review in which, I am
ashamed to say, I compared the writer to the Gito
of Petronius. The retort came, not merely in Mr.
Swinburne's fierce exculpatory brochure, but in Mr.
Rossetti's pamphlet defending his friend, in the
opening passage of which I was called ' a poor
and pretentious poetaster who was causing storms
in teacups,' the allusion being to the success of my
' London Poems.' From that instant I considered
myself free to strike at the whole Coterie, which I
finally did, at the moment when all the journals were
12
1 62 Robert Buchanan
sounding extravagant pseans over the poems of Dante
Gabriel Rossetti.
" My criticism in the Contemporary Review was not
conscientiously dishonest ; I really believed then that
Rossetti was an affected, immoral, and overpraised
writer. I was not alone in that opinion, absurd as
I consider it now. Shortly after the publication of
my review, Tennyson avowed to me viva voce that he
considered Rossetti's sonnet on ' Nuptial Sleep ' the
' filthiest thing he had ever read.' Browning in
private talks had been equally emphatic. Thus
encouraged, I faced at last the men who had (I
thought) trampled down the flowers on poor Gray's
grave, and
' When I struck at length
Their honour, 'twas with all my strength ! '
In spite of the shriek of protest raised, the blow
was decisive ; the Coterie collapsed like a house of
cards." i
At the time of the publication of this criticism Mr.
Buchanan was under contract to supply Alexander
Strahan, for the Argosy^ the Contemporary Review,
and other of his publications, with so much magazine
copy monthly. His contributions being very varied
in character, including verses and descriptive articles
as well as more serious matter, were frequently un-
signed and more frequently signed pseudonymously,
and his first idea was to publish the criticism on
Mr. Rossetti without any signature whatever, so it
was Mr. Strahan who attached to it the pseudonym
" Thomas Maitland." It is certain, however, that
Mr. Buchanan had no intention of signing the article
t,vV ■ "Latter Day Leaves."
The Fleshly School of Poetry 163
with his own name, for at that time the coterie had
most of the Hterary journals, including the Atkencsum,
at their absolute command, and would be certain, he
thought, to use them to discredit his criticism. I am
not saying this in order to justify the course adopted,
I am merely stating a fact. His motive was, I know,
primarily revenge, his opinions dictated by a wrath
which he considered righteous, as well as by a literary
antipathy which he considered just.
He had not long to wait before learning that he
had thrust his staff into a hornet's nest. The author-
ship of the article soon became known ; he avowed it
indeed directly his name was mentioned in connec-
tion with it, and as he had meant all along to avow it
sooner or later. The critical journals described him
as a " disguised assassin," stabbing a brother artist in
the back and then hiding his head in darkness. The
Saturday Review alone defended him, and ridi-
culea his opponents in an article called " Coterie
Glory." Fiercer recriminations followed, culminating
in Rossetti's protest, published in the Athenceuvi, in
the re-publication of the review in pamphlet form, with
large and savage additions, and in Mr. Swinburne's
" Under the Microscope." But in the meantime the
fiery attacks upon him had brought unknown friends
into the field, who were just as eager to support him.
The late Cardinal Manning sent him a private
message, approving what he had done and desiring
to make his acquaintance. Tennyson and Browning
were on his side, tacitly if not openly, and a large
number of less famous people sent him messages of
sympathy and congratulation. The late Lord de \- .
Tabley, then the Hon. Leicester Warren (author of •
" Philoctetes ") helped him to design the cover of his
pamphlet by supplying him with drawings of the
164
Robert Buchanan
various flowers of the wayside, and so pointing the
moral of the diatribe.
Nevertheless he was practically left to fight his
battle alone, no one daring or caring to provoke the
hostility of his enemies by a public expression of
opinion ; and for months, nay for years afterwards,
he was assailed with every insult that malice could
invent for his destruction. So cruel indeed and so
relentless was this persecution of him, that when, in
the year 1872, he published his poem "St. Abe and
His Seven Wives," he found it expedient not only to
issue the book anonymously, but to take every precau-
tion to prevent the name of the author from becoming
known. The secret was so well kept that when a
representative of a leading London daily newspaper
went to Mr. Strahan (the publisher of the book),
showed him the proof of a highly laudatory review
two columns in length, and promised that it should
appear the very next day if he would tell him (in
strict confidence of course) the name of the author,
Mr. Strahan refused to speak, and as a consequence
no notice of the poem appeared in the columns of
the journal in question. The book however (since
it could not be proved to be written by Robert
Buchanan), did not fail to make its mark. Indeed
both " St. Abe " and its successor, " White Rose and
Red," were welcomed by the public and received by
the journals with such roars of applause as certainly
would not have greeted them had the secret of their
authorship become known.
Writing in the Christian World in July, 1876,
some five years after the publication of the famous
pamphlet, the Rev. W. H. Wylie said —
" Had they perceived the truth, Mr. Swinburne and
his friends would have been grateful to Mr. Buchanan
The Fleshly School of Poetry 165
for the advice he gave them. He told them to aban-
don blasphemy and the sensual vein of Baudelaire.
. . . This excellent advice, instead of being gratefully
received, was spurned ; and any one who desires to see
the unholy wrath which it provoked in the breast of
Mr. Swinburne has only to turn to the pamphlet
' Under the Microscope/ in which he replied to Mr.
Buchanan, pouring forth such torrents of invective as,
fortunately, have few parallels in the range of English
literature. Having delivered his soul in the article
of 1 87 1, I am not aware that Mr. Buchanan has
ever published another syllable about the Fleshly
Poets ; but when the story is told of hovv they have
laboured to discredit him, both as a man and a poet, it
will form one of the most humiliating episodes in the
literary history of our generation. To escape the band
of Mohawks by whom he was relentlessly pursued, he
has on more than one occasion betaken himself to
anonymous publication; and I am aware of one in-
stance in which a leading evening journal has, within
the same week, assailed a new poem bearing his name
with violent invective, and welcomed another poem,
which was also his, but which he had taken the pre-
caution of issuing anonymously, as the work of a man
of undoubted genius. The appearance last year of
' Jonas Fisher ' was made a peg on which to hang
another series of attacks on Mr. Buchanan. That
poem, at first appearing anonymously, they ascribed
to his pen, led into this error by the fact that Lord
Southesk had also spoken his mind pretty plainly
about the Fleshly School. When Mr. Buchanan
disowned the imputed authorship of a work which he
had not even seen, and with the writer of which he
was then totally unacquainted, Mr. Swinburne still
continued the attack. It seemed to the victim of
.>
1 66 Robert Buchanan
these libels that the time had at length arrived when
a decided step should be taken to put a stop to the
malicious slanders; and accordingly he appealed to the
strong arm of the law. It was a hazardous experi-
ment, for it seems to be a prevalent notion that one
poet may libel another with impunity ; and all the
damage that could be inflicted on the plaintiff by an
ingenious cross-examiner like Mr. Hawkins was, of
course employed to discredit his case. But I am
happy to say that the cause of justice triumphed,
even before a special jury in the Court of Common
Pleas ; and after having the whole story opened out
before them, which I have here compressed into a
brief compass, that jury delivered a verdict for the
plaintiff, with damages ^150. It adds to my satis-
faction to learn that the presiding judge, Mr. Justice
\C^ Archibald, condemned in most unqualified terms the
productions against which Mr. Buchanan tabled his
protest five years before. Speaking of the works of
Dante Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, &c., the judge
declared that ' it would have been better if they had
never been written, and that if all the poetry of the
Cj Fleshly School were committed to the flames to-
morrow, the world would be very much the better
for it.'"
I grant the provocation, but, as I have shown,
the first blow was struck by the other side, and
the whole conduct of the fight appears to me to
have been mean and cowardly on that side from
first to last. When Mr. Buchanan attacked Mr.
Rossetti, he attacked, as he thought, a strong
man — he was not showering rancour on the helpless
dead. Had he conceived for a moment that his
words would have caused so much pain, he would
never have written as he did, but in this instance he
The Fleshly School of Poetry 167
himself had been attacked far more savagely again
and again, and had taken his punishment like a man.
He could not understand then, indeed he never could
understand, how any clique of men could take a piece
of adverse criticism in so paltry and pusillanimous a
spirit. But the moment he saw in what spirit his
criticism had been received, the very moment he
realised that he had been the cause of such bitter
pain, he came forward and made amends, both in his
inscription to " God and the Man " and in his mature
appreciation of Mr. Rossetti in his " Look Round
Literature." Nevertheless I would gladly, if I could,
wipe this episode from the record of so large-hearted
and high-minded a man as Robert Buchanan or,
failing that, persuade myself and my readers that his
motives in the attack were consistently honest and
high-minded. But in telling the story of this quarrel
I have above all things attempted to speak the truth,
as he would have wished me to speak it, thus leaving
the public to mete out their own measure of praise or
blame. His motives, it seems to me, were complex,
first among them being the determination to be even
with the men who had insulted his dead comrade.
Add to that a young man's irritation at the
exaggerated praises heaped upon work which then
seemed to him artificial, affected, and insincere.
It is certain that Robert Buchanan, more than
most men, suffered from wilful misconstruction and
deliberate persecution, but more than most men, on
the other hand, he asserted his intellectual inde-
pendence and held on his own way towards his own
ideals. I should exaggerate perhaps if I said that he
was indifferent to misconstruction — no man is able
to despise, or has any right to despise, the opinion of
his contemporaries, but I can safely assert that in his
1 68 Robert Buchanan
case the pleasures of independence far outweighed
the pains of personal martyrdom. Praise is sweet to
us all, blame is bitter enough, but in his case neither
blame nor praise affected one hair's breadth his fight
with his own conscience.
CHAPTER XVII
LIFE IN IRELAND
IN the year 1874 his occupancy of the "White
House on the Hill " came to an end, and he left
Scotland for ever. Various circumstances contributed
to this move, first among them being the condition of
his health, about which he had very serious mis-
givings, certain symptoms pointing to probable
paralysis. With the breakdown in health came the
inability to work and consequently to meet his
weekly expenditure, which at that time was con-
siderable. He persuaded himself, moreover, that the
climate of Scotland did not suit him, so his yacht
was sold, his shooting given up, and he came again
to London not with the idea of settling there, but
merely to consult certain doctors, and to search the
advertising columns of the newspapers for a country
residence the expenses of which would be con-
siderably less than they had been at Oban. Doctors
King Chambers and Russell Reynolds had both been
consulted, when the subject of these memoirs was
strongly advised by the late Countess of Gainsborough
to call in Dr. Gulley, in whose system she had the
most implicit faith. Her advice was acted upon ; Dr.
Gulley was called in, with the result that Mr.
Buchanan was sent to Great Malvern and placed
169
170 Robert Buchanan
under the care of Dr. Fernie, who had become
Dr. Gulley's successor.
He was taken to Malvern by his wife, who has
recorded in her journal that " though the weather was
intensely cold (February 28th) Robert bore the
journey pretty well." They were met at the station,
and found that apartments had been taken for
them at Holyrood House. The journal goes on to
state : —
^^ Feb. 2gtli. — We rose at nine o'clock and found
the ground covered with snow. Most depressing —
even the houses look depressed. Our apartments
are most oddly situated ; we have a doctor on one
side, an undertaker on the other, and I think a
churchyard close by. The bell is constantly tolling.
Baths close to our window and making a dreadful
noise through letting off steam by machinery.
Robert so cold he has to wear his cap and gloves.
Dr. Fernie called in the afternoon, and in the evening,
as the weather was warmer, we took a walk and
became a little better impressed with the town.
" March 2nd. — Robert went through his first
tortures. It has been a lovely day and we went for
a drive, but it was dreadfully dull. In the evening
we walked for about a mile, and when we had
covered half the return journey Robert's leg became
bad again — loss of power in it — but I managed to get
him home. Once there he became worse. He had
flushing in the head, numbness in the right cheek,
and he lost power in his hand too. Went to bed,
but did not get much better all the evening,
though he had a fairly good night. The bell is still
tolling !
''March 13/// — When we were out walking this
morning Robert complained of being in a violent
Life in Ireland 171
perspiration, feeling muddy in the head, and very-
nervous, and so we hurried home. Have strongly
advised him to leave as he seems to get no better,"
A few days later they returned to London, and
Mr. Buchanan placed himself under the care of Dr.
Lobb, but as the symptoms from which he suffered
seemed to continue with more or less severity, he
decided to return again to Malvern and make a
further trial of the water treatment. This he did
on March 29th.
" Travelled to Malvern. Rose at eight and took
a hasty breakfast. Right leg very bad while walking
down steps to cab, and continued so throughout the
drive to the station. Left town by the ten train. Felt
pretty well till we got to Worcester, then became
very ill with swelling feeling in right arm and face.
Took stimulant drops and brandy and got slightly
better. Arrived at Malvern about three o'clock, felt
leg very bad while walking from train to cab. Had
a tea-dinner on arriving, but did not get thoroughly
well all the evening. To make matters worse Polly
has contracted a bad cold." ^
During this time, although he was always more or
less unwell, he had not been idle, for on March 12th
I find the following entry in my sister's diary : —
" Robert finished and posted complete poem,
' White Rose and Red.' Neuralgia away, but right
cheek bothering him very much and head rather bad
during the evening."
The second visit to Malvern, which lasted several
weeks, was productive of no better results than the
first. Mr. Buchanan's health got steadily worse and
his pocket proportionately lighter. " It is awfully
dull and damnably dear," he wrote ; " in fact a perfect
' Mr. Buchanan's diary.
172 Robert Buchanan
catarrh of cash. ... I got a h'ghter heart directly
I had seen Reynolds and Gulley, and they to some
extent dissipated my greatest dread." ^
Having convinced himself that no great good
would result from a lengthened stay at Malvern, he
resolved to try again the remedy of an open-air
country life. With this object in view he rented,
from an advertisement in the Field newspaper, a
furnished cottage called Rossport Lodge, which was
situated in the very wildest parts of the wilds of
Connemara. He had had no previous knowledge of
Ireland whatever, his decision to make the experi-
ment having been brought about by the wish to
obtain a certain amount of luxury with the least
possible outlay. With the discovery of Rossport he
seemed to have found exactly what he wanted. The
Lodge was small, fairly furnished, and comfortable
enough. Included in the rent there was the right to
burn unlimited turf, which was also brought to the
house free of charge, there were two or three thousand
acres of wild, rough shooting, the right to fish in a
couple of rivers well stocked with salmon and trout,
the use of a horse and car three days a week, and the
rent was fifty pounds a year !
By the courtesy of Mr. William Canton I am enabled
to quote from a very interesting and very voluminous
packet of letters which he received from Mr.
Buchanan during the period of the latter's residence
in Ireland, and the following quotation gives a very
graphic picture of the poet's surroundings at that
time : —
" Dont imagine me ' looking out from a garden ' on
the Atlantic ! We have no gardens here. My ' Lodge '
is a little place in the centre of a bog, surrounded by
' Letter to the Hon. Roden Noel.
Life in Ireland 173
huts even wilder than those you paint in Romaine. I
am ten miles from Belmullet, a wretched little town
something like Tobermory in the Highlands. There
is fair snipe-shooting and salmon-fishing in summer.
I wish you could see Kid Island, a weird place out in
the sea surrounded by wondrous caves and haunted
by legions of birds. Photographs quotha ! You
have a dim notion indeed if you think a photographer
has ever been here. A young ' kern ' of my acquaint-
ance went the other day forty miles distant to Ballina,
and saw the Train ! He trembles at the memory of
that appalling sight. They tried to persuade him to
get into a carriage, but he was not such a fool ! Super-
stition flourishes. They believe implicitly in the
Mermaid, the Second Sight, the Water Bull, and all
the rest of it. Such are we here; and as we vary our
monotony by occasionally shooting a landlord, our
life is not uneventful."
The main reason for his going to Rossport, that of
retrenchment, was not accomplished. " I came here
for economy " (he wrote), " and just now, calculating
up, I find it costs me as much as London, though we
only live in a tiny cottage. There are so many Poor
who must and will be assisted." ^
Despite its drawbacks, which were not few, the
time spent in Rossport was productive of much
happiness. With the change to these surroundings,
Mr. Buchanan's health rapidly improved, and his
power of work became greater than it had been for
many months. " I simply cannot work in Town, but
directly I get here, though I take twice the exercise,
and am out thrice the time, I do twice or thrice the
work. I never felt one tithe of the literary power I
feel now, and the results will make or mar me. So
' Letter to Mr. Canton.
174 Robert Buchanan
much for Oxygen. Not that I feel quite the thing — I
never do that, and I suppose few do," ^
The place was certainly inconvenient, for not only
were we forty miles from a railway station, but we
were ten miles from a post-office or any kind of shop,
and had it not been that my sister, who loved nothing
so well as a country life, soon turned the shooting-
lodge into a miniature farm, we might often have
gone hungry to bed. As it was we baked our own
bread, reared our own poultry, and when they killed
a sheep at the barracks, invariabl}^ took a good
portion of it as our share, while for other provisions
my sister had only to dip into her store cupboard,
which had been well stocked soon after our arrival.
Thus we were able not only to have our own wants
supplied, but to feed half the starving villagers
besides. But it was not alone for their generosity,
which was always of the most lavish kind, that the
poet and his wife endeared themselves to all the poor
of Rossport ; it was also for their great tenderness to
all the sick and afflicted. As an amateur Mr.
Buchanan was a most able doctor, and my sister
was a particularly skilful nurse, and since the nearest
doctor lived ten miles away, the poet and his wife
were soon called upon to tend the village sick. This
they did with never-ending patience. Indeed 1 have
known my sister to be called up in the middle of the
night, and to tramp for miles over a wet and slushy
moorland in order to tend some miserable peasant
woman who, but for her kindly ministrations, would
most surely have died. When she left the village,
which she occasionally did to pay a short visit to
London, there was much wailing and gnashing of
teeth, while to celebrate her return bonfires were
' Letter to the Hon. Roden Noel.
Life in Ireland 175
lit, and the Lodge surrounded by a sorry-looking
lot of creatures who had gathered together to bid
her welcome home. We seldom or ever saw a news-
paper, and our letters were delivered to us three times
a week, when we were so lucky as to get them
delivered at all. The post-boy, " Johnny the Ferry "
as he was called, had to fetch the letters from Bel-
mullet, a distance of ten miles. Sometimes he got
a lift on a side car, but oftener he had to do the
journey on foot, and that, too, in the wettest and
stormiest weather, so that occasionally the letters
arrived in such a state of dilapidation as to be
almost unreadable. The post usually came in at
nine o'clock at night, and went out again at 7.30
in the morning, an arrangement which we found
exceedingly inconvenient when a book happened
to be going through the press, as, when proof-
reading had to be done, it generally meant sitting up
till the small hours of the morning. In this way Mr.
Buchanan corrected the proofs of the " Shadow of
the Sword " and I those of the " Queen of Con-
naught."
But the life we led there was by no means dull.
For society there was the parish priest — Father John
Melvin — a particularly handsome man who loved a
game of chess and a glass of whiskey, and who could
produce on occasion one of the finest glasses of
potheen ever brewed in Connaught.
During one of our periodical visits to London we
brought with us some of Father John's potheen and
presented it to Charles Reade, who was so enthu-
siastic over it and who set such store by it that
when producing it at his own table he insisted upon
having it served in the tiniest of liqueur glasses.
There was Father John's curate. Father Michael
176
Robert Buchanan
Geraghty, a delicate, refined youth of some three-
and-twenty summers, whose pathetic Hfe-story was
so touchingly told in the novel which was published
in 1898 under the title of " Father Anthony," while
Rossport House, the only other habitable dwelling in
the village besides our own, was occupied by Colonel
Campbell, his wife, and four bonnie daughters ; and
last, but not least, there was the Protestant clergy-
man the Rev. G. H. Croly, who dwelt in Polothomas,
just across the ferry. Those were days to which the
poet ever looked back with pleasure, and when he
published his novel " Father Anthony," he referred
to them in a dedication to the parish priest.
" Dear Father John, — I am inscribing this
book with your name in memory of our many meet-
ings among the sea-surrounded wilds of Erris.
Certain scenes and characters in it will be familiar
to you, and in ' Father x'\nthony ' himself you will
recognise a dim likeness to one whom we both knew
and loved. P"or his sake and also for yours, I shall
always feel strong affection towards the Irish Mother-
Church, and towards those brave and liberal-hearted
men who share so cheerfully the sorrows and priva-
tions, the simple joys and duties of the Irish
peasantry.
" As I close the unpretentious tale, for which I
claim only one merit, that of truth to the life, I look
back with regretful tenderness to the happy years I
spent in Western Ireland and to the friends whom I
found there to ' brighten the sunshine.' Some have
already passed away ; dear ' Father Michael,' who
sleeps in his lonely grave at Ballina ; and the good
'Colonel,' blithest and best of hosts and truest of
sportsmen, at whose table you denounced the 'Saxon,'
Life in Ireland 177
to the Saxon's unending delight, joining afterwards
till the rafters rang in the chorus of 'John Peel.'
Ever leal, faithful, brave, and honest, tolerant to all
creeds yet staunch and steadfast to your own, you
survive, beloved still, I am sure, by all that know you,
and still carrying with you the brightness of a kindly
gospel and a broadly human disposition.
" Yours always affectionately,
"Robert Buchanan." ^
At this point of my narrative I recall an incident
which it may be interesting to relate. The Colonel
was an omnivorous reader. He subscribed to Smith's
library, and regularly every month came his box well
stocked with books, which he was always ready to
lend to any member of our little colony, but his
reading was limited to prose, the lists which went in
never by any chance including the name of a volume
of poems. Once, however, a terrible mistake
occurred. In the publisher's announcements the
Colonel one day saw the advertisement of an
anonymous work entitled, " St. Abe and his Seven
Wives : a Tale of Salt Lake City," and, without
waiting to ascertain whether the work in question
was in prose or verse, he hastily added it to his list.
On the arrival of the box the mistake was discovered
and the offending volume was cast into a corner and
left there. Some little time later it was taken up, quite
by chance, and looked at. Having read a few lines,
the Colonel became interested ; he read the poem to
the end, and his enthusiasm knew no bounds. That
same night he appeared at the Lodge with the book
in his hand. He had brought it for the poet to read,
and having recommended it with all the enthusiasm
' Dedication to " Father Anthony."
13
178
Robert Buchanan
of which he was capable, he said how much he would
like to meet the man who had written it. The poet
listened and smiled, but my sister revealed the secret
of the authorship with no little pride. Up to that
time the friendship between the two men had not
been of the closest, for the Colonel, it must be
admitted, was in every way the opposite of the
poet. Both were Scotchmen, but while one was
generous to a fault, the other was what is termed
" close," especially in the matter of sport, keeping to
himself his knowledge of the best pools in the river,
or the " warm corners " on the moor. But now all
was changed — the King could do no wrong — the poet
was at liberty to fish in the Colonel's river if it so
pleased him, or to shoot on his land, and following
the theory that by pitch one is defiled, the Colonel,
by intimate association, imbibed a good deal of the
generosity and good-heartedness of his neighbour.
From having been tolerated in the village, he became
liked, and indeed he was soon quite popular. But
much as he esteemed the poet, he never learned to
like poetry ; indeed, he ever regarded it with horror,
despite the fact that he had derived so much pleasure
from the reading of " St. Abe and His Seven Wives."
Another friendship which dates from this time is
that of Charles Reade, whose acquaintance the poet
made during one of his visits to London, and of
whom, many years later, he wrote the following
touching reminiscence : —
" It was in the summer of 1876 that I first made
the acquaintance of Charles Reade, at a little dinner
given by Mr. John Coleman, then manager of the
Queen's Theatre. The occasion was one especially
interesting to me, as the great novelist (for great and
in some respects unparalleled he will be found to be
Life in Ireland 179
when the time for his due appraisement comes) had
expressed a desire to meet my sister-in-law, who
although still a very young girl in her teens, had
risen into sudden distinction by the publication of
the ' Queen of Connaught,' Pleasant beyond measure
was that night's meeting ; pleasanter still the friendly
intimacy which followed it, and lasted for years ; for
of all the many distinguished men that I have met,
Charles Reade, when you knew him thoroughly, was
one of the gentlest, sincerest, and most sympathetic.
With the intellectual strength and bodily height of
an Anak, he possessed the quiddity and animal spirits
of Tom Thumb. He was learned, but he wore his
wisdom lightly, as became a true English gentleman
of the old school. His manners had the stateliness
of the last generation, such manners as I had known
in the scholar Peacock, himself a prince of tale-
tellers ; and, to women especially, he had the grace
and gallantry of the good old band of literary
knights. Yet with all his courtly dignity he was
as frank -hearted as a boy, and utterly without pre-
tence. What struck me at once in him was his
supreme veracity. Above all shams and pretences,
he talked only of what he knew ; and his knowledge,
though limited in range, was large and memorable.
At the period of our first acquaintance he was living
at Albert Gate, with the bright and genial Mrs.
Seymour as his devoted friend and housekeeper ;
and there, surrounded by his books of wonderful
memoranda, he was ever happy to hold simple
wassail with the few friends he loved. Gastronomi-
cally his tastes were juvenile, and his table was
generally heaped with sweets and fruits. A magni-
ficent whist and chess player, he would condescend
to spend whole evenings at the primitive game of
t8o Robert Buchanan
' squales.' In these and in all other respects he
was the least bookish, the least literary person that
ever used a pen ; indeed, if the truth must be told,
his love for merely literary people was small, and he
was consequently above all literary affectations. His
keen insight went straight into a man's real acquire-
ments and real experience, apart from verbal or
artistic clothing, and he was ever illustrating in
practice the potent injunction of Goethe —
' Greift nur hinein in 's voile Menschenleben !
Ein jedcr lebt 's, nicht vielen ist 's bekannt,
Und wo ihr 's packt, da ist 's interressant ! '
"His sympathy was for the living world, not for
the world of mere ideas ; and as his sympathy so was
his religion, — not a trouble-haunted, querulous ques-
tioning of truths unrealised and unrealisable, but a
simple, unpretending, humble, and faithful acquies-
cence in those divine laws which are written in the
pages of Nature and on the human heart.
" He read few books and abominated fine writing.
I well remember his impatience when, taking up a
novel of Ouida, and being pestered with a certain
abominable iteration about an ' Ariadne,' he sent the
book flying across the room before he had reached the
end of the first chapter. For the literature of pure
imagination he cared little or nothing, perhaps not
quite enough. Among the letters of his in my posses-
sion is one in which, referring to certain conversations
we had had on the subject of poetry, he utters the
following dicta, following them up with the charming
playfulness which was his most pleasant charac-
teristic : ' Even Tennyson to my mind ' (he says) ' is
only a Prince of Poetasters (!) I think with the
ancients, in whose view the Poetae Majores were
Life in Ireland i8i
versifiers who could tell a great story in great verse
and adorn it with great speeches and fine descrip-
tions ; and the Poetee Minores were versifiers who
could do all the rest just as well but could not tell a
great story. In short, I look on poetry as fiction
with the music of words. But, divorced from fiction,
I do not much value the verbal faculty, nor the
verbal music. And I believe this is the popular
instinct, too, and that a musical story-teller would
achieve an incredible popularity. Reflechissez y !
Would have gone in for this myself long ago, but can
only write doggerel. Example —
" You and Miss Jay
Hope to see my play ;
I hope so too.
Because — the day
You see my play,
I shall see you ! "
Vive la poesie ! — Yours ever very truly, Reade.'
" Here I may appropriately refer to his habit of
signing with his surname only those letters which he
reserved for intimate friends. In all his personal
relations he was completely frank, charming, and gay-
hearted. On the back of a photograph before me
taken at Margate, whither he had gone for the benefit
of his health, he wrote as follows : —
'"Dear Miss Jay, — I enclose the benevolent
Imbecile you say you require. It serves you right
for not coming down to see me ! — C. R. All pre-
vious attempts were solidified vinegar. This is the
reaction, no doubt ! '
" This was written not long before he encountered
the great trouble of his later life, when the good and
1 8.2 Robert Buchanan
gracious friend who had made his home delightful to
all who knew him was suddenly and cruelly taken
away. ' Seymour,' as he used to call her very often,
possessed much of his own fine frankness of cha-
racter, and knew and loved him to the last with
beautiful friendship and devotion. From the blow of
her loss he never quite rallied. His grief was pitiful
to see in so strong a man ; but from that moment
forward he turned his thoughts heavenward, accept-
ing with noble simplicity and humility the full
promise of the Christian faith. Fortunately, I think,
for him, his intellect had never been speculative in
the religious direction ; he possessed the wisdom
which to so many nowadays is foolishness, and was
able, as an old man, to become as a little child." ^
' " A Look Round Literature."
CHAPTER XVIII
FIRST IDEAS OF NOVEL WRITING
IT was during the period of his residence in
Ireland, about the year 1874, that Mr. Buchanan
made his first bid for popularity by the writing of
prose fiction. His first idea in this connection was
to write in collaboration, and so he made the
following proposition to Mr. William Canton : —
" I am tempted, believing in you so much, to
propose collaboration in a story^ I supplying the
theme, to be modified as we might mutually agree,
and you doing your fair half of the working-out.
Your strong picturesque style would suit me, and I
don't think the public would see the 'joins!' In
suggesting this, I bid for something very high indeed ;
a first-class theme, first-class work, and (I hope) a
first-class success. I think I have a grand subject
ready to hand. The work would be either anony-
mous, or under a pseudonym or anagram embracing
our two names. In this kind of joint work Erck-
mann-Chatrian have been very successful. Let me
hear from you, and ' if 'twere done, 'twere well if
'twere done quickly.' ... I find I have some of the
story-sketches by me ; so I send them to you to
look over. The story of which they form part ran
183
184
Robert Buchanan
thus: The young fellow in Chapter I. was the Lord of
Uribol in disguise ; he made love to and ran away
with the girl Minna ; she went with him to London,
and there discovered he was a bigamist, having
married a drunken widow in India ; she fled his
house in horror when they were in an hotel in Edin-
burgh, and rushed out into the streets ; here she
would have perished, if she had not suddenly encoun-
tered the poor wanderer Angus-with-the-dogs ; and
the great strength of the tale was to be her journey
home on foot in his company, until she fell on the
way, and was delivered of a child. Meantime the
remorseful husband returned to Uribol in a smack,
and was wrecked on the Morig Dhu, a reef of rocks,
while Angus-with-the-dogs, returning one wild night
home to Uribol, pulled out from his breast, along
with his usual puppies, a baby-child — the Heir of
Uribol ! This is vague enough, but you are keen
and will see the possibilities. The tale is only
written as far as chapter 5 or 6, and I think could
be easily transferred to this wild Irish Erris, for the
people here are the very same race, the same habits,
customs, peculiarities, as the Hebrideans. Angus
could turn into Andy; Glasgow into Dublin; Uribol
into Erris. Tell me what you think of the tale, and
can you suggest any alteration of the plot, &c. ? If
you thought the story very strong we might make
this our first anonymous venture." ^
This first proposition came to nothing, though the
story, of which the foregoing is a dim outline, was
subsequently written by Mr. Buchanan himself, and
published in the year 1881 under the title of "A
Child of Nature." Though the first venture came to
nought, the idea of collaboration was not abandoned,
' Letter to Mr. Canton.
First Ideas of Novel Writing 185
for on December 20th Mr. Buchanan again wrote to
Mr. Canton : —
" My dear Canton, — I send you abstract of the
other plot. It was originally meant for a poem, but
long reflection convinces me it must be prose. To some
extent founded on facts it ought to make a magnifi-
cent book. I send you two or three fragments of
the (crude) verse, a sketch of first ten chapters, and
one rough draft of chapter 10. If you will also refer
to Vol. I. of the Argosy, and to two articles called
' Wintering in Etretat ' by John Banks (J. B. is your
humble servant), you will have an idea of the sort of
village, but Brittany is better than Normandy. For
Brittany simply describe the Hebrides, with a dash
of Blackpool slush, and you will go all right ;
nothing can be too wild, weird, and strange for that
coast. It would be as well for you to read ' Le
Foyer Breton' and ' Les Derniers Bretons' of Sou-
vestre for Breton folklore, &c. I have the books in
London if you cannot procure them. But in fact
consult any sources that occur to you — only remem-
bering we don't want any cram, but a simple strong
natural poem in prose.
" Now will you try your hand on the first chapter
or two of this tale, and let me see them ? As the
subject is intense and gloomy later on you cannot be
too brightly poetical and easy in the opening. I
leave the girl Joan to you so far she must be a
bright foil to Romaine ; and whatever village worthies
you like, may come in. The idea is, in a natural and
striking way, to trace the evil influence of Avatarism
on a simple individual, how from a gentle loving soul,
Romaine gets turned into something terrible, how his
life becomes a sort of microcosm of War and Rapine;
1 86 Robert Buchanan
and how finally God avenges him, and proffers to the
Avatar the same simple cup of sorrow. I don't think
we can be too simple and realistic in such a tale.
Let us have plenty of love by all means, in the
beginning at all events.
" Let me know by return how you feel this theme,
and after I get your first chapter or two I will map
out our several parts. But pray suggest any
improvements and modifications that occur to you,
especially any that will lighten the brooding intensity
of the tale.
" Thanks for the printed story. I will read it of
course. That you have the power to do fine work of
this kind I am convinced.
" There is no reason why we should not do both
tales. As to Erris it is simply the Hebrides. Any
sea, you ask ? As old Paul Bedford used to say,
' I believe you, my boy.' The surge from Labrador
thunders at my door ; the cliffs equal Skye and
Gareloch ; there are headlands and islands innu-
merable ; and in fact, read any description of the
Western Isles, and you see Erris. The same people
too — Celtic, speaking the same tongue with only
slight differences of accent — e.g.^ they say in the
Hebrides bridd (salmon) and here briddwn (I write
phonetically). My Angus is here as well as there,
and this is new soil. I know a grand specimen of a
priest, Father John Melvin, who spouts Homer like
Blackie, and as for the quaint specimens of human
nature that throng around us, it would do your heart
good to see them. I have just parted with an old
Beggar woman, the strangest of Gaberlunzies, whose
story is the saddest and most wondrous thing I ever
heard — such self-sacrifice is little less than divine.
By the way, did you ever read my ' Eiradh of Canna' ?
First Ideas of Novel Writing 187
I daresay not, so I enclose it. I pride myself on it as
a masterpiece (!) and often think of a volume of such
studies.
" Ever yours,
" Robert Buchanan."
" RosspoRT, Belmullet,
" December 26, 1874.
" My dear Canton, — Your enthusiasm makes me
hope for wonders. It is a. good subject. Fire away
and God-speed. I am writing to London for the
French books.
"One word of solemn warning. In praising the
theme you call it Hiigoic. No one admires Hugo
more than I do — I have called him the ' ^Eschylus of
this generation ' — but I conjure you to work as far
away from his style as possible. You cannot have a
better model in your mind than Hawthorne, or a
worse than Hugo. I mention this because your
powers of imitation sometimes run away v/ith you !
I know you'll forgive this warning for the sake of all
my faith in you ; I wait with anxiety for your first
chapters. Your enthusiasm rekindles mine.
" I am laid up with catarrh and cough and am
therefore rather stupid. I spent Christmas in bed,
and couldn't even look a goose in the face !
" Yours very truly,
" Robert Buchanan."
" ROSSPORT.
" My dear Canton, — I have only just time to say
that I have glanced through the first chapter and
like it well ; it only needs curtailing, or rather having
some of its matter transferred. Go on ; and get in
1 88 Robert Buchanan
some dialogue. I shall grasp you better after a few
chapters. You shall have all the books by next post ;
they will reach you Sunday or Monday.
" Yours, in great haste,
" Robert Buchanan."
" RosspoRT, Belmullet, Jan., 1875.
" My dear Canton, — I send you entire sketch
of chapters of Vol. I. You will see that I want you
to stop at end of your chapter 4, when I will take up
the thread for two chapters, — you continuing on
chapters 7 and 8 — then me for 9, 10, and 11 — then
you for four more, then last two by me. You can
skip straight on from four to seven without waiting
to see my intermediate chapters, as they will be to
some extent independent of previous and subsequent
chapters. Leave the schoolmaster to me, please ! I
think the road is now pretty clear for Vol. I. If any
links seem clumsy we can easily ' tittyvate ' them
afterwards.
" We must alter the Cure a little. He is a little
too stereotyped — too saintly, not sordid enough. Oh
that we could transfer to paper a certain priest here !
I will try to make a few marginal suggestions and
alterations for this purpose. Still I think we might
be ready at Easter.
" If on reflection there are any of the chapters j^cz/
would rather write, that you feel an impulse to write,
tell me ! Also if you can think of any situations,
however quiet, where the girl might come out
stronger.
" Go ahead !
" Sincerely yours,
" Robert Buchanan."
c
B
B
1
First Ideas of Novel Writing 189
Rough Sketch of Vol. I.
Overture
Chapter.
/I. On the Crags. Romaine and Yvonne.
2. As written. Meet Cure.
3. Cure — Schoolmaster — Corporal.
4. Continued.
5. Romaine and Schoolmaster.
\6. Schoolmaster's tale of his own life. Remi-
niscences of the Terror, &c. He is a
strong Republican and peace-lover, his
favourite book being Rousseau's " Con-
trat Social."
C 7. At the fountain. The Conscription, &c.,
ending " first on the list of names was
that of Romaine Bisson."
C 8. The Conscription. Old Ewen's harangue to
the recruits, and speech about the great
Emperor. Journey to Romaine's hut.
Yvonne's journey. Romaine there. She
offers to pin the conscript ribbon to his
coat, but he turns deathly pale and springs
away.
B 9, The Schoolmaster is by the roadside miles
away. Romaine suddenly appears to
him. He encourages Romaine's revolt.
Reads him MS. Man against Napoleon.
A Sergeant appears, but Romaine es-
capes.
B 10. Affairs in village. Pursuit after Romaine.
Sketch of the Political state of France.
News from seat of war. Romaine
branded as a coward. Yvonne's sorrow.
Romaine appears to Yvonne.
B II. Yvonne and Romaine. He disappears.
She believes him a coward.
190 Robert Buchanan
C 12. An interval of weeks. Discovery of Ro-
maine's hiding-place by Clovis. The
light in the cliffs.
C 13. (Same as chapter 6 in first sketch) only
adding the ' tremendous header' by which
Romaine first eludes them.
C 14. The siege (same as chapter 7, first sketched).
C 15, (Same as chapter 8, first sketched).
16, (Same as chapter 9).
17. (Same as chapter 10) ending with the mirage.
End of Vol. I.
An average of 20 pp. to each chapter.
The above is the rough sketch of Vol. I. of the
story contemplated — the letters B and C standing for
Buchanan and Canton.
"RosspoRT, Belmullet, ^an. 15, 1875.
"My dear Canton, — Chapter II. is better than
chapter I. — better and freer. The cathedral bit is
good especially. You must now, however, get in
some dialogue-chapters, with glimpses of village
character. I forgot to say that I think you should
make Yvonne a /it//e stronger, not guz'te so clinging ;
she is however very nice as she stands. How comes
she to have her distaff on the cliff though ? Again
I have to alter the bit about the slaying of birds ; it
is out of keeping with the man's character ; egg-
hunting will suffice. All these are trifles. The writing
as a whole is excellent.
'• Yours,
" R. B."
"Jaw. 18, 1875.
" My dear Canton, — I thought I said the old
officer was the girl's unc/e — if I wrote 'father' I
First Ideas of Novel Writing 191
blundered. My idea too was that she should be an
orphan whose father had died afield, and who was
filled by the Bonapartist with intense military en-
thusiasm ; otherwise you lose the point of her thinking
Romaine a coward when he won't fight. Your idea
of the imperial scene at Boulogne is good. It might
be described at the fireside cf the old Bonapartist to
an eager circle of listeners, Clovis included, the only
dissentient being Romaine.
" Our conscription must be long before Leipsic.
The meeting of the two must take place at Fontaine-
bleau, just when all N.'s own marshals have deserted
him, and he has signed the unconditional abdication.
If not then, after Waterloo. It is doubtful which is best.
" Do not forget that Brittany as a whole was
legitimist. We might have a chapter reminiscent of
the Chouans. By the way, there are some Breton
glimpses in ' Ouatre-vingt-treize,' which I have not yet
read, however.
" Can you copy my memoranda and MS. and return
them to me?
" A new character to appear in early chapters — an
old itinerant schoolmaster, who lives by teaching from
farm to farm, and has seen much of civil war, &c.
A believer in rights of man and the higher revolution,
but poor withal. Very poor, even ragged. Has had
a strange influence on Romaine. On the lonely sea-
shore and in caves they have read together. He
might have one pet book, only one, besides his
breviary, &c. But what book ? Plutarch's * Lives ' ?
Pascal ? Rousseau's ' Confessions ' ? This is a matter
for reflection.
" As I said, when I get the new chapter or so I will
finally portion out our tasks. So far, so well, I think.
" Yours very truly,
"Robert Buchanan.
1 92 Robert Buchanan
" There is a gale raging here as I write, against
which even the wild geese can hardly fly. Typhus is
raging a few miles off, killing even the doctors. In
fact all the agents of Providence are busily at work ! "
"RosspoRT Lodge, Feb. lyfh.
"Dear Canton,— Chapter 7 will do. Forgive
my delay in writing to say so. Of course Easter is
now out of the question, but we'll get ahead. This
in haste ; will write again directly, but am neck-deep
in work.
" Yours ever,
" Robert Buchanan."
" Feb. 26th.
"My dear Canton,— I am sorry my silence
made you anxious. I have been very busy and
much worried : far too much of both to write any of
' Romaine.' Nothing has miscarried that you sent.
The days flash by like lightning, and I find hardly a
moment to spare.
"I forget such at this moment, but I fancy the
phoebe-bird is the lapwing— if not that, the golden
plover — the latter may be called a dun bird, but its
flash of under-wing is bright as possible in flight.
I forget the passage even in my own poem, but I'll
look it up. My memory is overstocked.
" I have answered your last seriatim, you see.
" Go on with ' Romaine ' with as much heart as you
can throw into it —
' 'Twill be a credit to us a',
We'll a' be proud o' — Romaine ! '
If it does not turn out a fine work the fault is ours,
First Ideas of Novel Writing 193
not the subject's. But Easter is out of the question.
I don't know how you stand, but I fear I cannot
touch my portion for some Httle time yet, for I must
have everything else off my mind ere I begin. I
suffer much here from the want of books of reference ;
otherwise I get on well. It's hard to carry all one's
dates and quotations in one's own head.
" Thank God I am ?tot ill, though always shaky
more or less, like a man on thin ice. I trust we shall
meet this summer ; perhaps you and Mrs. C. may
think of a run into the wilds of Erris, if you dare face
rough quarters. Meantime don't despair — you are
doing the story as well as I could wish, and write as
often as you can.
" Yours most truly,
" Robert Buchanan."
"April 14, 1875.
" My dear Canton, — I forget which of us wrote
last, so if I owe you a letter forgive me. I have been
distraught on various accounts ; partly with work.
And you, I suppose on your side have been so deep
in the folds of that ' top coat,' as to have forgotten
' Romaine.' If so wake up ! The first free week
I get I mean to plunge headlong into that work, but
it wants thought, silence, and care. Sometimes I
almost regret the poetic form. But I will write fully
about it soon. I have just now to finish an article on
' The Modern Stage,' commissioned for the New
Quarterly Magazine. Apropos, I send you the new
number. It has a little sketch by me of Peacock. . . .
What are you doing ? By the way, my sister-in-law
wants very much to read ' A Poet's Love Letters,' if
you can send them. Has the poem made any pro-
gress ? I still hold to my opinion that your shorter
14
194 Robert Buchanan
pieces should be prefaced by a longer, more important
work, and when that is ready, heigho for a Publisher !
Only do get a good subject ; 'tis half the battle. . . .
I should be glad to assist your views in this or any
way if I knew how. You really ought not to be
doing drudgery. Write.
" Always yours,
"Robert Buchanan."
" April 2o{h.
" My dear Canton, — I have been trying week
after week to get a good serious look at ' Romaine.'
Something always interferes. I think however in
a few days I shall be comparatively free.
" I am longing for a run to London, and bitterly
bemoaning that I have not seen Salvini ! The worst
of this region is its inaccessibility ! — the journey to
Town being both arduous and costly. I think I s/ia/l
be in Town shortly, if only for a few days.
" Yours,
" R. B.
" The Spring is just putting on her bright face
here. For three or four days the heat has been
tropical. Yesterday I realised our opening chapter
of ' Romaine,' though I was under, not over, the cliffs,
in a ' curragh,' or boat, made of canvas and wooden
skeleton. By the way, your sea-parrot z's the puffin ;
they are thronging in by thousands and pairing.
I caught my first salmon of the season a month ago,
so the winter's back is fairly broken."
"May 12, 1875.
" My dear Canton, — Miss Jay and I agree that
the ' Letters ' are charming, although not in the least
' real.' With a few exceptions which I shall mark, they
First Ideas of Novel Writing 195
are most pleasant reading, and would go in admirably
with your poems. The allusions to your humble
servant are kind, though I fancy a leetle strained,
especially the allusion to the ' Two Sons.' Don't
you sometimes write with exaggeration of what
pleases you, and overestimate the importance of
trifles which strike you as new discoveries ? ' Two
Sons ' is pretty enough, but I fancy a reader turning
to it after your ' note ' would be disappointed. Take,
again, the remarks on Shakespeare. Do you really
feel that he drinks you up like a drop of dew ? or do
you not rather feel that his humanity, while so many-
sided as to amaze and divert you, never touches the
diviner heights of Biblical and ^schylean purity?
There are times, I think, when Shakespeare's feudal
style is dissatisfying. This from one who loves
Shakespeare as much as any man, but who smiles
when enthusiastic poets (in love) write — nonsense !
about him !
" Forgive me, for I like the clippings amazingly,
and I will do all I can to get 'em a Publisher.
It won't be easy. The gentry hate poetry from
unknown poets . . ."
" May 19, 1875.
" My dear Canton, — Shall you be very much —
awfully — disappointed if I decide that the prose form
won't suit ' Romaine' after all, and that I should like
to adhere to my original plan of making it a poem ?
I am not decided, remember, but reading your chap-
ters carefully, after long reflection, I seem rather
afraid. Not but they are excellent in themselves,
but somehow, they don't quite fulfil my feeling for
the nuances of the story. This impression might
disappear after more were written, but I dread going
196 Robert Buchanan
on till I feel more certain. If I decide against you,
of course I shall pay you for your trouble.
"Don't think for a minute I am disappointed in
your work ; it's not that ; the disillusion is i7i myself
solely. And after all it may disappear,
" Ever yours,
"Robert Buchanan."
Again the plan of collaboration fell through — not
from any fault on Mr. Canton's part, as the foregoing
letters will show, but merely because the poet's brain
was too full of other things to allow him to give his
undivided attention to this new departure. Some
time later, however, the story was written by Mr.
Buchanan himself, and published under the title of
" The Shadow of the Sword."
CHAPTER XIX
AN IMPRESSION, WRITTEN BY R. E. FRANCILLON
IN the year 1874 the Gentleman's Magazine began
to keep Christmas by bringing out a novel as an
extra number. I undertook to supply the novel for
1875, under a somewhat adventurous condition,
namely, to work into and harmonise with my plot
contributions from other writers, not the least notable
of which was to be a poem by Robert Buchanan.
Disquieting is a weak description for the state of
mind caused by this part of the condition when I
began to realise its nature. I had never met the
poet outside his poems, and had no reason to suppose
that he so much as knew my name. From all I had
heard of him, I was filled with dire misgivings that
my plot, about which I had taken very special pains
— even to climbing down the shaft of a Welsh gold
mine in search of accurate sensation— would receive
but scant consideration should it fail to coincide with
the independent ideas of a poet who (I understood)
allowed no middle course between abject submission
and a ferocious quarrel. My mental portrait of him
was indeed turned into a confused blur when, in
answer to some inquiries and cautiously worded
suggestions of mine, I received from him, then in
Ireland, a more than merely courteous letter — a letter
197
198
Robert Buchanan
that I have kept, and give here, not merely for its
writer's name's sake, but as a warning against por-
traits painted by one's own imagination with other
people's colours : —
"RosspoRT Lodge, Belmullet, Co. Mayo, Ireland.
" April 14, 1875.
"My dear Sir, — I am obliged to you for your
kind letter concerning the ' Legend.' I see no diffi-
culty just now — if any occurs to me afterwards you
shall know — of incorporating in it the elements you
suggest ; and the Bala Lake Tradition, too, might be
utilised. But, in truth, I have hardly yet had leisure
to shape the plan definitely. When I do so I will
follow your views as far as I can.
" I presume Mr. Gowing has told you that the
authorship is to be, and to continue, anonymous, so
far as I am concerned. I have undertaken it chiefly
with a wish to oblige him and the proprietors of the
magazine.
" May I take this opportunity of saying how much
I enjoyed your ' Olympia ' — nearly all of which I read
in the magazine ? Your article on ' Physiology of
Authorship ' entertained me greatly ; but in the
story I found a charm and freshness very unusual in
modern fiction. I hope the ' Legend ' will be worthy
of its ' setting ' by you ; and, believe me, I am
" Very truly yours,
" Robert Buchanan.
" I will write again when I see the matter a little
more clearly.
" R. E. Francillon, Esq."
The poem arrived at last ; but — though the pro-
duction of an annual was a more leisurely and less
An Impression 199
long-beforehand business in 1875 than now — too late
for any essential adaptation of the more than half-
written story to its requirements in case of need.
Anxiously I searched for a sufficient incorporation in
it of my suggestions ; alas ! a microscope was wanted
for the discovery of an infinitesimal phantom of an
allusion to the " Fair Folk " who inhabit the depths
of the Lake of Bala ; I do not remember what my
other suggestions were, but I do remember that even
the microscope failed to find any other. I know
exactly how the farmer felt who harnessed Pegasus
to his plough, for I was myself that very farmer. In
short, the poem had no more visible connection with
my story of a Merionethshire mine than — no, not
nearly so much — as Monmouth with Maerdon. The
skilfules*" literary cabinet-maker that ever lived would
have been hard put to it to dovetail the poem into
the story so as to leave no obvious tokens of his tools.
But then — that poem was " The Changeling." Even
its author-in-chief has more than half- forgotten the
story of" Streaked with Gold." But " The Changeling,"
with its later introduction, " The Asrai," lives, and will
live — and so there was a connection between story
and poem after all. The most natural of all connec-
tions : the connection of mortal body and immortal
soul. The anonymity of " The Changeling," never a
very close secret, has been of course disposed of by
its appearance in the latest edition of its author's
poems.
It was, I suppose, about a year later that I made
Buchanan's personal acquaintance at the house of the
then editor of the Gentleman's^ the late Richard
Gowing. The result was a varyingly frequent inter-
course, short of intimacy, but quite close enough for the
revision of first impressions by second, and of second
200 Robert Buchanan
again by third — that is to say, by those which alone
are of value. Intimacy is next to impossible without
some natural talent for it on both sides — in this case
nonexistent on either side — and when, besides, there
is mutual consciousness of disagreement concerning
nearly every subject on which it is possible to dis-
agree. But its absence makes impressions, if colder,
also clearer, especially when stamped by the interest
which nobody could fail to take in so marked and so
— apparently — complex a personality. I say " appa-
rently," because the actual simplicity of it, in contrast
with its superficial complications, was almost a dis-
appointment when it came to be recognised — ^just as
one is almost more vexed than pleased by the
solution of a problem that was difficult only because
its difficulty was taken for granted. The right
reading of Buchanan was, I am convinced, that his
very genius had prevented him from outgrowing, or
being able to outgrow, the boyishness of the best sort
of boy ; while too many of us only too quickly forget
what any sort of boyhood means. And the grand
note of the best sort of boy is a sincere passion for
justice, or rather a consuming indignation against
injustice — the two things are not exactly the same.
The boy of whatever age can never comprehend the
coolness with which the grown-up man of the world
has learned to take injustice as part and parcel of
the natural order of things, even when himself the
sufferer. The grown-up man has learned the sound
policy of not sending indignation red-hot or white-hot
to the post or the press, but of waiting till it is cool
enough to insert in a barrel of gunpowder without
risk of explosion. But the boy rebels, and, if he be
among the great masters of language, hurls it out hot
and strong, in the full belief that no honest feelings
An Impression 20i
could be so weak as to be wounded by any honest
words. Of course he was wrong. Complete honesty
is perfectly compatible with even abnormal thinness
of skin, and with an even exceptionally plentiful crop
of corns. He would often have been amazed and
shocked could he, to whom hard hitting was so easy,
have estimated the effect of his blows. I do not
believe Robert Buchanan to have been capable of a
malign or vindictive thought ; I know that I never
heard him utter an unkindly word. I wish, above all
else, that those who thought of him as I had thought
of him before knowing him could have met him at
home — Stras2-Engel, Haus-Teufel ("Street Angel,
House Devil," say the Germans) — not that they have
any monopoly of the experience. I have never heard
the natural converse of the saying, but it is impossible
to think of Buchanan without its suggestion. Of this,
however, it is for those who shared his home life to
tell in full.
In short, he always gave me the impression of being
thrown into a world into which he had never really
grown, where he was never at home, but always in a
foreign country whose language he could not learn
despite all his efforts, and whose manners and cus-
toms, despite his desire to adopt them, he could not
understand. It was not that, like many mystics, he
in his inmost mind regarded life as a sort of dream
to be slept through pleasantly or painfully, as the
case might be, but not with serious concern. On the
contrary, while to the Celtic part of him the unseen
life was fully as real as the seen, to another element
in him the seen was as real as the unseen. And
so the two hostile realities became mixed without
becoming fused, so that the ordinary man of ordinary
affairs, who knows this world (or at least his own
202 Robert Buchanan
little part of it) very well — who indeed makes this
world what it is — found Buchanan exceedingly easy
to misunderstand.
On the other hand Buchanan could make neither
head nor tail of the intricate complexities of the man
of the world, lie laboured under a pathetically
inveterate belief that every man always means exactly
what he says and says exactly all that he means ; that
his actions and services are directed to high aims ;
that his enthusiasms are as deep and sincere as they
are loud. Of course we all know so much better that
we never expect the whole truth, and indeed are
shocked, when by any chance we meet it, by its naked
indecency ; we know how mixed are the best of
motives, and how enthusiasms are at the mercy of
interest and fashion. But to Buchanan shortcomings
and imperfections that we take for granted were —
especially when savouring of his two arch-hatreds,
cruelty or injustice — heinous crimes demanding the
utmost rigour, and vigour, too, of the English tongue.
Inevitably he would now and then tilt at some very
ordinary windmill because it was not a cathedral, or
because it turned about with the wind, or because it
ground the poor defenceless corn. And, indeed, to
sum up all my impressions in one — the type of the
ever youthful spirit, of rebellion against injustice, of
mutual misconception by and of the world, of endea-
vour to bring mysticism into business and romance
into action, has long since ceased to bear, in my
thoughts, the cadaverous height and the lantern jaws
of Don Quixote of Le Mancha. It has assumed the
genial presentment of Robert Buchanan.
CHAPTER XX
"THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD," "GOD AND THE
MAN
" '' I ^HE Shadow of the Sword " was first given to
X the world as a serial, appearing in the pages
of the Gentleman's Magazine, then under the editor-
ship of the late Mr. Richard Gowing. In arranging
for its production Mr. Buchanan wrote as follows : —
" i6, Upper Gloucester Place, Dorset Square,
November igih.
" Dear Sir, — Your memorandum is correct, with
the exception that you put pounds instead of guineas,
and that you introduce as points of legality several
mere points of usage and understanding. It is
agreed that I write you a story for the magazine, all
copyright and re-print rights of which I reserve for
the sum of one hundred and eighty guineas, payable
in monthly cheques, that this story leads the magazine
for at least six months of the twelve ; that a half-page
advertisement of my poems fronts the story each
number, and in the event of your having to displace
the story after six months you withdraw the adver-
tisement and return me ten guineas, half the sum
allowed for the same. These are the main points.
As to delivery of copy I will not be bound rigidly,
203
204 Robert Buchanan
but I will do all in my power to let you have what
you require, and shall be quite as anxious as you to
be well ahead.
" Please get the above loose memoranda put into a
proper agreement, and send it to me to sign. The
letters would be sufficient, but it would save trouble
if you just drew out the agreement in the usual way.
" Yours truly,
"Robert Buchanan."
The arrangements made, Mr. Buchanan set to work
with a will and wrote his monthly instalments with
keen pleasure. He had the story very clearly mapped
out from start to finish, so that when it came to be
written it flowed easily from his pen. His monthly
parts were the neatest things I have ever seen written,
as they were in a very tiny but perfectly clear hand,
on ordinary sheets of note-paper, and almost without
an erasure. I fear, however, he was never far ahead
with his " copy," the writing of which he invariably
postponed till the last possible moment, and this
method of his was the cause later on of some trouble.
While the story was running in the magazine there
occurred a fire on the premises of Messrs. Grant, the
publishers, and a good deal of valuable manuscript
was destroyed, amongst it the last instalment of the
" Shadow of the Sword." As usual this had arrived
late, too late for the editor to have had an opportunity
of sending a proof, and as Mr. Buchanan himself had
kept no copy (there was no typewriting in those days),
the only thing to be done was for him to set to work
and rewrite the instalment. This he did with such
marvellous rapidity that the appearance of the maga-
zine was not delayed by a single day. On the
termination of its run the story was issued in book
'' The Shadow of the Sword " 205
form by Messrs. Bentley, and instantly made its mark.
" It is a work " (said the Gi'aphic) " that no one but a
poet could have written," while the Nonconformist
declared it to contain " the finest descriptive writing
of which any English writer is capable," and the
Standaj'd, while regretting that it was not written in
verse, said that " even verse could hardly have been
sweeter than the delicately cadenced prose in which
it is written. . . . Could the prettiest of rhymed
stanzas be much prettier than that in which we are
told how the two cousins first discovered that their
love was not that of brother and sister ? We are no
blind admirers of the author of the ' Shadow of the
Sword,' but we are bound to say that in these
volumes he has taught a lesson to his brother and
sister novelists which we wish they would learn. The
lesson is that nothing is more pure and modest than
a really strong passion."
Though the success of the " Shadow of the Sword "
was great and instantaneous, it was not until the year
1 88 1 that its author issued his second work of fiction,
the success of which was even greater than that of its
predecessor. The idea of this story (which was the
result of years of thought and preparation) came to
him in a very curious way. One night he dreamed
that he was on a ship at sea watching two men who
were regarding each other with looks of bitter hatred.
Suddenly one man sprang upon the other, dragged
him to the side of the ship, and leapt with him into
the sea. On awaking the poet found himself ponder-
ing upon the problems of Love and Hatred. He
pictured these two men (evidently bitter enemies)
struggling together in the sea, being cast upon a
desert island, dwelling together month after month,
year after year, until they finally came to know each
2o6 Robert Buchanan
other, and so their hatred was turned to love. From
this simple nucleus arose the story of " God and the
Man."
" In this story " (wrote its author) " I attempt to
show that the passion of Hate is like all human
passions, composed of the elements of the social
atmosphere enveloping it, and easily disintegrated,
therefore, when the conditions of moral life are
changed. In a hate so abnormal as that between my
hero and his enemy, born in the blood, fed and
nourished for generations, only a change to conditions
equally abnormal could produce the phenomenon of
disintegration. This change I procure by placing my
two miserable men under circumstances of awful
isolation in the polar regions. Left alone together
the stronger nurses the weaker, and in those dreadful
moments, in the very presence, as it were, of the
Supreme Pity, they utter words of mutual forgiveness
and are solemnly reconciled.
" The ethical teaching of my work depends in no
respect on the living or dying of my villain ; its gist
is, that when two enemies are once placed by irre-
sistible Fate in a position of mutual sorrow, mutual
suffering, mutual sympathy, and finally mutual
service — when, in a word, they see each other's Souls
and are simultaneously conscious of the divine Law
of Love reconciling them — Hate becomes impossible
once and forever. Once admit that an evil nature
can become good for one instant, once admit that
Hate is liable to any process of disintegration, and my
thesis is established beyond contradiction. That
thesis is, stated again, as follows : We hate each
other because we do not know each other ; the
atmosphere of life makes that knowledge too often
impossible ; but there are certain supreme experi-
^' The Shadow of the Sword" 207
ences which are as potent, almost, as Death itself, to
transform the human character. If miraculous con-
versions are incredible, under any conditions what-
ever, then — Christianity is a falsehood. If it is
impossible for a bad man — a man made bad by
ignorance, by jealousy, by tempestuous passion — in
short, by the very air he breathes, to become a better
man when removed into a higher atmosphere, then I
have erred, both as moral teacher and as dramatist.
I hold that I have not erred. I hold that if I had
asserted the utter impossibility of any redemption or
any repentance short of Death and its mystery, I
should have preached a philosophy fit only for the
Philistines, and have stultified the whole teaching of
my life."
The story of " God and the Man " appeared serially
in the pages of the Day of Rest. It was issued in
book form by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, and later
on a cheaper edition was published by Messrs.
Strahan & Co., as one of " Strahan's Books for the
People."
It was, I believe, on the suggestion of Mr. G. R.
Sims that the story was ultimately dramatised by
Mr. Buchanan, and produced at the Adelphi Theatre
under the title of " Stormbeaten." In this production
Mr. Charles Warner played the part of the hero,
Christian Christianson, and Mr. J. H. Barnes that of
the villain, Richard Orchardson, while the late Miss
Amy Roselle, then in the very height of her popu-
larity, gave a most powerful performance of the
unhappy Kate.
Into these two novels, " The Shadow of the Sword "
and " God and the Man," Mr. Buchanan, as I have
shown, put the very best work of which he was
capable. Both were conceived and partly written as
2o8 Robert Buchanan
poems, and both remained poems although they were
given to the world in prose form. Had things gone
well with him he would, in all probability, have con-
tinued to give the world of his very best, but after the
publication of " God and the Man " he had to face a
calamity which would have broken down many a
stronger man. His young wife, who had never been
strong, was stricken with the cruellest of all diseases,
cancer, and for two long years she was slowly dying.
He was too poor a man to be able to sit down and
nurse his grief, work had to be done, and he did it,
though not with the same heart, the same enthusiasm.
His great ambition now was to make money, and so
he scribbled at fiction in order to attain this end.
His output was very great and very rapid, and
although his income increased, his position as a
novelist declined, many of his later novels were
written, as it were, with his left hand, and it is certain
that had he been a man of means they would never
have been written at all.
CHAPTER XXI
"BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL"
IN his correspondence with Mr. Canton Mr.
Buchanan spoke of the work which had so
absorbed him to the exclusion of the prose
romance. " It is something so alarming, even to
myself, that I can't find words to speak of it. If you
can imagine the feelings of Atlas with both earth and
heaven on his shoulders, you can have some idea of
mine under the pressure of this opus. I send you
herewith some proofs of the poem, minus the con-
cluding portions, which are not yet back from the
printer. I think you will admit its originality what-
ever you think of its beauty. For my own part, I
am conceited enough to think it in some respects the
finest conception of this generation ! ! ! There ! In
reading it, forget — if you remember — anything about
the vulgar myths of the Edda. This Balder is my
own — his story mine — ^although he is the Northern
Apollo as well as the Northern Christ. I don't think
the poem will be understood at first, but I am sure it
will ' live,' that the type I have so created will
abide ; and I will go further and say that it is better
(though not greater) to have created a Balder than a
Mephistopheles. There's a farrago of conceit for you." ^
' Letter to Mr. Canton.
15 '°^
2IO Robert Buchanan
While to Mr. Noel he wrote : " I shall be very curious
to hear your opinion of a work which I think my
most original, and which is pregnant with subtle
ideas. Whatever you think of the workmanship, I
fancy you will admit the conception to be grandiose
and striking in the extreme. This time it is not a
poem for the public — it is likely to be caviare to the
general. The title is —
"'Balder the Beautiful: a Song of Divine
Death.' "
This poem, which was issued in 1877, did not
appeal to the general public. Its sale was limited,
despite the fact that it contained perhaps some of
the finest work which its author had yet done. It
opens with the following exquisite lines addressed to
his wife, and it was the last volume of poetry which
he published before her death : —
PROEM TO
A Song of a Dream.
what is this cry in our burning ears,
And what is this hght on our eyes, dear love ?
The cry is the cry of the rolling years,
As they break on the sun-rock, far above ;
And the light is the light of that rock of gold
As it burneth bright in a starry sea;
And the cry is clearer a hundredfold,
And the light more bright, when I gaze on thee.
My weak eyes dazzle beneath that gleam.
My sad ears deafen to hear that cry :
1 was born in a dream, and I dwell in a dream,
And I go in a dream to die !
O whose is this hand on my forehead bare.
And whose are these eyes that look in mine ?
The hand is the Earth's soft hand of air.
The eyes are the Earth's— thro' tears they shine ;
"Balder the Beautiful" 211
And the touch of the hand is so soft, so light,
As the ray of the blind orbs blesseth me ;
But the touch is softest, the eyes most bright,
When I sit and smile by the side of thee.
For the mortal Mother's blind eyes beam
With the long-lost love of a life gone by.
On her breast I woke in a beauteous dream,
And I go in a dream to die !
O what are the voices around my way.
And what are these shadows that stir below ?
The voices of waifs in a world astray,
The shadows of souls that come and go.
And I hear and see, and I wonder more.
For their features are fair and strange as mine,
But most I wonder when most I pore
On the passionate peace of this face of thine.
We walk in silence by wood and stream,
Our gaze upturned to the same blue sky :
We move in a dream, and we love in a dream.
And we go in our dream to die !
&^
what is this music of merry bells.
And what is this laughter across the wold ?
'Tis the mirth of a market that buys and sells,
'Tis the laughter of men that are counting gold.
1 walk thro' Cities of silent stone.
And the public places alive I see ;
The wicked flourish, the weary groan.
And I think it real till I turn to thee !
And I smile to answer thine eyes' bright beam.
For I know all's vision that darkens by :
That they buy in a dream, and they sell in a dream.
And they go in a dream to die !
what are these shapes on their thrones of gold,
And what are those clouds around their feet ?
The shapes are Kings with their hearts clay-cold,
Tlie clouds are armies that ever meet ;
1 see the flame of the crimson fire,
I hear the murdered who moan, "Ah, mc!" —
My bosom aches with its bitter ire.
And I think it real, till I turn to thee !
And I hear thee whisper, " These shapes but seem —
They are but visions that flash and fly.
While we move in a dream, and love in a dream.
And go in our dream to die ! "
2 12 Robert Buchanan
O what are these Spirits that o'er us creep,
And touch our eycHds and drink our breath ?
The first, with a ilower in his hand, is Sleep ;
The next, with a star on his brow, is Death.
We fade before them whene'er they come,
(And never single those spirits be !)
A little season my lips are dumb,
But I waken ever, and look for thee.
Yea, ever each night when the pale stars gleam
And the mystical Brethren pass me by,
This cloud of a trance comes across my dream,
And I seem in my dream to die !
what is this grass beneath our feet,
And what are these beautiful underblooms ?
The grass is the grass of the churchyard, Sweet,
The flowers are flowers on the quiet tombs.
1 pluck them softly, and bless the dead.
Silently o'er them I bend the knee.
But my tenderest blessing is surely said
Tho' my tears fall fast, when I turn to thee.
For our lips are tuned to the same sad theme,
We think of the loveless dead and sigh ;
Dark is the shadow across our dream,
For we go in that dream to die !
O what is this moaning so faint and low,
And what is this crying from night to morn ?
The moaning is that of the souls that go,
The crying is that of the souls new-born.
The life-sea gathers with stormy calls,
The wind blows shrilly, the foam flies free.
The great wave rises, the great wave falls,
I swim to its height by the side of thee !
With arms outstretching and throats that scream.
With faces that flash into foam and fly,
Our beings break in the light of a dream
As the great waves gather and die !
O what is this spirit with silvern feet ?
His bright head wrapped in a saffron veil ?
Around his raiment our wild arms beat,
We cling unto them, but faint and fail.
'Tis the Spirit that sits on the twilight star.
And soft to the sound of the waves sings he.
He leads the chaunt from his crystal car,
And I join in the mystical chaunt with thee,
*' Balder the Beautiful" 213
And our beings burn with the heavenly theme,
For he sings of wonders beyond the sky,
Of a god-hke dream, and of gods in a dream,
Of a dream that cannot die !
O closer creep to this breast of mine ;
We rise, we mingle, we break, dear love !
A space on the crest of the waves we shine,
With light and music and mirth we move ;
Before and behind us (fear not. Sweet !)
Blackens the trough of the surging sea —
A little moment our mouths may meet,
A little moment I cling to thee ;
Onward the wonderful waters stream,
'Tis vain to struggle, 'tis vain to cry —
We wake in a dream, and we ache in a dream,
And we break in a dream, and die !
But who is this other with hair of flame.
With naked feet, and the robe of white ?
A Spirit, too, with a sweeter name,
A softer smile, a serener light.
He wraps us both in a golden cloud.
He thrills our frames with a fire divine.
Our souls are mingled, our hearts beat loud.
My breath and being are blent with thine ;
And the sun-rock flames with a flash supreme,
And the starry waves have a stranger cry —
We climb to the crest of our golden dream,
For we dream that we cannot die !
A)'e ! the cry rings loud in our burning ears.
And the light flames bright on our eyes, dear love.
And we know the cry of the roUing years
As they break on the sun-rock far above ;
And we know the light of the rock of gold,
As it burnetii bright in a starry sea,
And the glory deepens a thousandfold
As I name the immortal gods and thee !
We shrink together beneath that gleam.
We cHng together before that cry :
We were made in a dream, and we fade in a dream,
And if death be a dream, we die !
After the publication of " Balder the Beautiful "
Mr. Buchanan's enthusiasm for Ireland began to
214 Robert Buchanan
wane. Perhaps he was a little disappointed with the
reception accorded to this work, although his hopes
for it never ran very high. Be that as it may, the
solitude which had hitherto charmed him now grew
irksome, and he longed to change his surroundings,
at least for a time. " I find the Irish bogs very dull
company," he wrote. " The truth is, I have sucked
the marrow of Connaught as regards poetical and
literary inspiration, and I mean to leave for good in a
month or so." ^ The move was made to London. He
took a furnished house in the neighbourhood of the
Swiss Cottage, and for several years he continued to
live in furnished houses in or near London. " When
I first visited him," wrote Mr, O'Connor, " he lived in
Belsize Park, then I saw him in some country house
down Richmond way, and the last time it was in one
of those wondrous places in St. John's Wood — the
one spot left in London with big gardens and
numerous trees, and windows flat with the lawn,
true country in the midst of bustling, dirty, choked
London. 2
It was at this time that he started "a brilliant
little newspaper called Light" but the journal was
short-lived, partly because he did not sufficiently
identify himself with it, and partly because it was
under-capitalised. So small indeed was the capital
with which he started this venture that he found
himself a heavy loser when the journal ceased to live.
When the last number of the paper had been
issued, and the business arrangements had been
wound up, Mr. Buchanan made another trip to Ire-
land, going this time to Mulranny, by Westport, and
plunging into the very midst of the riots. On the
day of our arrival Mr. Smith, the land-agent, had
' Letter to Mr. Canton. ^ M.A. P.
"Balder the Beautiful" 215
been attacked while driving along the Mulranny
road, and his son, a youth of nineteen, had leapt from
the car and shot his father's assailant dead close to
the very door of our Lodge. We arrived in the grey
of the evening, and were met by this news and by
the information that the body of the would-be
assassin lay at the police-barracks, whither it had
been removed to await the inquest. We had not
been in the Lodge more than an hour when the
neighbouring clergyman called ; he had driven over
to the village to make inquiries and was on his way
home. Hearing of our arrival, and knowing Mr.
Buchanan by reputation, he had called to apologise,
as it were, for the state of the country. My sister
asked him to remain and join us at dinner, which he
did, and I noticed that when he removed his overcoat
a six-chambered revolver was transferred from it to
the pocket of the one which he wore. " The country
will not be safe for some time after this," he said,
" and it is as well to be prepared for emergencies."
The days which followed this event were certainly
exciting enough — there was the inquest on the body,
and later on the trial of the young fellow whose
bullet had done such deadly work. He had simply
acted in self-defence, and was of course acquitted, but
he soon found that Ireland was too small to hold him,
and so he sailed with all possible speed for Australia.
One or two of the gentlemen who had served on the jury
received the usual "death's-head and cross-bone " busi-
ness — that is to say, they were warned and threatened
but during our stay none of the threats were carried
out. Our visit this time did not last long — not that
we were afraid, for us there was nothing to fear, for
we were neither landlords nor land-agents ; but the
whole atmosphere of the place was depressing — the
2i6 Robert Buchanan
spirit of revenge was running riot and death was in
the very air we breathed ; so on one fine frosty morn-
ing in November we took our leave of Mulranny,
drove to Westport and came thence by train and
boat to London, where, after a very few weeks, the
nature of the malady with which my sister had been
attacked declared itself, and we knew she would
never be able to take a very long journey again.
CHAPTER XXII
THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE
FROM that time forth the clouds gathered thickly
over his home, and so harassed was he by
domestic trouble that to do work of any kind was
almost an impossibility. In August, 1880, he wrote: —
" Isle of Man.
" My dear Canton, — The details of your letter
are very painful to read, and I deeply sympathise
with you : the more so, as my own wife is just now
dangerously ill with cancer. She has been a great
sufferer for some time, and now things have come to
a crisis. I am here on some special business, but
shall be back again very shortly. We are living at
Hampton Wick, a charming spot on the Thames,
and I think you might do worse than pay us a visit
during your holiday." And again, a few months
later — " I have waited till the last moment hoping I
could say ' Come here' — but my poor wife is worse than
ever and it would be a mockery to invite you to a
house of sickness. I am so sorry — but you know by
sore experience what such illness means. I was
very anxious to see you, but the pleasure must be
postponed."
About that time Mr. Buchanan, whose efforts to save
217
2i8 Robert Buchanan
his wife were never ending, heard quite by chance of
the Hfe-saving properties of the Missisquoi Spring
Water. He had had, I need hardly say, doctors
without end, and indeed every quack in the country
who professed to cure cancer was brought to her
bedside. At times, when she heard of the advent of
some new doctor she would refuse to see him, saying
wearily, " What is the use? it always ends in the same
way — let me die ! " but to her husband's piteous
appeal of "just to please me" she ever yielded — and
so the doctors came and went, their remedies were
tried, but ever with the same result. When we heard of
the marvellous water she was lying almost at the point
of death, and so weak was she that she could scarcely
lift her hand. Without loss of time the water was
procured — she drank of it, and it seemed as if a
miracle was about to be performed. Gradually
though very slowly her weakness gave place to ever-
increasing strength, and in time she rose from her
bed looking like a girl of twenty. After a time she
was able to take short drives and walks in Bushey
Park, and so in common with us all, came to believe
that the dreaded disease had been successfully battled
with and that her life had been saved.
As the autumn advanced Mr. Buchanan was coun-
selled by the doctor to leave Hampton Wick, which he
averred was becoming every day more and more un-
healthy, on account of the decay of the fallen leaves,
and so, as my sister was strong enough to undertake the
journey, we removed to London and settled down for
the winter in a furnished house near Clapham Common,
She was still drinking the water and her attacks of pain
were becoming less frequent, but though her strength
increased up to a certain point, it seemed as if that
point could not be passed. Though she went about
The Death of His Wife 219
the house as usual, though, when the spring came, she
took some walks in Regent Street to look at the gaily
bedecked shop windows and to study the fashions —
though her bright, rippling laughter was often the
gayest of the gay, one could see by the shadows
which sometimes darkened her face that all was not
well with her — that she knew, in fact, but that she
would not speak, because she dreaded to shatter the
illusions which she had ceased to share.
As spring gave place to summer she longed for a
sight of the sea, so we went for the first time to
Southend. The details of that journey I recall as
vividly as if it had been undertaken but yesterday.
There is a long flight of steps at Fenchurch Street
Station which leads up to the platform. I remember
how eagerly she made for those steps while her hus-
band was at the ticket-office, in order that he might
not see how difficult it was for her to mount them.
A gentleman coming down as she was going up,
paused for a moment and offered her his arm, which
was curtly and irritably refused. " Why did he do
that ? " she asked, turning to me ; " I am quite well
able — quite strong enough to walk alone!" All
these incidents came vividly back to me on June 14,
1901.
At first it seemed that the change for which she
had longed would be beneficial to her. The rooms
which we occupied were close to the sea, and she
was able to go out and sit on the cliffs and bask in
the sunshine, but it soon became evident that the
attacks of pains which she tried so heroically to hide
were sapping her strength away — she was fighting a
losing battle, and at length she was cruelly con-
quered. On June 22nd of that year Mr. Buchanan
wrote to Mr. Canton —
2 20 Robert Buchanan
" I ought to have thanked you before for reading
those proofs, but indeed I have had no time to think
of anything (the proofs themselves have now been on
my hands a year and are not ready for press).
However, I thank you sincerely.
" My poor wife has had a relapse, and is now very
ill, so much of our time and thought are spent on her.
Her suffering is at times very hard to contemplate,
though her courage and patience are very great."
Her walks on the cliff were now discontinued — we
took her out once in a Bath-chair, but she cried all the
time, and on her return to the house became so
hysterical that the experiment was not repeated.
Her attacks of pain were now very frequent and
very terrible. She refused to have morphia adminis-
tered, yet I have seen her almost tear the bedclothes
in order to prevent herself from shrieking aloud. At
such times her great anxiety was to keep her hus-
band from the room, and when I asked her the cause
of this she replied, " He is always wanting to do
'something for me, and I know now that nothing can
be done — I want to be left alone." When the attacks
passed off she was always very calm and resigned —
sometimes indeed her laugh was quite gay — but
though she was never told that the disease was incur-
able, she seemed to know by instinct what the end
would be, for once I heard her murmur : " It is very
hard to have to die, when one is just beginning to
live! " In November the end came, and she passed
away in her husband's arms, her head resting on his
shoulder. A few days later Mr. Buchanan wrote the
following to the Hon. Roden Noel : —
" Dear Roden. — We have arranged for the funeral
to be on Sunday at one o'clock. A train reaches
The Death of His Wife 221
here at 12.10, leaving Fenchurch Street at 10.35.
I do hope this will suit you somehow. I am
so anxious for her sake. It is asking much and
putting you to sad inconvenience, I fear ; but it is the
last time you can ever prove your kindness to her.
" And Alice ? ^ Of course if the weather is bad she
would not go with us — Mary would be the last to
have wished it. But to see her here will be a comfort,
knowing their faithful affection for each other.
" God bless you for your kind words. I see it all as
you see it, but ah ! so darkly. If this parting is only
for a time, I see its blessedness — but if, as I dread and
fear, it is a •^ds\\x\g forever^ what then ? Ah, God, what
then ?
"With love and thanks to you both. Ever your
friend,
"R. B.
" She looks so beautiful in her coffin. I feel as if
she were my child too, child and wife ; for she had a
child's angelic disposition."
In the volume of Mr. Buchanan's Selected Poems,
published in 1882, will be found the following —
DEDICATION.
{To Mary)
" Weeping and sorrowing, yet in sure and certain
hope of a heavenly resurrection, I place these poor
flowers of verse on the grave of my beloved Wife, who,
with eyes of truest love and tenderness, watched them
growing for more than twenty years.
"Robert Buchanan, Southend, 1882."
• The Hon. Mrs. Noel.
222 Robert Buchanan
The general idea is, I believe, that sorrow softens
us — that our own bitter experiences in this world
only tend to fill our hearts with a kindlier feeling for
our fellow-sufferers. Indeed Mr. Buchanan himself
has written that —
" Tears bring forth
The richness of our natures, as the rain
Sweetens the smelling briar."
All this may be very true in some cases, but that
was not his experience. After the death of his wife
he brooded more than ever on religious questions,
which he began to discuss with great bitterness, and
that that bitterness remained with him will be seen
from the following letter which he addressed to Mr.
Noel as late as the year 1894: —
" Dear Roden, — With regard to this question of
Christianity, I really do think that you are (unconsci-
ously of course) disingenuous — in other words, you
are trying to cling on to a Notion which your better
reason combats. I can't take all the points you raise,
though I understand them all by sad experience ; but I
will comment on one or two. You say that as I
personally am God, or of God, I should accept Christ's
sonship. I do not accept it, because God within me
points out that it was fraught with miraculous preten-
sion. To my mind, Christ did not experience the
ordinary sufferings of men, if he assumed to be viore
than man. In other words, his Divine claim quite
destroys his/^w^r of suffering or sacrifice. Then again,
though I am entirely with you in preferring anthropo-
morphism to pantheism and can conceive a heavenly
Fatherhood, I can't reconcile a Father who is
omnipotent with a Father who is cruel and
The Death of His Wife 223
tyrannical. If God is my Father, I claim the
right to survey his conduct to me and others, and I
often feel, as Mill felt, that the only way to excuse
Him is to assume that his power is limited by a
greater Power behind him. I cannot respect a
process of schooling which postulates endless pain.
I have seen my wife die in slow agony of cancer, and
I find no mercy there. I find, moreover, that I my-
self, after years of harsh schooling and suffering, am
not a whit better than when I was a happy boy — or
rather an unhappy one. Men may grow cleverer, but
they seldom or never grow better. I am considerably
sceptical, therefore, about human progress upward.
" ' Christ, Buddha, Gordon ' — children of God ! Then
equally so all other good fellows, all loving spirits.
That thought doesn't help to make me a Christian.
In the sense you mean all are mediators, so why
select one for special honour ? You say, ' Because
He was the best and highest.' Not to me. There is
some ground for believing that he loved men for
their own sakes less than Buddha. Moreover, his
claim to moral supremacy is, to me, the very proof of
his flawed humanity. At all events He has delayed
the world's happiness for eighteen hundred years.
" Finally, I hate the common cant of ' loving God.'
It is a form of gross egoism, and means ' I love my-
self and my own feelings and opinions.' Anthropo-
morphically I cannot ' love ' a Father whom I
distrust, and when my brethren assure me that
everything is right because it is, my reason revolts,
and the God within me says, ' accept nothing on such
grounds, and distrust any Mediator who offers you
any absolute solution of a World riddle.
" Yours always,
" R. B."
2 24 Robert Buchanan
" It all amounts to this : a creed should be judged
by its practical results, and Christianity has deluged
the world with innocent blood purely owing to its
loose terminology. Our talk began on this very
ground — the looseness of religious definitions. Better
to be a pure materialist or an atheist than a nebulous
Christian. All the good in Christianity is summed
up in the words ' Love one another ; ' all that is evil
in such nebulosities as ' Give Caesar what belongs to
Caesar,' &c., i.e., respect the status quo here, and look
for results yonder. Scientific religion, on the other
hand, says : ' Clean this world and make it habitable,
widen the area of health and joy, prove your love by
acts of love, and change the status quo whenever it
conflicts with human happiness.' And it adds, ' The
other world, if it exists, can take care of itself ; your
plain duty is to make this world beautiful if you
can.'"
R. B."
CHAPTER XXIII
"THE CITY OF DREAM"
AFTER the death of his wife he wished to remain
quietly at Southend, but instead of following
his own inclination he listened to the advice of his
friends and again took to roaming. After a few
months spent in France he returned to London,
settling again in a furnished house, and taking from
time to time various trips to Southend, which little
town had by association become very dear to him.
It was during this period of roaming that several of
his novels were written, notably, " The Martyrdom of
Madeline" (1882), "Annan Water," and "Love me
For Ever" (1882), " Foxglove Manor," and the " New
Abelard " (1884), " The Master of the Mine," " Matt,"
and "Stormy Waters" (1885), and he also at that
time was turning his attention very seriously to the
writing and producing of plays. From his earliest
years his tastes had inclined that way since, at the
age of fourteen, he wrote a pantomime which was
accepted by Mr. Glover, and produced at the Theatre
Royal, Glasgow. The pantomime was a great suc-
cess, and its youthful author received from the
management the gift of a gold pencil-case as his
reward. In the year 1883 his dramatic version of
l6 225
2 26 Robert Buchanan
"God and the Man" saw the light at the Adelphi
Theatre, and this was followed by " Lady Clare " at
the Globe. But his connection with the stage was
altogether of too important a nature to be disposed
of in a few words, and so I propose to deal with it at
some length in a subsequent chapter.
For many years he wrote plays in conjunction with
Mr. G. R. Sims, and during that time the two made
frequent trips to Southend. " On a holiday " (wrote
Mr. Sims) " he lived every hour of the day. The
long walk never tired him, the long drive never made
him sleepy. He would sit far into the night and
smoke cigarettes and talk and be up in the morning
eager for work or play. Once at Southend we went
to bed at three. At half-past eight he was up and
ready for a stroll before breakfast. We walked about
Southend for an hour. Suddenly my companion left
me saying : ' Go back to the hotel, I'll be with you
directly.' When he came in I noticed that the knees
of his trousers were covered with chalk. He had
gone to the graveyard to see the grave of his wife.
He had found the gate locked, and had climbed over
the wall."
In the year 1884 he made his first and only trip to
America. He had a contract to supply a play to
Messrs. Shook and Collier, then managers of the
Union Square Theatre, New York, but he went
without having written it. On his arrival he offered
for their acceptance a melodrama which was our
joint work, and which has since become popular
under the title of " Alone in London." This, how-
ever, they refused, and it was produced by Mr.
Buchanan himself at the Chestnut Street Theatre,
Philadelphia, where it drew crowded houses. At the
conclusion of its first run it was taken up by Colonel
"The City of Dream" 227
Sinn, of Brooklyn, who, besides giving very fine terms,
bought all the scenery which had been specially
painted for it.
While " Alone in London " was running at the
Chestnut Street Theatre Mr. Buchanan made the
acquaintance of Walt Whitman, whom he found " in
his lonely lodgings in New Jersey — old, worn, weary
and weather-beaten." The two poets drank brackish
tea together and feasted on custard pie, for Walt
Whitman was simple in his tastes, and he was, more-
over, very poor. They parted with a promise to
meet again, but the second meeting never came
about, for Mr. Buchanan's health again broke down
and he had to hasten his return home. While in
New York he was offered and refused the editorship
of the North American Review^ with a salary which
was indeed princely.
On his return to England he went again to South-
end, taking this time a house which he furnished him-
self, so resolved was he to make Southend his home.
This house, which had already been the home of Sir
Richard Cunliffe Owen and Sir Edwin Arnold, was
a quaint old country place with extensive gardens
and eight acres of meadow, and it was known as
"Hamlet Court."
" I spend the time between this and London "
(wrote the poet) ; " without the stage I think
I should go melancholy mad. It is not only a
source of profit but of recreation, as I produce and
stage-manage my own dramas in every detail. I
think moreover there is moral gain in rubbing
shoulders with non-literary people. Perhaps I can
persuade you to spend a few days here. There is no
lovelier spot when the spring becomes a certainty.
Just now I am doing the influenza, and your letter
*r
22 8 Robert Buchanan
comes with sweet refreshment and memory of old
times." 1
Since then, however, the builder has been busy,
and Hamlet Court is no longer what it was. In
those days it was a paradise for the poet to dream in,
but now the fine old elms which formed the avenue,
known as the " Lovers' Walk," have disappeared, and
in the eight acres of meadow stands the fashionable
Queen's Hotel. There is a station, too, and the little
hamlet is now known as Westclifif-on-Sea. It was
from there that he issued his poem " The City of
Dream," a verse from which is now to be found upon
his tomb. In publishing this work Mr. Buchanan
had little hope of popularity. "The public don't
want poetry " (he wrote), " they want pretty verses,
short snatches, lyrics got 'twixt sleeping and waking.
Just now indeed folk seem to read little beyond
shilling dreadfuls and penny papers. Literature will
soon be a lost art." ^ Thus it will be seen that in
issuing the " City of Dream " the poet did so in a
mood which was more or less despairing. Since his
wife's death, in 1881, he had published two volumes of
poetry — " Ballads of Life, Love, and Humour" (1882)
and "The Earthquake" (1885), and both had met
with scant recognition. In all probability " The City
of Dream " might have shared the fate of its prede-
cessors, but it happened that the Right Hon. W. E. H.
Lecky replied that year at the Royal Academy
Banquet to the toast of literature, and in his speech
he made the following complimentary allusion to the
poem which had just been issued from the press.
" It would be idle" (said Mr. Lecky), "it would be
perhaps invidious, for me to mention names, many of
which will rise unbidden to your minds ; but it is not
■ Letter to the Hon. Roden Noel.
"The City of Dream" 229
I think, out of place to remind you, that it is since
the doors of the last Academy Exhibition closed that
the illustrious historian of the Crimean War has com-
pleted that noble historic gallery hung with battle
pieces as glowing and as animated, with portraits as
vivid, as powerful as any that have adorned these
walls. And if it be said that this great master of
picturesque English was reared in the traditions of a
more artistic age, I would venture to point to a poem
which has been but a few weeks in the world but
which is destined, if I am not mistaken, to take a
prominent place in the literature of its time — a poem
which among many other beauties contains pictures
of the old Greek mythology that are worthy to com-
pare, even with those with which you, Mr. President,
have so often delighted us. I refer to the ' City of
Dream ' by Robert Buchanan (hear, hear). While
such works are produced in England, it cannot, I
think, be said that the artistic spirit in English
literature has very seriously decayed (cheers)."
" Dear Mr. Lecky " (wrote Mr. Buchanan), — " How
can I thank you sufficiently for the generous words
you spoke concerning me at the Royal Academy
Banquet? How can I express my sense of your
goodness and your courage? Coming from even a
smaller man, such praise would be very grateful ; but
coming from one whom I have regarded with
reverence and admiration, as one of the clearest
intellects of the age, to whom I owe inestimable
gratitude, it almost overpowers me. And you knew
what you were doing — praising a man who is not
too much loved, and has met with little sympathy.
What can I say further than that the act was
worthy of you — worthy of one who is intellectually
230 Robert Buchanan
fearless, and whose noble life has been devoted to
truth.
" Some day I should like, if I might be so honoured,
to take you by the hand and thank you by word of
mouth. Need I say in this connection that your
books have long been a precious possession and help
to me? Indeed I scarcely know any writer, except
yourself and Herbert Spencer, to whom I have
yielded perfect acquiescence. Henceforth, when I
turn to those pages which I know so well and love
so much, I shall feel something more than respectful
admiration — a divine thrill of personal sympathy,
very precious to a wanderer in the wastes of litera-
ture."
" Yours most truly,
"Robert Buchanan."
After a residence at Hamlet Court which lasted
two or three years, the poet removed to a house on
the Cliff, which is now known as Byculla House ; then,
finding that he was plunging deeper and deeper into
stage work, he settled down in Maresfield Gardens,
South Hampstead, where he lived for many years.
CHAPTER XXIV
PLAY-WRITING
IT was not till he had passed the forties that Mr.
Buchanan obtained any real success upon the
stage. From the time of the production of the
" Witchfinder " he had never ceased to regard it as
a possible means of livelihood, knowing as he did
that in this connection far greater prizes were to be
obtained than from the mere writing of books, even
of novels, but for many years the life he led was not
conducive to his being able even to make a bid for
theatrical success. The state of his health made it
impossible for him to live in London, so he was
unable either to familiarise himself with stagecraft
or to be in touch with those who might have aided
him in this branch of literature. During what may
be termed his years of exile, he never ceased to work
at play-writing, devoting to it all the time which he
could comfortably spare from his other arduous tasks,
and thus it may be said, that for ten or fifteen years,
he was gradually perfecting himself in the art, from
which, in the autumn of his life, he reaped such great
rewards.
The first play which he produced after the " Witch-
finder " was a little costume comedy in three acts
entitled " A Madcap Prince." This piece was staged
231
232 Robert Buchanan
in 1875 at the Haymarket Theatre, then under the
management of the late J, B. Buckstone. Though it
had the advantage of an exceptionally fine cast,
which included such names as Mr. and Mrs. Kendal,
the late Mr. Buckstone, Mrs. Chippendale, Mr. Howe,
and Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and on its initial production
scored a distinct success, it never had the slightest
chance of a prosperous London run. It was pro-
duced at the close of the London season, and was
put up as a bonne boucJie, for the benefit of the
manager of the theatre, and though it was announced
that the piece would be played by " the Haymarket
company during their tour, and would reopen the
Haymarket in October," it was never afterwards
performed in London. This fact, however, could
not be attributed to the non-success of the play, the
reception of which was enthusiastic. " Prince Arthur
was present, and at the end called Mr. Kendal to
his box and congratulated him on the play, which
he declared to be one of the best he had ever
witnessed." It was, however, taken on tour, and
although Mr. Buchanan had some difficulty in ob-
taining his fees (" I have to issue a writ against
Buckstone for what he owes me, confound him ! ")
the piece was phenomenally successful. In Liver-
pool they " refused money in all the more expen-
sive parts of the House." In Edinburgh it was
presented with every possible success, while in
Glasgow it attracted " the largest audience seen in
the Theatre Royal for a long time. The house was
crammed to the door with a fashionable audience,
and one important source of the eagerness of the
great assembly was the fact that a new comedy was
to be produced from the pen of one whose youth
was spent in Glasgow, and whose name is now well
Play- Writing 233
known all over the world." The comedy met with
a " decidedly brilliant reception from the whole
audience, who were hearty and unstinted in their
demonstrations of satisfaction. Greatly charmed,
they cheered again and again." Yet, as I have
said, " A Madcap Prince " did not form the opening
attraction at the Haymarket Theatre on the return
of the company to London, the principal reason for
this, I fancy, being the fact that its author was
driven to the necessity of " issuing a writ against
Buckstone for the fees."
His next production was a play entitled " Corinne,"
and again the circumstances were such as to preclude
any chance of success. The play was bought by a
lady, who, beyond having acted as an amateur, had had
little or no experience upon the stage. She took the
Lyceum Theatre for a month in the off-season, in order
to exploit herself in the leading part, and the result
of this experiment was disastrous to everybody con-
cerned. " The lady's acting " (wrote Mr. Buchanan)
" was simply awful, and a strong acting piece was lost
through her incompetence. So far as the literary
merits of the play went, the critics were right
perhaps — it was merely meant to be a theatrical
success. Fortunately, I had secured my full money
beforehand, or I should have been a heavy loser. As
it is, though I have gained nothing in reputation,
this very failure has brought me two heavy offers or
commissions from London managers, all of whom
saw why the piece could not run."i Though the
play failed to draw the public to any great extent, it
held the stage during the lady's tenure of the Lyceum
Theatre, and later on it was evidently taken on tour,
for in a subsequent letter to Mr. Canton Mr. Buchanan
' Letter to Mr, Canton.
2 34 Robert Buchanan
said : " I see ' Corinne ' is to be played in Glasgow.
Between ourselves, I am very sorry for it ; for the
lady {cntre no7is — don't whisper it abroad) is quite
incompetent. It is a play of the French romantic
school, and wants perfect acting to do any good."
But so far from daunting him these failures only
acted as an incentive to fresh efforts, and his next
bid for theatrical success came in the shape of a
dramatic version of my first novel, " The Queen of
Connaught." There are one or two circumstances in
connection with this play which it may be interesting
to relate. The book, which was issued anonymously,
was received most kindly by the critics, and met with
great and instantaneous success. " You will observe
with amusement" (wrote Mr. Buchanan) "that all the
writers think the author is a ' he.' " This indeed was
the case, and in many quarters the book was spoken
of as the work of Charles Reade. Fearing the great
author's anger, I wrote him a letter of apology,
telling him that I was only a beginner in the art
which I had adopted under circumstances so
auspicious, and finally assuring him that I had had
no hand whatever in the circulation of the reports
which connected the book with his name. The reply
which I received was courteous and kindly in the
extreme. Mr. Reade began by congratulating me
on the success which I had obtained so early in my
career. He urged me not to lose my head over it, or
to be too eager to rush into the market with another
book. " Rest on your laurels," said he, " and be
careful to fill up the teapot before you pour out
again." Finally he confessed that the report had
not made him angry in the least ; it had, in fact,
sent him to the book (he was not a great reader of
fiction). But having read this particular work, he
HAnniKTT .Tav.
To Jace page 234,
Play- Writing 235
could only say he would have been proud to
acknowledge it as his own.
Some time later, when I was dining with him at
his house in Knightsbridge, our talk reverted to the
subject which had been the means of making us per-
sonally acquainted, and he showed me a note-book in
which he had scribbled the following : " ' Oueen of
Connaught ' — good for a play." I told him that Mr-
Buchanan had had the same idea ; that, as a matter
of fact, he had sketched the play, and had begun the
writing of it, but that so far he had been unable to
see in it the makings of a theatrical success. At this
Mr. Reade became keenly interested, and was so
good as to say that in the event of Mr. Buchanan
going on with the work he would be only too pleased
to help him with his criticism and advice. I related
all this to Mr. Buchanan, who, spurned to fresh efforts,
reviewed his notes and returned to the writing of the
play. As the work proceeded we went, on Mr.
Reade's invitation, from time to time to Albert
Gate, to read him certain scenes and talk over
others, and many delightful evenings were so spent.
One evening, I remember, while Mr. Buchanan was
reading a scene in the last act, the great novelist
became so excited that he could not keep in his seat.
He paced the floor ejaculating " Good ! " " Very
powerful ! " " Go on, my boy ! " and on the con-
clusion of the reading he rang the bell, announcing,
in his most delightful manner, that the act was quite
good enough to warrant the opening of a bottle of
champagne. The play, on its completion, was accepted
by Mr. Henry Neville, and was produced by him at
the Olympic Theatre (then under his management),
Mr. Neville himself appearing as the hero John
Darlington, while the late Ada Cavendish sustained
236
Robert Buchanan
the part of the Queen of Connaught. Though the
piece drew fair business, and could not by any
stretch of the imagination be called a failure, it
never rose into what may be called a great theatrical
success.
Following this came a " Nine Days' Queen," pro-
duced for a short run at the Connaught Theatre in
1880, "Lucy Brandon" at the Imperial, and the
"Shadow of the Sword" at the Olympic in 1882;
but the dramatisation of his novel, " God and the
Man," which, as I have said, was produced at the
Adelphi Theatre under the title of " Stormbeaten,"
brought him a far greater monetary reward than he
had reaped from all his other dramatic productions
put together. The successor to " Stormbeaten " was
the version of " Le Maitre de Forges," and entitled
" Lady Clare." For this production Mr. Buchanan
took the Globe Theatre. The play ran for over a
hundred nights, and was taken off to a good margin
of profit, Mr. Buchanan also receiving considerable
sums for it from America. But the play which made
the most money was " Alone in London," the very
one for which he cared the least ; indeed, he could
never bring himself to speak of it with anything but
contempt. However, it has never failed to make
money for everybody connected with it, but the
money so earned brought him no satisfaction, for
he was always ashamed of the source from which
it sprang, and so, taking my consent for granted, he
sold the piece for an absurdly small sum to Messrs.
Miller and Elliston, and so parted with the goose
which laid the golden eggs.
It was during the first provincial tour of " Alone
in London " that Mr. Buchanan began a connection
which was destined to bring him much pleasure, no
Play-Writing 237
little profit, and considerable reputation as a writer
for the stage, for in that year Mr. Thomas Thorne
(then the sole manager of the Vaudeville Theatre)
read and accepted his comedy of " Sophia." The
first performance of this play was a triumph for
everybody concerned in it — for the management, the
company, and the author. A brilliant representative
audience was assembled, and prominent in a private
box was Mr., now Sir, Henry Irving, who, directly the
comedy began to " move," was liberal both with
laughter and applause, and who sent round a cordial
" Bravo, Tom ! " to Mr. Thorne directly the play was
over. The author was called and re-called, and made
his bow in the midst of the performers instead of
before the curtain. Immediately after the descent of
the curtain the stage and the manager's dressing-room
were crowded with friends of the management, who
came to offer their congratulations, for Mr. Thorne
was justly popular in private life as well as with the
appreciative public.
" Sophia " had waited exactly ten years for a pro-
duction, and had been declined with thanks by several
leading London managers. Mr. Wilson Barrett, how-
ever, had read it some years before, and had written
to this effect : " I like it. Will the public stand it ? "
and had paid a small deposit for the right of doing it
within a year. A little later it was almost staged by
the late Mr. Edgar Bruce, then managing the Prince
of Wales's Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, but
the question of the expensive costumes finally decided
him against it, and he produced the "Colonel" instead.
It had been offered in vain to Mr. Bancroft in England
and to Lester Wallack in America — neither thought
that it would be successful. As a matter of fact
it ran consecutively for over five hundred nights,
238
Robert Buchanan
or close upon two years, and it has been more than
once revived. Towards the end of its run, and after
the author had been receiving fees for its perform-
ances from the beginning, he sold the acting rights to
Mr. Thorne for £600.
The day after production the newspapers were full
of enthusiastic notices, one of the warmest and most
cordial being from the pen of Mr. Clement Scott and
published in the Daily Telegraph. Yet, in spite of
such encomiums, the fate of " Sophia " hovered in
the balance for about a month, so much so indeed
that the piece was actually withdrawn for a short time
during the heat of the summer. It was not till its
revival to open the autumn season that it began the
career of prosperity which, as I have said, lasted for
nearly two years.
The production of " Sophia " at the Vaudeville
was the beginning of a very happy theatrical ex-
perience. After it came " Joseph's Sweetheart," the
dramatisation of "Joseph Andrews," in which Mr.
Thorne appeared as the humorous country parson.
This play was produced at the Vaudeville in March,
1888 — as usual at an afternoon performance — and on
the succeeding night it was placed in the evening
bill. Before the comedy began Miss Vane, in the
character of Lady Booby, spoke the following pro-
logue : —
't>'
" Ladies and gentlemen — behold in me
A wicked dame of the last century, —
Just brought to life again before your gaze,
To hint the fashion of forgotten days,
When Garrick, bent to woo the comic Muse,
Changed his high buskin for soft satin shoes,
And frolicking behind the footlights, showed
Love a bon ton and marriage a la mode !
La, times are changed indeed since wits and lords
Swagger'd in square-cut, powder'd wigs, and swords !
Play- Writing 239
Picture the age ! — a lord was then, I vow,
A lord indeed (how different from noiv)
And trembling Virtue hid herself in fear
Before the naughty ogling of a peer.
Abductions, scandals, brawls, and dissipation,
Were rich men's pleasure, poor men's consternation,
While Fashion, painted, trick'd in fine brocade,
Turn'd Love to jest, and Life to masquerade !
Well, 'mid the masquerade, the pinchbeck show.
When Folly smiled on courtesan and beau.
Some noble human Spirits still drew breath,
And proved this world no hideous Dance of Death
Sad Hogarth's pencil limn'd the souls of men.
And Fielding wielded his magician's pen !
Off fell the mask that darkcn'd and concealed
Life's face, and Human Nature stood revealed !
Then rose Sophia at Fielding's conjuration.
Like Venus from the sea — of affectation.
Then madcap Tom showed, in his sport and passion,
A man's a man for a' that, 'spite the fashion.
Then Parson Adams, type of honest worth,
Born of the pure embrace of Love and Mirth,
Smiled in the English sunshine, proving clear
That one true heart is worth a world's veneer !
And now our task is in a merry play.
To summon up that time long past away ;
To bring to life the manners long outworn,
The lords, the dames, the maidens all forlorn —
A tableau vivant of the tinsel age
Immortalised on the great Master's page !
Hey, Presto ! See, I wave my conjuror's cane !
The Present fades — the dead Past lives again —
The clouds of modern care dissolve — to show
Life a la mode, a hundred years ago ! "
This comedy, which was in five acts, had a recep-
tion quite as enthusiastic as that of its predecessor.
Admirably put upon the stage, the scenes of Lady
Booby's Boudoir (reaUsing Hogarth's picture in his
" Marriage a la Mode ") and of Parson Adams's Cottage
being wonderfully solid sets for so small a theatre.
A new recruit came to the already excellent com-
pany in the person of Mr. Cyril Maude, whose
foppish roue, Lord Fellamar, was admirably con-
ceived and executed.
240 Robert Buchanan
" Joseph's Sweetheart " ran for over a year, or,
speaking Hterally, for three hundred and fifty odd
nights. It was succeeded in 1889 by a practically
original comedy from the pen of the same author,
entitled " Dr. Cupid " — a fantastic bit of imagination,
the scene of which was laid in the eighteenth century.
The cast included Winifred Emery, Cyril Maude,
Fred Thorne, and Thomas Thorne. The run of
" Dr. Cupid " was briefer than that of its predecessors,
but it drew excellent houses for over six months.
By this time Mr. Buchanan had succeeded in
establishing at the Vaudeville a sort of vogue for
costume comedies and dramatisations of master-
pieces of English fiction. The difficulty, of course,
was to keep the ball rolling — in other words, to find
new subjects founded on old masterpieces or imbued
with the spirit of old comedy. " Tom Jones " and
" Joseph Andrews " were all very well, but where
were their successors to come from ? " Amelia " was
out of the question for many reasons, quite apart
from its inferiority as a work of art, and the works
of Smollett were at once coarser and more chaotic
than those of his mightier contemporary. When the
names of Fielding and Smollett were spoken, only
Richardson remained among the great masters of
eighteenth century fiction, for " Tristram Shandy "
was not exactly a story, but a succession of amusing
incidents dealing with the surroundings of a hero
only just born. While the author was speculating
what work he should produce next for the little
theatre in the Strand, a French melodrama, founded
on a French feuilleton, was placed in his hands for
adaptation for the English stage. This was " Roger
la Honte," better known to English playgoers as
Robert Buchanan's famous play, " A Man's Shadow."
Play-Writing 241
The adaptation of this work was not an easy task,
for the original was in innumerable acts and episodes,
and it had been offered to and refused by nearly all
the managers in London, while Mr. Beerbohm Tree,
who went to Paris to see the French play, gave it as
his opinion that there was not a penny in it. Mr.
Buchanan's version, however, was at once accepted
by Mr. Tree. Produced at a critical moment for the
management of the Haymarket Theatre, it became
an enormous success, playing to crowded audiences
from early autumn to the following summer, and
enabling Mr. Tree to distinguish himself in the dual
role of the hero and the villain Luversan, the latter
a masterly bit of characterisation. Previous to the
production of " A Man's Shadow," Mr. Tree had
obtained no little success in a play from Mr.
Buchanan's pen entitled " Partners " — an adaptation
of Daudet's " Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainc."
Mr. Buchanan was now in the high tide of success
as a popular dramatist, and naturally his hands were
very full of work. The triumph of " A Man's
Shadow " led to an offer from Messrs. Gatti, asking
him to collaborate with Mr. G. R. Sims in a new play
for the Adelphi, and in an evil moment he accepted.
I do not use this expression to convey the fact that
it was in any way derogatory to him to write
melodrama for the most melodramatic house in
London, especially in combination with a writer so
thoroughly strong and human as Mr. Sims ; but, in
point of fact, he was doing too much, and over-
loading himself with work, which, at the very best,
could only be perfunctory. This the result proved,
for during the next three or four years he produced
a large quantity of dramatic work of exceedingly
mixed quality, and began to grow tired of play-
17
24-2 Robert Buchanan
writing altogether. Up to date, in spite of all his
success, he had not obtained the object which made
him write for the stage at all — that of securing
enough money to enable him to devote the rest of
his life to pure literature, more particularly to poetry.
He certainly made large sums — sums far greater than
any he could possibly have made by the mere writing
of books — but with his increased income came increased
expenditure, and he soon found that what he earned
melted rapidly away. It is a curious fact that,
despite his many struggles, he never could master
the art of compound addition, so that whatever his
income was he always managed to be a little in
arrear. He could no more help being prodigal with
his great gains than the sun can help shining. I
have known him go to Trouville with two hundred
pounds in his pocket and return at the end of a week
without a penny of it, even although that two hun-
dred pounds happened to be his last, and the spending
of it meant that he had to shut himself up in his
study and work incessantly till the deficiency could
be made good. But it must not be supposed that all
his money went in the purchase of mere personal
pleasures. His generosity was without parallel, and
he never refused a request for help if it was in his
power to grant it. If a friend happened to be in
" Queer Street "he would lend him a hundred pounds
with as little hesitation as he would lend ten, and it
was a peculiarity with him that he never looked for
the return of such money, no matter how large the
sum might be, but always regarded it as so much to
the good if it happened to come his way again.
For four years he collaborated with Mr. Sims in
plays for the Adelphi. Their first production, " The
English Rose," was a considerable success, and after
Play-Writing 243
it had been running for some time Mr. Buchanan
sold out his share in it for two thousand five hundred
pounds. Its successor, " The Trumpet Call," was
even more popular, but Mr. Buchanan sold out for
a lesser sum. Next came the " White Rose " — a
costume drama produced in the summer season.
This was only moderately successful, in spite of
some superb acting. Two other plays followed —
" The Lights of Home " and the " Black Domino "
— but neither of these equalled their predecessors in
popularity.
For the production of the " Trumpet Call " the
authors had the assistance of that charming actress
Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and the first night was
memorable for an incident, or rather for an accident,
which might have wrecked the play. Mrs. Campbell
played the part of Astrea, a gipsy girl, and in one
of the later scenes, that of a low lodging-house, she
had to appear in rags. As she crossed the stage the
skirt of her dress became loose, and descended slowly
towards her knees. A low murmur, deepening to a
groan, arose from the audience ; but with wonderful
presence of mind the actress, quite calm and not in
the least disconcerted, gripped the garment with one
hand and drew it upward, fixing the spectators at
the same time with one long look, a sort of " Peace
be still " expression in her great black eyes. The
roar of horror changed into a tumultuous roar of
applause, and a disaster was averted.
Afterwards, in the " White Rose," Mrs. Campbell
played, with extraordinary sweetness and pathos, the
part of Cromwell's daughter.
But in turning his attention to the Adelphi Mr.
Buchanan was not forgetting his former love, the
little Vaudeville. Here, at a matinee in March,
244 Robert Buchanan
1890, was produced " Miss Tomboy," a quite new
version of Vanbrugh's " The Relapse," formerly used
by Sheridan in the " Trip to Scarborough." It was
received with complete enthusiasm, the impersonation
of the heroine by Miss Winifred Emery being quite
the most perfect thing this versatile actress had done
in comedy. In the same year Mr. Buchanan staged at
the same theatre his version of Richardson's " Clarissa
Harlowe," with Miss P^mery as the hapless heroine,
Mr. Thalberg as Lovelace, and Mr. Thomas Thorne
in a quasi-serious role — that of Bedford. No play
of Mr. Buchanan's ever held an audience under so
complete a spell, but the final act was almost too
pathetic for the public taste of that moment,
especially at a theatre so closely associated with
broad comedy.
Meantime, not satisfied with his ventures at the
Vaudeville and the Adelphi, he had produced on his
own responsibility at the last-named theatre, for a
matinee performance, a poetical play founded on the
story of " Cupid and Psyche," and called the " Bride
of Love." It was written in blank verse throughout,
and was highly poetical and imaginative, too much
so for the English public, who will only tolerate such
experiments when they are made the occasion for
gorgeous scenery. The scenery at the Adelphi,
though correct and adequate, was inexpensive. In
this production I myself played the part of Psyche,
Miss Letty Lind that of Euphrosyne, Mr. Thalberg
that of Eros, Mr, Lionel Rignold that of Zephyr, and
the late Miss Ada Cavendish that of Venus Aphro-
dite. The reception of the " Bride of Love " on its
first production was so encouraging that Mr. Buchanan
was induced to take the Lyric Theatre and to repro-
duce the play there for a " regular run." This was a
Play-Writing 245
serious mistake, as he made no attempt to improve
the scenery, but trusted to the mere poetry of the
piece to draw the public. After his long experience
of the stage he ought to have known better.
There is no modern instance, I think, of a poetical
play attracting audiences on its own merits apart
from the arts of the showman and the tricks of
the scene-painter. This experiment cost him some
thousands of pounds, nor was he much consoled, I
fancy, by the almost daily receipt of letters from
unknown admirers congratulating him on the work.
One of these letters was so remarkable in the tone of
its compliments as to be almost unique. The writer
said that he had long ceased to find in the theatre
the enjoyment and the interest of his early years ;
the glamour had all passed away, as he thought, for
ever ; but in witnessing the " Bride of Love," he said,
all the charm and all the glamour had returned, and
he felt again the delight and enthusiasm of his boy-
hood. The signature to this letter was that of the
distinguished American dramatist, Bronson Howard.
I may remark in passing that the " Bride of Love "
was not a Greek play in the strict sense of the word,
but rather a dramatisation of a Greek fairy tale.
Whatever its merits as an acting piece might be, it
certainly contained passages of real poetry.
Two exquisite choral odes were composed for this
play by Sir Alexander Mackenzie and sung by Sted-
man's choir. Other incidental music, some of it of
bewitching beauty, was written by Mr. Walter
Slaughter, now so widely known to the public as a
musician of the finest gifts. Before passing on to
other matters I may mention that on the occasion
of the opening of the Glasgow Exhibition in May,
1888, the great representatives of poetry and music
246
Robert Buchanan
were Robert Buchanan and Sir Alexander (then Mr.)
Mackenzie.
" The fine ode which Robert Buchanan had written
was worthily set by Mr. Mackenzie, and was worthily
sung. . . . No one who heard it will soon forget its
noble swelling harmonies, and assuredly few more
striking and impressive scenes have been witnessed
than when the vast audience stood with bowed heads
while the massive strains were pealed out by the
organ, orchestra, and chorus. Immediately after
the conclusion of the Ode, just as the large as-
sembly was bursting into cheers, the Prince of
Wales stepped forward and declared the Exhibition
open." I
Before resigning the tenancy of the Lyric Theatre
Mr. Buchanan produced there, under the title of
" Sweet Nancy," his dramatisation of Miss Rhoda
Broughton's most popular book, and the reception
of this play was so favourable that he took the
Royalty Theatre in order to continue the "run."
Never was a comedy of the kind better played ;
indeed, Mr. John Hare, witnessing the performance
at the Royalty, averred that the acting was the very
best he had seen for years. Miss Annie Hughes
was inimitable as Nancy, almost equally delightful
were the Algy of Mr. H. V. Esmond, and the
Tow-Tow of Miss Beatrice Ferrer. Everything was
going well and the piece was giving promise of
a successful run when Miss Hughes was taken ill
and had to resign the leading part. An attempt
was made to find a substitute for this delightful
coDiMienney but the only possible one was Miss
Norreys, who was not at that time available.
Without Miss Hughes " Sweet Nancy " was abso-
' Scotsman.
Play-Writing 247
lutely worthless, so perfect in its captivation had
been her rendering of the character, so the piece
was withdrawn, and that was Mr. Buchanan's last
experience of theatrical management on his own
account and with his own money.
So far, mainly as I have shown through disastrous
speculation, his work for the stage had not left him
one penny the richer. He grew reckless, and the
next few years, from 1890 to 1894, were lived at
headlong pace. Never perhaps was a man so busy,
so full of affairs, and his marvellous power of rapid
writing now became his bane, for besides a succession
of plays which were more or less successful, he was
contributing a great deal to the Press, and in such
leisure as he could find he was putting the finishing
touches to his poetical writings. The present chapter,
however, is concerned solely with his work for the
stage. Among the productions of those years was
the "Sixth Commandment," which was a version
of Dostoievski's " Crime and Punishment." This play
failed to attract the public, but it was noteworthy
for two pieces of magnificent acting on the part
of Mr. Herbert Waring and of Mr. Lewis Waller.
Later on " The Charlatan " was written for Mr. Beer-
bohm Tree at the Haymarket Theatre, and although
it was most warmly received it just fell short of a
great financial success. " Dick Sheridan " was pro-
duced at the Comedy Theatre and also met with an
adverse fate, and running simultaneously with it, for
afternoon performances only, was the " Pied Piper of
Hamelin." This little play, which was acknow-
ledged by the Press to be almost perfect of its kind,
also failed from some reason or other to draw the
public.
I am now approaching the end of this brief sum-
248
Robert Buchanan
mary of his dramatic work. By this time he was not
only far off independence, but heavily in debt. His
last stake was a comedy of which he was part author,
and for which he engaged the famous Mrs. Langtry,
then anxious to return to the stage. Having secured
a small financial backing, quite inadequate as the
issue proved, he took the Opera Comique, and pro-
duced there in June, 1894, the " Society Butterfly,"
with Mrs. Langtry in the chief female part, and such
excellent artistes as Mr. Fred Kerr and the late Miss
Rose Leclercq to support the leading lady. All
would have gone very well, but for one unfortunate
contretemps. The fate of the play absolutely de-
pended on a certain dance to be performed by the
leading actress at the end of the third act, but at
the last moment Mrs. Langtry was unable to do
the dance, and some ineffective tableaux vivants had
to be substituted in a hurry. These tableaux pro-
voked a stormy reception and led to very adverse
criticisms in the Press. The play, however, ran for
some weeks to very fair business, and was actually
promising to develop into a popular success when
the managerial exchequer was found to be empty.
At that moment a creditor served Mr. Buchanan
with a petition in bankruptcy. His house of cards
collapsed, and a few months later he was standing
in the bankruptcy court, a practically ruined man.
Looking back upon that experience, I think now
that the man whom I then regarded as his bitterest
enemy, since he brought about his financial disaster,
was in reality a friend in disguise. For several years
he had been living in a fool's paradise, veritably
gambling away the best hours of his life. What
part had he, who from first to last was a Poet with
the deep poetic heart, among the worldlings of
Play-Writing 249
finance? All his thoughts and dreams were of
higher and nobler things, and au fond all his daily
prayer was to escape again into solitude and to be
alone with his first love. It was only half a heart
he could give to money getting. He awoke from
his folly disillusioned, wretched, dispirited, but the
punishment he had received was really given to him
in mercy, for from that time forth he saw both himself
and the world with very different eyes.
CHAPTER XXV
A REMINISCENCE
By George R. Sims
FOR many years it was my privilege to be on
terms of intimate friendship with the poet who
was my work-fellow in Adelphi melodrama. Now
that the collaboration and the companionship are
severed for ever I see him when I look backward
over the years, not as poet or fellow-worker, but
as companion only. And nowhere was Robert
Buchanan a more delightful companion than under
his own roof. When the work of the day was done,
and the " Bard " sat at the supper-table between his
mother and his sister-in-law, and entertained his
literary friends, it was the best side of the old
Bohemia come to life again. When the ladies
had retired and the atmosphere became tobacco-
laden^ the great problems of life would become so
enthralling in the course of discussion, that many a
night and oft have we risen to say goodbye when
the hour was late and lingered on the doorsteps of
the house in Maresfield Gardens to "drive home
points " until a neighbouring clock had struck the
quarter and the half. And sometimes in the summer,
when the dawn trod swiftly on the heels of the dark,
250
A Reminiscence 251
we would still linger on after the discussion had been
closed ; for it was a cherished idea of the Bard's
that from his front doorstep one got a whiff of the
distant sea. He would stand sometimes in the early-
dawn, throw back his massive head, and declare that
he was inhaling the Brighton breezes.
I like to think sometimes of the old days, or rather
nights, at Merkland ; for the memory of the rugged
fighter's love for his mother is a very sweet one. In
his home the man who was looked upon by many
as a fierce and masterful free-lance was as gentle
as a woman. In his work the dominant note was
nearly always that of " I am Sir Oracle," but when
the pen was thrown aside and he found himself among
his fellow-workers, with a cigarette between his lips
and John Jameson at his elbow, there was no
more modest or less self-assertive man than
Robert Buchanan.
I knew him best when he had come to middle age,
and it always seemed to me that at a time when most
men have " seen the world " the poet-novelist was
just beginning to get a glimpse of it. He found
himself suddenly introduced to the pleasure-seeking
side of it, and his astonishment at some of the
" phases " which came under his notice was that
of a lad fresh from a cathedral city being taken
about town by a London cousin. But if for a time
the novelty of his new surroundings attracted him,
the poet and student of humanity always got the
upper hand at the finish. To his occasional excur-
sions into the land of the modern Corinthians we
owe some of the best of the poet's later work.
My last remembrance of the busy man who fought
for fame and fortune, who was accorded the former
grudgingly, and who won and lost the latter, and
252 Robert Buchanan
was slowly winning it again when he was struck
down by a blow that shattered health and hope for
ever, is of a holiday trip we took together to that
cockney paradise, Southend-on-Sea. Buchanan had
lived at Southend at one time and knew it well. He
took me far from the madding holiday crowd and
showed me the lovely spots that lay around the
district which is the meeting-place of London's
mighty river and the sea that has made England
great.
It was as we stood in the moonlight looking across
the river to Canvey Island that he told me of a
strange foreboding. He had a work on which he
had been engaged for many years — it was finished,
yet he feared to let it see the light. " I believe," he
said, " that whenever that poem is published it will
be my last effort. I shall never do anything great
again." The poem was eventually published. The
foreboding proved correct. It was the last great work
that he gave to the world.
We met but little after that, for our collaboration
ceased, and he went to live at a distance. I did not
see him in his last illness when the burly form was
wasted and the vigorous leonine head was bowed.
I was glad that I was spared the pain, for I think
of him always as I knew him, vigorous, buoyant, and
full of the mellow wine of life, a strong man to
admire, a brilliant work-fellow to reverence, a
smiling friend to love.
CHAPTER XXVI
ON THE TURF. WRITTEN BY MR. HENRY MURRAY
IT cannot be said that pleasure played any great
part in the life of Robert Buchanan, yet at one
period of his career he was supposed to have drunk
at its fountain pretty deeply. It was at the period of
play- writing and play-producing, when he was making
money hand over hand, and disposing of it in the
same rapid fashion. He was a born gambler, as his
father had been before him, and although he was full
fifty years of age before he ever saw a race-course, he
took to the sport of racing with the same youthful
ardour which characterised his pursuit of all that
attracted his attention. " We are all gamblers," he
used to say. " Man is a gambler by nature and
predestination, and life itself is a gamble. The
tradesman, the City man, the professional man, the
artist, are gamblers alike, and the artist is the biggest
of all, for he stakes his brains against the public
stupidity, and the odds are heavily against him."
Whenever he had a little money he never rested
until he had ventured it in some kind of specula-
tion, and, whatever that speculation might be, lie
never by any chance came off an eventual winner,
If he took a theatre he invariably lost by hundreds
and sometimes by thousands, and that too on the
253
2 54 Robert Buchanan
very plays which founded the fortunes of others, as,
for instance, when he sold " Alone in London " for a
mere song, to see it patrol the provinces year in year
out, reaping a golden harvest for its lucky purchasers,
who confessed that within ten years they had amassed
;^i 4,000 clear profit by the transaction.
This untoward luck pursued him in his specula-
tions on the turf, to which he was first introduced
by Mr. G. R. Sims during their long collaboration
in Adelphi melodrama. The most sanguine of men,
he never went to a race meeting without some
splendid " certainties " up his sleeve, but, persistent
as was his courtship of capricious Fortune, it was
seldom that he returned home a penny the richer.
It was therefore lucky for him that he was a good
loser, and bore alike his losses and the troubles in
which they involved him with a wonderfully light
heart. He had his moments of depression, of course,
and it was during such a moment that he once wrote
to Dr. Stodart Walker (in 1893), " It has been a
damnable year for me in every way, and at times
I've felt quite helpless, 'Tis all very well for me to
croak anathemas on the dismal folk, but I'm a dismal,
despairing, self-tormenting creature myself, and as for
the joy of life, my share of it is a flickering candle.
Friday next is my birthday. I shall keep it in the
coal cellar, a sheet round me, and ashes on my head.
Why the deuce was I ever born ? " I should conjec-
ture that this was written one evening on his return
from Sandown, after a bad day, but the probability
is that next morning he would be up with the lark,
brilliant and confident, and ready to try his luck
again. His temperament was too sanguine, his
spirits too buoyant, for any reverse of fortune to
have any lasting effect upon him. Things, he
On the Turf 255
averred, always righted themselves somehow with a
man who kept to work, and that he did with unfaiHng
regularity. The race-course might monopoHse his
afternoons, but early morning and late night found
him at his desk labouring with unfailing fecundity
and industry. Nay, he even carried his literary
labours on to the turf. At the time when he was
preparing a long commentary on Renan's views
regarding certain Scriptural episodes we went to-
gether to Sandown, and in an interval between two
races I found him standing in the middle of Tatter-
sail's ring, serenely unconscious of the charivari about
him, reading his Greek Testament. When the bell
rang he slipped the volume into his pocket, marking
the place with a tip telegram, and plunged into the
fray, apparently greatly refreshed by his studies.
Pleasure taken alone — " bread eaten in secret " —
was no pleasure to Robert Buchanan. He loved
like Charles Lamb, to taste good flavours "on the
palate of others." When he went to a race meeting
he drove down with a party of congenial friends to
share the contents of his well-provided luncheon
basket, and his carriage was invariably surrounded
by a sorry-looking crew whose pinched faces,
brightened up at sight of him. " Glad to see you
here, Mr. Buchanan," I've heard again and again
from the lips of runner, gipsy, nigger minstrel, and
correct-card seller alike. " I've had a bad time
lately, sir, I have indeed, and I hope you'll win,
sir." Whether he won or lost made little difference ;
there was always plenty of silver left at the end of
the day for the poor helots of the turf.
I don't think I ever saw Buchanan's wonderful
equanimity of temper better illustrated than on a
certain afternoon at Lingfield. We had gone down
256
Robert Buchanan
specially to back a certain horse called Theseus, re-
garding which we had received private and valuable
advice from a person whose counsel was well worth
listening to. We took our station on the carriage
rank, about a quarter of a mile from the ring, and had
merely trifling bets on the first three races, reserving
our capital for Theseus, who ran in the fourth event
on the card. We were desperately anxious to win, for
things were going badly at the Opera Comique, where
the ill-starred "Society Butterfly "was running, and
Theseus, being an absolute outsider, was certain to
start at a long price. We resolved to risk a hundred
pounds on him, but, abstracted in our calculations, we
failed to notice the flight of time, and, by a cruel
freak of bad luck, the horses engaged in the race,
instead of parading as usual before the stands and
carriages, passed straight to the starting-post by the
other end of the oval. We were startled by the roar
of the ring — " They're off!" I had the notes in my
pocket, and dashed away full pelt for the ring. I
had a quarter of a mile to cover, the horses two miles,
so the result of my tardy effort may be guessed. As
I was nearing the gate of Tattersall's a universal roar
of " Theseus ! Theseus ! " rose on the air, and turning
my head I saw little W. Jones, in a brimstone-
coloured jacket, all but walking home, with the rest
of the field the length of a street behind him. " What
price did he start at?" I asked an acquaintance.
" Twenty to one !"...! don't remember — I don't
want to remember — what I said as I walked back to
the carriage. Two thousand pounds actually within
our grasp, and we had missed it ! Buchanan received
the news with a laugh. " Better luck next time," he
said. " You look bowled over, old man. You'll find
some whiskey in the hamper." And half of the
On the Turf 257
money thus missed would have saved the " Butter-
fly" from failure, and himself from bankruptcy!
Luck could be kinder on occasion, as it showed in
the Cesarewitch of 1893, when Cypria, starting at 66
to I, ran a dead heat with the favourite, Red Eyes, at
5 to I. Buchanan, by a happy inspiration, backed
both pretty freely, and is indeed historical among the
" pencillers " as being the only man in the ring that
day who had a penny on Cypria. But such lucky
hauls were few and far between, and he found the
turf a dear amusement on the whole, though he never
wavered in his love for it, or regretted the money it
cost him.
18
CHAPTER XXVII
"THE WANDERING JEW"
WHILE writing plays and books for the market
he had never ceased to write poetry to please
himself, and to concern himself to an extent which
some of his critics thought deplorable with the great
social and political questions of the hour. If an ideal
poet is one who is completely indifferent to public
questions, he was never an ideal poet. First and
foremost, he was problem-haunted, the one thing
worthy of study in this world being, as he thought,
the question of man's destiny and its relation to the
mystery of religion. Next he was still soaked through
and through with the radicalism of his early days,
never having wavered one inch from the conviction
that the whole structure of modern society, with its
arbitrary divisions between wealth and poverty, was
radically wrong. Finally, he was a humanitarian to
the core, unable to rest or sleep or possess himself in
patience when he heard of a wrong done to or offered
by any human soul. The outcome of this, in his
busy days, was much newspaper correspondence,
which earned for him from Mr. Zangwill the epithet
of " Buchanan, the complete letter writer," and from
Mrs. Lynn Linton the doubtful compliment, a propos
of his championship of chivalry towards women,
358
"The Wandering Jew" 259
that he wrote " sentimental buncum with splendid
literary power." Much of his best work in that way
was reprinted in 1891, in a volume entitled "The
Coming Terror," containing much interesting matter,
among the rest an attempt to vindicate Herbert
Spencer from the attacks of Professor Huxley,
a propos of the question, " Are men born free and
equal ? "
On a careful review of the letters which he from
time to time contributed to the public Press, I feel
glad that he devoted so much of his time to what
many would consider thankless work, for on more
than one occasion, as in the cases of Mrs. Osborne and
Mr. Parnell, he earned the lasting gratitude of those
on whose behalf he spoke the needful word. More
than one obscure martyr owed something to his inter-
cession, and he saved at least one fellow-creature from
death upon the gallows. However, he was still
determined to prove himself a poet in the technical
sense of the word, so in the winter of 1893 he
published " The Wandering Jew."
This work was commenced in the year 1866, its
conception being, as I have said, the direct outcome
of the death of his father, to whose memory it was
dedicated in the following lines : —
'&
" Father on Earth, for whom I wept bereaven,
Father more dear than any Father in Heaven,
Flesh of my flesh, heart of this heart of mine,
Still quick, though dead, in me, true son of thine,
I draw the gravecloth from thy dear dead face,
I kiss thee gently sleeping, while I place
This wreath of Song upon thy holy head.
For since I live, I know thou art quick not dead,
And since thou art quick, yet drawest no living breath,
I know, dear Father, that there is Life in Death.
26o Robert Buchanan
This, too, my Soul hatli found — that if there were
No liope in Heaven, the world might well despair.
That thro' tlic mystery of my hope and love
I reach the M3'stery that dwells aliove. . . .
Father on Earth, still lying calm and blest
After long years of trouble and sad unrest,
Sleep — while the Christ I paint for men to see
Seeketh the Fatherhood I found in thee 1"
" The Wandering Jew " was finished and ready for
press some years before its publication. The MS.
was kept locked in the desk of its author ; it was
taken out from time to time, pondered over, then
carefully replaced, for it was ever his favourite child.
His reason for withholding it from the world was a
curious one, inexplicable even to himself, for he was
not a superstitious man, and he always laughed at
superstition in others, but in some unaccountable way
the idea had taken hold of him that with the publi-
cation of this work his career would come to an end,
and so fixed was this in his mind that he could not
shake himself free of it. When he at last resolved to
publish the book, he did so in spite of the superstition
which still clung to him, and I remember his telling
with a curious smile that while he was correcting the
last proofs a dog came and howled mournfully under
his study windows.
The conception of the poem was a terrible as well
as a pathetic one — that of a Christ grown grey and
old, despairing and heartbroken, surviving through
the ages, and finding at every stage that He is
forgotten by the very Churches and denied even
the poor tribute of occasional imitation. The poet
wandering in the streets of London meets the errant
Jew, whom at first he takes for Ahasuerus, but
whom he presently discovers to be the Saviour
Himself.
"The Wandering Jew" 261
" Lo, now the Moonlight lit his features wan
With spectral beams, and o'er his hoary hair
A halo of brightness fell, and rested there !
And while upon his face mine eyes were bent
In utterness of woeful wonderment,
Into mine ear the strange voice crept once more :
' Far have I wandered, weary and spirit-sore,
And lo ! wherever I have chanced to be.
All things, save men alone, have pitied me ! '
Then — then — even as he spake, forlornly crown'd
By the cold light that wrapt him round and round,
I saw upon his twain hands raised to Heaven
Stigmata bloody as of sharp nails driven
Thro' the soft palms of mortals cruciiicd !
And swiftly glancing downward I descried
Stigmata bloody on the naked feet
Set feebly on the cold stones of the street —
And moveless in the frosty light he stood
Ev'n as one hanging on the Cross of wood !
Then, like a lone man in the north, to whom
The auroral lights on the world's edge assume
The likeness of his gods, I seem'd to swoon
To a sick horror ; and the stars and moon
Reel'd wildly o'er me, swift as sparks that blow
Out of a forge ; and the cold stones below
Chattered like teeth ! For lo, at last I knew
The lineaments of that diviner Jew
Who like a Phantom passeth everywhere,
The World's last hope and bitterest despair,
Deathless, yet dead ! —
Unto my knees I sank,
And with an eye glaz'd like the dying's drank
The wonder of that Presence !
White and tall
And awful grew He in the mystical
Chill air around Him— at His mouth a mist
Made by His frosty breathing — Then I kissed
His frozen raiment-hem, and murmured
Adonai ! Master ! Lord of Quick and Dead ! '
'Twas more than heart could suffer and still beat —
So with a hollow moan I fainted at His feet ! "
In a cutting from an old newspaper I find the
following quaint interview. I give it here because
262 Robert Buchanan
it bears solely with the subject I have now in
hand : —
" Robert Buchanan Interviews Himself.
" The Editor having asked me to interview myself
with a view to answering certain questions which
might interest his readers, I have endeavoured as
delicately as possible to approach my subject At
the moment when the request arrived I was not in
the most amiable of tempers, but I gradually yielded
to temptation and unbosomed myself to the cross-
questioner. The first question suggested by the
Editor and put by myself to myself was categorical.
" With what object did vou write the ' Wandering
Jew ? '
" Because, I replied, I thought that only one subject
remained to the modern singer — that of Jin-de-siecle
Christianity, and because, in my opinion, the
legendary Christ of the Gospels was the one im-
mortal spirit which had never been faithfully repre-
sented in poetry. All my life I had been haunted by
the conception of a worn-out Saviour, snowed over
with the sorrow of centuries, old, weary, despairing,
yet indignant at the enormities committed in his
name. This figure was no fancy to me, but an
awful ever-present Reality. I could not believe in
his power to save the world or to discover the God
of his promise. But I did believe in his suffering, in
the beauty of his character, in his supremely loving
tenderness to human sorrow. No longer the beautiful
Good Shepherd of early imagination, he seemed to me
sad with the piteous sadness of old age, still haunted
by his youthful Dream, but scarcely hoping now that
it would ever be realised. I was asked : —
"The Wandering Jew" 263
Did you intend in the poem to satirise the progress
of Christianity among the Churches ?
" Well, not to satirise — the subject, I think, being
too pitiful for satire — but to describe in a succession
of vivid pictures how Christianity had been a cloak
to cover an infinity of human wickedness ; how
Churchmen had juggled and cheated and lied in
the name of Christ, and forgotten the real sweetness
of his humanity. Here I was only to do in verse
what the great historians from Gibbon to Lecky had
done before me. There was to be nothing in my
poem, and there is nothing in it, which could not be
justified and illustrated by overwhelming historical
testimony.
" WJiy did you omit to describe such things as the
cruelty of the Inqtiisition atidthe terrors of the Massacre
of St. BartJiolomezv ? "
" Because my book was to adumbrate the truth,
not to support it by a mere catalogue of horrors.
Because I wished to say just enough and no more, to
point home the charge on which Jesus Christ was to
be arraigned, historically, and condemned. That
charge was not to be the gist of my poem ; otherwise
I should be doing no more than other writers had
done before me. What I desired to show was the
despair of a supremely loving being who began in
divine hope and has ended in apparent failure,
not because his moral conceptions were false, but
because his supernatural promises have never been
verified. ' Are men worth saving ? ' Jesus was then to
ask himself at the end of eighteen centuries of wasted
effort. History, the record of man's experience, was
to supply the answer. Yet my Christ, clinging still
to the hope of a heavenly explanation, clinging to that
hope as men of his temperament will ever cling to it
264
Robert Buchanan
was not wholly to despair. Had I made him con-
tinue to assert his miraculous pretensions, I should
have pleased the so-called Christians. Had I made
him admit his utter failure, I should have pleased
the Materialists. I desired to please neither.
^'' Do you believe, then, that Christianity is a failure?
" Here I referred myself rather irritably to my own
letter in a contemporary.
" One journal says vou are an A theist. Is that so,
Robert Buchanan ?
" I should not be the least ashamed of that, even if I
deserved it. Unfortunately, I am not an Atheist."
" Why unfortunately ?
" Because then the whole question would be easy to
me. I should not be lost in wonder at the eternal
conflict between Good and Evil.
" Do you believe i7i another life ?
" Do I believe I breathe and live ? Do 1 believe I
came into this world to lose, not to find, my personality?
To one who thinks as I do, the question is absurd.
" But that other life was Chrisfs solution of the
problem.
" And it is mine — but it is only a belief, not a
certainty, a hope, a faith even, not a reality. The
testimony of all Science is against it. The spectacle
of human Stupidity, of the colossal selfishness and
folly of Humanity, makes the mind despair often as
Christ despaired. And even the theory of another
life, of an ever-continuing evolution, does not explain
the horrible waste and anarchy of Nature."
" Here I took myself severely to task, cornered
myself, so to speak, on the subject of my irresolution.
There was no escape — I had to answer.
" Come, I said to myself, are you not falling
between two stools ? You think the failure of Jesus
"The Wandering Jew" 265
was his faithfulness to the conception of a personal
immortality, of a God and of a heavenly kingdom —
you believe centuries have been wasted over dogmas
concerning the absolutely Unknowable — you know
Herbert Spencer better, and really venerate him more
than your Bible (here I winced), and yet you have
not the courage to say boldly this world is the only
one, and all we can do is to make the best of it !
You are not a Christian, you are not a Theist, and
yet you absolutely and indignantly reject not merely
Atheism, but Pantheism. Your own ' Flying Dutch-
man ' indeed was damned by reading the philosophy
of Spinoza. What in the name of common sense are
you ? You reject all known creeds, and offer yourself
no new one as a substitute.
" All creeds, I answered, are to me attempts to verify
through the intellect what can only be apprehended
by the insight. Just as in so far as a creed repels
me on the human side, just in so far as it is dogmatic,
arrogant, tyrannous over the will, do I cease to follow
it. I have absolute, or comparatively absolute, know-
ledge of only one thing in the Universe — Myself.
All beyond myself exists only as phenomena."
'^ In that sense, metapliysically speaking, yoii are
God?
» Just so."
" God ? You, — Robert Buchanati ? — who collaborate
in Adelphi dramas, write letters to the newspapers, and
interview yourself to gratify the zvhini of an editor and
your own self-conceit ?
" At all events, my own nature is the only touch-
stone by which I can apprehend the malevolence or
beneficence of Nature at large. I love (when I am
rational) my fellow-men. I sicken at the sight of
human suffering. I would, if I were able, abolish all
266 Robert Buchanan
sin and sorrow. Surveying myself, I am chiefly
conscious of one thing — that, without some more
ample life than this I live, my functions would be
incomplete ; I should have existed for no purpose
whatever. I yearn for the eternal help and sympathy
of those most dear to me. I have held them in my arms
as they died ; I have been certain, I a^n certain that
they cannot be dead at all. Personally, I would not
care to live a day longer if I were not to live indefinitely.
Personally, again, I have no interest in a God outside
of myself whom so many say they " love," to meet
that God I would not care to step one foot beyond
the grave ! I wish to be reunited to those I have
loved, and who have loved me. All Heaven, all hope,
all faith, all continuance, is merely an image of my
own personality, my own love.
*' We are getting too metaphysical. The Editor wants
to know what you meant by those two lines in thg dedi-
cation of the ' Wandering Jew ' —
" ' Father on Earth, for whom I wept bereaven,
Father more dear than any Father in Heaven.'
" What I meant is expressed in my previous
answer, I meant that it is impossible to love what is
beyond our comprehension. To love God is to love
the mystery of one's own existence.
" You appreciate the ties of this world so deeply, yet
you suggest in your poem that hwnafi beings, after all,
may not be worth saving ?
" That is the mood of despair which I have expressed
through Jesus in the ' Wandering Jew.' Human
baseness and, above all, human stupidity, as expressed
in history, and corroborated in everyday experience
are so appalling, the aims of life are so trivial, the
"The Wandering Jew" 267
business of life is so mechanical ! But here and there
we catch a gleam of comfort, we come face to face
with one of those quasi-divine characters, like Jesus.
" ' Who are the salt of the earth, and without whom
The world would smell like what it is — a Tomb.'
These things restore our faith — at least for a
moment.
" Yotir faith in what ?
" In Humanity, in the perfectibility of human
nature. If we deny that, we take away the basis of
all Religion, and become pessimists pure and simple.
Pessimism is moral Death, and since the root-idea of
modern Christianity is pessimism, or a belief in
natural depravity, Christianity is already a dead creed.
" / am sorry for }>02i, Robert Buchanan. Believer
and unbeliever, outcast from all camps, enemy to all
dogmas, where are you to rest your feet ?
" Here, on the rock of my own personality. If I
admit my own baseness I destroy all the godhead in
the world. If I lose faith in my own infinite capacities
of love and sympathy I abolish the last hope of
immortality. If I despise this life, this world, even
the flesh and its happiness, I spit in the Fountain of
all Grace, I accept everything that is human, I reject
all the Christian cant about ' sin ' and ' atonement.'
It is because this life at its highest is supremely
beautiful and sane that I believe it will continue. I
respect my body too much to call myself a Christian,
I loathe the phenomena of evil too utterly to admit
myself a Pantheist, and I have too little reverence for
what I do not understand to think myself a Theist.
I might dub myself a Humanist, if that word did not
imply some sort of satisfaction with the intellectual
268 Robert Buchanan
juggleries of Positivism. But I really do not wish to
label myself at all. I am content to be in sympathy
with all religions just in so far as they respond to
my yearning for personal sympathy and love." Here,
having had quite enough of myself, I cut short the
interview.
The publication of the " Wandering Jew," caused
more stir than anything which the poet had given to
the world for many years. It was taken up by the
clergy and made the text of innumerable sermons
both in London and the country, and finally it was
made the subject of a most interesting series of
letters which appeared in the columns of the Daily
Chronicle under the heading " Is Christianity Played
Out? " The poet, I need hardly say, was responsible
for some of the most interesting of these letters, from
which, as well as from a few others, it may not be
amiss to quote.
" Many thanks for your kindly criticism of my
'Wandering Jew '" (wrote Mr. Buchanan in January
1892). " It is, as you say, 'a queer Carol,' but then
life itself is very queer, and among the queerest
phenomena of life is literature. Had you spent the
whole of your space in fault-finding, I should still
have been grateful to you for admitting that the
spirit of the thing is absolutely ' reverential ' ; and I
will make bold to add that neither you nor any other
reader will ever escape from the memory of the
Christ whom I have painted — the patient, long-
suffering, ever-misunderstood, eternally-condemned
and outcast Christ of the Nineteenth Century. I
have simply expressed in a pathetic image what
thousands of living men now see and feel, and what,
as I have said, they can never forget."
To this Mr. le Gallienne replied : " Mr. Buchanan
''The Wandering Jew" 269
makes bold to say that his phantom Christ will
haunt us to the end of our days. He might have left
others to say so, perhaps, and I, for one, am not so
sure of that as Mr. Buchanan. I have, as every fair-
minded man must have, a great respect for Mr.
Buchanan at his best. ' The Shadow of the Sword '
is one of my moving memories, lines from ' Balder
the Beautiful ' do haunt me. ' The Vision of the Man
Accurst,' and ' The Ballad of Judas Iscariot ' must
leave lurid tracks on the worst memory. Of the
cleverness of ' The Outcast ' I ventured to offer my
humble appreciation at its publication ; but the
' Wandering Jew ' is another matter. It bids higher
than any of the poems I have mentioned, and, judged
by the only standard it suggests, it seems to me to
fall proportionally lower. The fact is that Christ all
through is too literally a phantom. Phantoms in art,
as on the stage, must have something of the sustaining
elements of flesh and blood. The phantom of a
phantom will not need to wait for cockcrow to
dissolve ; and, with all due respect to Mr. Buchanan's
past and possible future achievements, I venture to
express my opinion (for whatever, of course, it is
worth) that his Christ is such a phantom — mere
muslin and limelight, snowed on by paper snow.
" And why ? Simply because Mr. Buchanan would
not be at the pains to do his work thoroughly, be-
cause he did not work and wait and wait and work
upon his conception, in many respects as your reviewer
says, forceful and picturesque ; because, in short, he
has ' no respect whatever for mere art or mere
literature.' "
Mr. Buchanan's reply to this was characteristic :
" Mr. Richard le Gallienne now comes forward to re-
proach me for despising the art by which I live, since
270 Robert Buchanan
as he truthfully though somewhat irrelevantly ob-
serves, ' Literature is literature ' with or without the
* mere.' Yes, sir, and twaddle is twaddle under any
circumstances. Before I attempt to justify my words,
which only a literary person could misunderstand, let
me correct Mr. le Gallienne on a minor point. So far
from having been conceived or written hurriedly, so
far from having been flung at the public without such
care and thought as every serious work imperatively
demands, the ' Wandering Jew ' was begun and partly
written twenty years ago, has been revised and turned
over, weighed and sifted times without number, and
has only been kept back because I hesitated to com-
mit myself finally to the expression of religious con-
viction which it contains. Mr. le Gallienne is quite
within his right in saying that it is badly written and
unworthy of its subject ; he travels far beyond his right
when he charges me with indifference to the quality
of my own work. The labour of a serious writer
who knows what he wishes to express, and chooses
the form of expression after years of deliberation,
surely compares favourably with the labour of the
critic who receives a book on Monday, gobbles it up
on Tuesday, and then rushes into print to inform the
public that it was written on club paper and finished
in a hansom cab. . . . Mr. le Gallienne calls the
' Wandering Jew ' an Adelphi miracle-play ! I wish
to heaven it were ! I wish that it had been possible
so to have presented the theme which I have chosen
as to have brought it as closely home to common
sense and common perception as the drama which
delights the groundlings. For let the literary quality
of a so-called Adelphi play be low or high, let its
subject be what it may, one thing is demanded of
its producers — straightforwardness, clearness, con-
"The Wandering Jew" 271
sistency, and honest presentation of an idea for just
what it is worth, without embroidery, with all due
calling of a spade a spade, with a constant reference
to the rule that the creatures presented, however
familiar and conventional, have to make themselves
clearly understood. To have written an Adelphi
miracle-play would have been to have escaped
triumphantly from the toils of mere literature, and to
have done for the world in one way what Goethe did
for it in another. If the crude realism of the
' Wandering Jew ' reminds my critic of the Adelphi,
the cheap naturalism of ' Faust ' reminds me of the
Prince of Wales's under the Robertsonian regime.
The story of the young lady who meets a young
gentleman, and after a few hours' acquaintance drugs
her only relation and offers up the key of her bed-
chamber, is, taken with its after-consequences, an
eternal theme for both poet and dramatist, and its
success, under adequate treatment, is always certain.
' Faust ' has succeeded less on account of its splendid
literary embroidery than because its subject must
always interest the great human public who love the
Family Herald, and who are never tired of a Personal
Devil.
" Who in the world disagrees with Mr. le Gallienne
that to make a work of art great, pains and great
labour are necessary ? But a book's literary quality
should be, like a lady's virtue, taken for granted, or at
any rate not chattered about. When society tells us
that a lady is terribly good I am never surprised to
find her in the Divorce Court. When the critics tell
me that the style of a book is bad, I am always
tempted to buy that book. For this reason in my
young days I bought Walt Whitman. For this
reason I made the acquaintance of Robert Browning.
2"] 2 Robert Buchanan
For this reason, when the critics exclaimed that
Tennyson was played out, and was writing without
regard to his old ' perfect form,' I began to think that
Tennyson was at last freeing himself from the ' clog '
of ' beautiful ideas ' and from the shadow of Rugby.
And in all these cases I was right. Had I been alive
at the time when Jeffrey said of Wordsworth's great
ode, ' Paulo majora canamus,' that it was utterly
stupid and ' unintelligible,' I should have known at
once that Wordsworth was writing good poetry — at
any rate, such poetry as I wanted. There is no
writer of any rank whatsoever who, when all else
failed, has not been arraigned on the ground of his
literary carelessness or incompetency. Dickens was
* cheap' and ' vulgar,' Thackeray was ' no gentleman '
Browning had no ' style,' Whitman was a dirty and
unwashed barbarian, Zola could not write a sentence
of decent French ; and ' all on account of Eliza ' —
all on account of the literary gentlemen who flutter
round the petticoats of the ' merely ' literary Muse.
"All this Mr. le Gallienne may say is neither here
nor there ; he thinks my verses bad, and there's an end.
Well, is he not welcome to his opinion ? I think no
less of him because he has the courage to utter it, and
the still mightier courage to aver that he thinks
secularism discredited, and to quote the good old
literary twaddle about the ' Christ that is to be,' His
last question, whether Christianity is indeed effete as
a religious system, is far too pregnant to be answered
in this letter, though I fancy it expresses \k\Q.fons et
origo of Mr. le Gallienne's dissatisfaction. With your
permission I will reply to it in a second communica-
tion. Here indeed we shall get upon solid ground —
there will no longer be any question of style and
expression, good or bad. We shall reach the
"The Wandering Jew" 273
crucial problem of Religion itself, far more vital to
me, and to all humanity, than any arguments about
' mere literature.'" . . .
"My poem, 'The Wandering Jew' (wrote Mr.
Buchanan in another of these letters), " was written to
picture, not the nebulous Christ ' which is to be,' but
the living Christ which is, the Divine Anarchist, the
revolutionary Dreamer, the Man who was martyred
once by His own failure to realise the necessities, the
conditions, and the laws of average human nature.
He is with us, He is alive, saying as I have made
Him say : —
" ' Woe to ye all ! and endless Woe to Me
Who deem'd that I could save Humanity !
My Father knew men better when He sent
His Angel Death to be His instrument
And smite them ever down as with a sword ! . . .
I plough'd the rocks, and cast in rifts of stone
The seeds of Life Divine that ne'er have grown ;
And now the winter of Mine age is here, . . .'
" His mission has failed. No ingenuities of ex-
planation, no juggling with eternal truths can make
us believe that He has ' essentially ' succeeded. His
cry to the universe now is ' Let Me sleep ! Men are
not worth saving ! ' Terrible and awful utterance of
a great heart broken ! And wherein then remains
the eternal claim of this Man, the very genius of
failure, on the tenderness of humanity ? In His
humility. His sorrow. His human limitations, His
very failure and despair. Do not a thousand hearts
cry out to Him with the Magdalen ? —
" ' Not for thy godhead did I hold Thee dear,
Not for Thy Father, who hath left thee here
Hopeless, unpitied, homeless, 'neath the skies,
But for the human love within thine eyes !
19
2 74 Robert Buchanan
And whcreso'cr thou goest, howsoc'er
Thou fallcst, the' it be to Hell's despair,
I, thy poor handmaid, still will follow thee,
For in thy face is Love's Eternity ! '
For this, be sure, is the pathos and pity of it all. He
was a man, even as we are men, and He dreamed the
same dream. His words have comforted millions of
aching hearts, but Christianity, the creed built up in
His name, has saved no living soul.
" Let me be explicit. I distinguish absolutely
between the character of Jesus and the character of
Christianity — in other words, between Jesus of
Nazareth and Jesus the Christ. Shorn of all super-
natural pretensions, Jesus emerges from the great
mass of human beings as an almost perfect type of
simplicity, veracity, and natural affection. ' Love
one another' was the Alpha and Omega of His
teaching, and He carried out the precept through
every hour of His too brief life. Then looking round
on His fellows, realising the extent of human misery,
and perceiving the follies of human existence, He
thought : ' Surely there must be some Divine solution
to the problem ! Surely there must be another and a
fairer life to justify a life so ephemeral ! ' Therein
He was right — without some such justification this life
of ours is only dust and ashes. But with His insight
beeran His sorrow. He turned from this world as from
something in its very nature base and detestable. He
conceived the soul as removed altogether from the
necessities and privileges of the flesh. He recom-
mended a policy of complete quiescence and stagna-
tion. He affirmed that Heaven was here impossible,
because man was imperfect. He dreamed of a
Divine Kingdom, where every riddle would be solved,
the wicked would cease from troubling, and the weary
"The Wandering Jew" 275
would be at rest ; but in so doing He forgot that the
Divine Kingdom, if it is to exist at all, must begin
where God first localised it — on this planet.
" The whole thesis of my poem, then, is this : that
the Spirit of Jesus, surviving on into the present
generation, still stands apart from the strife and
tumult of the human race, and most of all from
Christianity. In my arraignment of Jesus before
humanity I have not feared to state the whole case
as conceived by men against Him, to chronicle the
endless enormities committed in His name. But how
blindly, how foolishly my critics have interpreted the
inner spirit of my argument, how utterly have they
failed to realise that the whole aim of the work is to
justify Jesus against the folly, the cruelty, the infamy,
the ignorance of the creed upbuilt upon His grave. I
show in cipher, as it were, that those who crucified
Him once would crucify Him again, were He to
return amongst us. I imply that among the first to
crucify Him would be the members of His own
Church. But nowhere surely do I imply that His
soul, in its purely personal elements, in its tender and
sympathising humanity, was not the very divinest that
ever wore earth about it. He judged men far too
gently. He was far too sanguine about human per-
fectibility, that is all. . . . Well, the dream of Jesus
was of God, and so is ours. That it will be realised
somehow and somewhere is my living faith. Nothing
beautiful or true can perish, and this world would be
a charnel house if eternal death were possible." ^
One of the results of this discussion was to facilitate
the sale of the book, which passed very rapidly into
several editions. People might disagree with it, but
they read it, and this knowledge brought balm to the
' Daily Chronicle.
276
Robert Buchanan
soul of its author. One incident in this connection
may be worth recording before I close this chapter.
The postman left one day a small parcel addressed to
the poet, which, on being opened, was thought to be
a hoax (though it was not the ist of April), for the
box contained nothing but a few blackened and
charred remains. A careful search, however, brought
to light a small scrap of printed paper which had
been allowed to escape the flames. The poet read,
and smiled. An indignant reader had sent him the
charred remains of his book, " The Wandering Jew."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE LAST SHADOW
IT was towards the close of the year 1894 that he
had to face the third and greatest sorrow of his
life. I say greatest advisedly, for when for the third
time the hand of God was laid heavily upon him, he
was a broken man — broken both in health and fortune
— and was consequently less able to bear the sorrow
which weighed him down.
The story of the Last Shadow will perhaps be told
most pathetically in his own language. On October
29, 1894, he wrote to Doctor Stodart Walker : —
" I am very anxious about my mother. For a fort-
night past she has been very ill, and about ten days ago
I called in Dr. to see her. He expressed his doubt
whether she would ever be about again. A few days
ago, in sheer despair, I thought I'd try your old prescrip-
tion, and it has undoubtedly been of benefit to her. It
occurs to me, therefore, that you might be able to
suggest something further. Of course you must be
in the dark so far away, but you know something of
her case. Her present condition is much as when
you saw her, only that since the dropsy supervened
the asthmatical symptoms have disappeared, and such
difficulty as she has in breathing clearly comes from
277
278
Robert Buchanan
heart debility. She has very little appetite, and can
take no solids.
" I myself believe that the case is not hopeless.
Perhaps you could tell me of some expert in this sort
of thing whom I could call in. I need not tell you
what this means to me — with what despair and grief
I write — and if you can do anything I shall be deeply
grateful. I think the loss of my mother, coming upon
me after so many prior troubles, would about end the
life of
" Yours ever,
"R. B."
" Nov. 6th.
"Dear Walker, — The end has come with cruel
swiftness. My darling Mother passed away at 1 1 a.m.
yesterday.
" God bless you for trying to help her. I am heart-
broken.
"Robert Buchanan."
Extract from Diary.
"At II a.m. to-day, after several days of suffering,
my beloved mother died, leaving me heart-broken.
Worn out with days and nights of watching, I was
dazed and stupefied. O mother, mother, if we are
never to meet again, the whole universe contains
nothing to live for ! But we must, we shall ! "
Nov. 6th.
" In the shadow of death my darling lies at peace —
beautiful and holy. Harrie is with me to comfort and
help me, and, with God's will, will never leave me this
side death."
Mahgakkt Buchanan.
(The Poet's Mother.)
7o Jiii-n 'page 278.
The Last Shadow 279
Nov. Zth.
" To-day I took my darling to Southend and laid
her in her grave beside poor Polly."
Nov. lotk.
" Dear Walker, — Many thanks for your kind
letter. I know indeed without any words that you
felt for me in my trouble, and she, she was so grateful
to you for the relief you had given her. I have laid
her to rest at Southend, in a beautiful graveyard by
the sea, close to places where she used to be very
happy. What I shall do now I hardly know. My
wits seem numbed, and my whole grasp of things
gone. Sometimes I hardly seem to grieve at all, at
others all my desolation comes back like a torrent. I
thought on Sunday that my last hour had come.
" In my terrible trial my dear Harriett has proved a
blessed comforter. I could not have fought it through
without her help. And now, in more ways than one,
my darling's death has been fraught with blessing.
Friends who had grown bitter against me came back
for her sake and gave me their hands. All her influ-
ence has been good and holy like herself; there was
never such a mother, the world can never match such
love.
" I would give everything now for such faith as I once
felt. I have none. Christianity especially repels me
more than ever. Some time before she died my
mother said : ' What kind of a God can it be who
permits such suffering all over the earth? Strange
the ideas people have of a Providence,' and I feel
more and more that the ordinary religious ideas are
hateful. A man must accept Christianity all along
the line, i.e., miracles and all, or reject it altogether.
2 8o Robert Buchanan
And then what is left if we abandon the idea of
eternal life, as reason teaches us to do? Only a
horrible nightmare — a devil's dream.
" Yours,
" Robert Buchanan."
Feb. 22, 1895.
" Dear Walker, — I am so sorry you have been ill,
and as glad to hear you are all right again. It is
see-saw with us all, and I am now myself a little
seedy and over-worked. I am hoping to get out of
town very soon, for indeed I require a rest.
" Of course I'll send you the ' Devil's Case,' and
any work of mine which possesses my affection as
this does. It is a book which will be torn in pieces,
which will be thought by many to be the very acme
of human blasphemy ; but it is true for all that, and it
will live. I had just finished it when my beloved
mother died, and for a time I hesitated about pub-
lishing it, and I do so now because I am convinced
that she would have approved it, for even in her last
illness she clearly and penetratingly held to her old
eclectic faith. This is the dedication to her, which I
transcribe for the first time to you.
DEDICATION.
November, 1894.
While the life blood was spun
From the heart in her breast,
She look'd on her son,
Smiled, and rock'd him to rest. . . .
How swift the hours run
From the east to the west !
Erect stood the son,
And the mother was blest !
The Last Shadow 281
Of all the joys won
Love like his seemed the best,
He was ever her son
Whom she rock'd on the breast !
Yet lo ! all is done !
('Twas, my God, Thy behest)
In his turn the gray son
Rocks the mother to rest !
All is o'er, ere begun ! . . .
O my dearest and best,
Sleep in peace ! till thy son
Creepeth down to thy breast !
" The book itself ends with a new verse edition of
the Litany which will sadden the scribes and pharisees
of modern Christianity. Thanks for the lecture, and
for the kind allusion to your friend. It touched me
greatly, for I saw in it a fresh proof of your affection.
" I hope the Professor is mending a little — the
milder weather, which seems approaching, should help
him. Give my affectionate regards to him and to
Mrs. Blackie, who is well I trust, and believe me,
" Always yours,
" Robert Buchanan."
While the wound caused by his mother's death was
still open he wrote the following, which I give just as
I found it pinned to the pages of his diary. In judg-
ing it I trust the reader will remember that it was
written at a time when he was not in his normal
condition, that it came as it were from a despairing,
broken heart, but it possesses a peculiar interest
because it deals with the problem over which he
pondered all his life,
" In an article by the late Professor Clifford, entitled
' Virchow on the Teaching of Science,' and published
282 Robert Buchanan
in the Nineteenth Century, there is a very remarkable
passage concerning the expediency of promulgating
unproved doctrines, and especially the doctrine of
personal immortality. Professor Clifford was not the
sort of teacher from whom a thoughtful man could
learn much — he was far too rectangular and dogmatic
a thinker, but here, as on several other occasions, he
touched the very quick of truth. After pointing out
the necessity of caution in teaching the doctrine of
another life to the young, he asks the reader carefully
to consider two things. The first thing is, that by
teaching the doctrine too early we weaken its effect.
' Teach your children,' he said, ' to do good and to
eschew evil ; if in later life they can find hope of an
eternity of such action, it will make them happier, and
may make them better.' The next thing to be con-
sidered (and it is the only one of the two worth
serious thought at all, the other being a disingenuous
mode of suggesting ' don't teach religion at all ') is
' the frightful loss and disappointment you prepare for
your child if, as is possible in these days, he becomes
convinced later on that the doctrine is founded on in-
sufficient evidence.' It is not merely that you have
brought him up as a prince to find himself a pauper
at eighteen, he may have allowed this doctrine to get
inextricably mixed with his notions of right and
wrong. Then the overthrow of one will, at least for
a time, endanger the other. You leave him the sad
task of gathering together the wrecks of a life broken
by disappointment, and wondering whether honour
itself is left to him among them. Leave him free of
this doctrine, and his conscience will rest upon its true
base, safe against all storms, for it is built upon a
rock. Then he can never reproach you with having
raised hopes in him which knowledge is fated to blast.
The Last Shadow 283
and with them, it may be, to blast the promise of his
life.
" These are terrible words — terrible because they
are absolutely true. The loss of a belief in the
permanence of human personality, to a man who has
once entertained that belief, may be worse than dis-
illusion — it may be the very apocalypse of moral
despair. To some men, of course, the loss may mean
little or nothing, they have held their faith too lightly,
too indifferently, to murmur much over its departure.
But to the majority of men, and to all men of great
capacities of love, the awakening must be awful, full
of horror too deep for words.
" Well, that experience has in a sense been mine.
It has been lessened for only one reason, that it is
even as yet incomplete ; that I do not, even now,
quite believe the inexorable voice which, having
spoken the word of promise to the ear, has broken it
to the Soul. On every side of me, this almost absolute
darkness, with hardly a gleam of hope or light ; behind
me, the gate of that lost Paradise ; before me the
inevitable end of all. My faith has not quite for-
saken me, but so far from being upon a rock, it is
fixed on ever-shifting sands.
" It is time, I think, that a grown man, a man who
all his life fought on the side of the gods, should open
his heart out fully on this subject, narrate his ex-
perience, honestly avow his condition. Candour is
not in fashion, honesty will never be in fashion ; men
lie, and lie, and lie, often from the best of motives,
sometimes from the meanest, but now as yesterday
Hume's statement is true, that no prudent man speaks
openly of his real religion. I do not claim to be a
prudent man ; I know, long experience has taught
me, that I am a very imprudent one. But I am, by
284
Robert Buchanan
temperament, by early education, by long habit, a
believer in things supernatural, and I have been
many years, even more surely than Spinoza, ' God
intoxicated.' All my wish, all my prayer, all my
endeavour, has been to believe certain things — and
I have failed to do so.
" The doctrine of immortality was not taught me at
home when I was a child. My father was a Socialist,
my mother the daughter of a solicitor in Staffordshire,
with strongly heterodox views. I first heard the
name of God at a boarding-school near London,
where I was sent at a very early age. From that
moment I imbibed the natural superstition ; it
became part of the air I breathed. For many years
I believed as others do, and was happy enough.
Then, year after year, my belief lessened, and my
ideas changed. But it was not until I was nearly
fifty years of age that I rejected altogether the
sacrificial ideas of Christianity, then Christianity
itself and finally many of the ordinary articles of
natural religion. All that time I suffered no little
pain, parting one by one with my cherished halluci-
nations. I am not sorry however, that I once
cherished them. I am glad that I did not found
myself at the first on Professor Clifford's rock. I
have never found that the gain of any living truth
involved any sacrifice of honour.
" I know of course, the easy answer to all this,
ready in a thousand mouths, utterable from countless
newspapers and pulpits. I know how the lisping
Christian must scorn me, and how the honest
Christian will pity me. I shall be denounced again,
as I have often been, as an unbeliever, an atheist — as
if unbelief or atheism were crimes, as if any honest
opinion was an outrage ! How many of those who
The Last Shadow 285
answer me thus have been pondering the subject for
fifty years, honestly endeavouring, with all the zeal
of heart and soul, to believe? If I have failed to
believe, it is because, with every temptation to self-
deception, I have never closed my eyes when seeking
for the light.
" Here then is my conclusion on the subject which
to my thinking is the one of paramount importance
to human beings. It is a conclusion, remember,
framed at a time when my temperament is as ardent,
my spiritual vision as clear, my desire to believe as
overmastering as when I was a happy, credulous
child. Well, the belief in personal immortality, in
the survival of the Soul after death, is, as a matter of
practical reason, wholly untenable. Every proven
fact of Nature is against it. It has no kind of
corroboration in knowledge, in phenomena, in ex-
perience. The arguments brought to support it
would, if advanced in favour of any less eagerly
desired conclusion, be rejected with contemptuous
laughter.
" I put aside as irrelevant, of course, all that is
advanced in the way of what is called ' revelation,'
for to me there is no revelation in any statement
which conflicts with personal knowledge of the world
I live in. I am certain that miracles never happened,
and never will happen ; I am as certain of that as I
am that I live, and that I shall die. How, then, can
I get any help from creeds which are based on the
idea of miracles, and of that utterest miracle of all,
the personal Incarnation of a Jewish peasant, of an
unknown and unknowable God ?
" The belief in another life is, then, more than an
unproved doctrine — it is a doctrine at variance with
all human and natural phenomena, a doctrine
2 86 Robert Buchanan
maintained against overbalancing evidence on the
other side. If maintained at all it can only be in
the region of metaphysics, not that of empirical
reason. Stated briefly, the only possible argument
in favour of immortality is the negative argument
that human life is black as a drunkard's dream
without it This is Keats's assumption.
" Many able men, of course, like Professor Clifford,
maintain the contrary. The Materialist and the
Positivist alike aver that the world, even for men
who have to die, is an excellent world, and that it is
sheer sentiment to whine over the inevitable. My
present purpose, however, is not to deal with the
feelings of others, but with my own. I am quite
sure that I am a believer by temperament, just as
other men are by temperament unbelievers, and that
Professor Clifford's ' rock,' had I reached it in early
life, would never have appeased my longings. To
me, therefore, that one argument for another life is
still valid. When it becomes invalid to me, I shall
resign the hope of immortality altogether. I thank
God, however, it has not become so.
" At the same time I have looked Death in the
face, and realised that the belief I cling to, against
all practical reason, is naturally untenable. Let
me record as fully as I dare, when every word is
a rending of the heartstrings, a personal experience.
" Among all the troubles and vicissitudes of a
somewhat stormy life, one crowning blessing was
given to me, that of a love so supreme, a sympathy
so complete, that I sometimes feel as if it must have
been exceptional. For many years one light, one
consolation had never failed me. Whatever my sins
had been, whatever my follies (and they were many),
I was sure of the light on one dear face, and to that,
The Last Shadow 287
both in despair and happiness, I ever turned. A
time of worldly trouble came, I was struck down by
personal calamity ; I lay like a beaten slave in the
arena amid execrations from every side. Well, it did
not matter ; the one light was with me still, the one
voice still said, ' God bless you — all is well.' Now, the
sainted soul of whom I write had been educated, like
myself, in complete religious infidelity, a fact which
did not prevent her from being loving, large-minded,
compassionate to all created things ; but she too, like
myself, kept in her heart a faith, a hope, which she
seldom or never uttered — faith in the power of an
all-loving and all-merciful God.
" Suddenly, almost unexpectedly the end came, or
the beginning of the end, and I was sitting by the
bedside of her I loved, with the shadow of Death
upon us both. I will not speak of those sufferings,
those cruel and inexplicable tortures which it was my
doom to witness ; they were too horrible to behold,
too ghastly to remember. My sleepless nights were
divided between wild and despairing attempts to
retain the departing life, and by mad appeals to God
for mercy, for a little respite, for a few hours more of
love. Once as I sat there in the night I heard the
dear lips murmur thus : ' What strange ideas men
have of God ! What kind of a God must it be that
causes His creatures so much pain ? ' Then one
evening, when I had thrown myself down to snatch
a few minutes' rest, I was called, and from the sick-
bed came this last appeal, in tones so faint with
agony as to be almost inaudible : ' Don't keep me
here ! I want to go ! ' And after that we refrained
from trying to draw back the dear fluttering life, and
at last, Nature being unable to bear the load of pain
any longer, the spirit passed away. What followed
2 88 Robert Buchanan
must be familiar to all who have loved and lost : the
horrible stony change from life to nothingness, from
beauty to horror ; the hideous accompaniments of
hideous Death ; the pain and despair, the terror, the
desolation, the cry for help that has never come, the
prayer for belief that is seldom if ever granted. The
grave opened and closed and all was done.
" Again and again during my life I had dwelt with
death and sorrow — they were no new guests in my
desolate house ; but they had never till that hour
come in forms so terrible, so fatal to all hope. Now
mark what followed. The orthodox believer will
frown or smile at it, while the materialist will shrug
his shoulders. Sitting by the death-bed of one who
was dearer to me than my own life, I said to myself:
' I am not insane enough to ask God for any sign out
of the way of Nature, but I will accept any token,
however faint, as crowning proof that we must meet
again. If, for example, when I fall to sleep she
comes to me even in dreams, I will believe. Of one
thing I am certain, that if her spirit still survives, and
if any disembodied spirit can communicate with those
it loves, her spirit will communicate with me ; for I
to her, as she to me, am all the world, all happiness,
all life, all being.' That was my foolish feeling.
How was it answered ? When I managed to get a
little rest my consciousness was a dead blank.
Night after night, though every night I knelt by the
beloved dead and prayed for a token which never
came, my dreams were empty of that one dear face.
From that hour to this, though from the dawn of
every day to the coming of every night my thoughts
are full of the love that I have lost, the beloved
spirit has never come back to me even in the
dimmest dream.
The Last Shadow 289
" I shall be told, nay, I have been told, that this is
God's way of punishing me for my want of ' faith.'
But it is borne in upon me, as upon so many others,
that the experience of which I have spoken, i.e., the
absolute absence, even in moments of great suffering
and insight of any assurance, however faint, of the
survival of personality after death, is quite in harmony
with what we know of the physical basis of mind and
quite out of harmony with our unverified dream of
another life. God grants no signs, offers no corro-
borations. No spirit comes to tell us of the unknown
world, no dead man has ever slipped his shroud.
Every circumstance connected with the awful phe-
nomenon of Death points to the total extinction of
the living personality, or Soul.
" In the face of all this we are assured that miracles
of corroboration were done once to give us assurance
that we should believe, and that God, having once
proclaimed His secret to a small group of believers,
will never unveil His face again. We hear a great
deal moreover of the beauty of Death, of the divine
glimpses given at deathbeds, of the dim, pathetic
intimations received during the i?st moments of those
we love. Well, that is not my experience. I have
been again and again face to face with Death, and I
have never found it beautiful, have never had one of
those divine glimpses or pathetic intimations. All
my remembrance of Death is, that it is, when it
comes, invariably hideous, horrible, hopeless, and
awful. In our pitiful despair we try to flatter the
hateful grinning face, and to cheat ourselves into
some kind of blind faith in divine beneficence. But
Death is hideous, and every assurance that it gives
corroborates the scientific view of the evanescence of
individual life.
20
290 Robert Buchanan
" Feeling this, realising this, why have I not the
courage to admit to myself that Death is the inevit-
able end of all consciousness, and the dream of
another life is simply a mirage certain to fade away?
Cardinal Newman himself admitted with a sigh that
Nature as we know it gave no indication whatever of
divine goodness or beneficence, and that to believe in
God at all, blind faith was necessary. I have no such
faith ; but I retain my hope, simply and solely because
without it life is unexplainable. If this is the only
life we are to know, there is certainly no God, and if
there is no God, life is certainly, as I have said, a mere
drunkard's dream. This, I must repeat, is merely my
personal impression. Other men are content to
accept the world and its fleeting joys and sorrows,
and to ask no more, at least they say so and I must
believe them.
" We postulate another life, therefore, because this
life is incomplete and horrible without it ; but when
all is said and done the belief remains unverified, even
contradicted, daily by practical experience. It is a
nebulous hope, not a belief at all. As a hope it helps
and strengthens us ; as a fixed belief, connected with
any possible dogma, it would continue to do infinite
harm as it had done in the past."
CHAPTER XXIX
CLOSING SCENES
FROM the blow of his mother's death he never
really recovered, and though he returned to
his work it was not with the same heart, the same
enthusiasm. It was at this time (1895) that he
carried out an idea over which he had pondered for
some time, that of becoming his own publisher. In
this way he issued his last two volumes of poetry,
" The Devil's Case " and " The Ballad of Mary the
Mother," but the experiment was not successful, and
he tired of it almost as soon as it had been begun,
indeed so little interested was he in this new
departure that his stories " Effie Hetherington,"
" Marriage by Capture," and " Diana's Hunting "
were at that very time sold to and issued by Mr,
Fisher Unwin. In conjunction with myself he wrote
a couple of plays, " The Strange Adventures of Miss
Brown," produced by Mr. Frederick Kerr at the
Vaudeville Theatre, and the " Shopwalker," produced
by Mr. Weedon Grossmith also at the Vaudeville ;
and his last dramatic production was a version of
"Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr," and entitled, "Two
Little Maids from School." This adaptation, which
was also our joint work, was produced for a trial trip
at the Metropolc Theatre, Camberwell. It was staged
291
292 Robert Buchanan
under his sole direction, and at his own expense, and
was successfully produced on November 21, 1898, the
whole performance being creditable to every one
concerned in it. He was determined to do it well,
and to that end he spared no expense. The dresses,
supplied by Mrs. May, were sumptuous, and new
scenery was painted by the late Mr. Hall. The
company, too, was most efficient, and Miss Annie
Hughes, by her finished performance of Louise, took
Camberwell by storm.
The expense of new scenery, new dresses, new
music, 8z:c., being particularly heavy, it was a foregone
conclusion that, as the play was to be performed for
one week only, its author-manager could not come
out a gainer. As a matter of fact, however, his loss
was not great, and so delighted was he with the
result of his experiment, that he determined to re-
produce the piece in the spring for a run at a West
End theatre. But the play in question has never
since seen the light, for in the spring Robert
Buchanan had been stricken down by the illness
which ultimately caused his death.
At the time of the production of " Two Little
Maids from School " his health, which had been
indifferent for some time, seemed to have become
entirely re-established, for in looking over his diaries
I find the following entry made about a week after
the play had been withdrawn from representation.
" During the last few weeks I have felt particularly
well, better than I have done for months. I was
able to attend all the rehearsals of ' Two Little
Maids,' which were more than usually arduous, without
experiencing much fatigue. Intellectually, too, I
feel stronger, more fitted for the work I want and
mean to do, if I can keep in tolerably good form."
closing Scenes 29'^
J
During that Christmastide he was particularly jolly
and particularly happy. We filled the house with
guests, and he was the life and soul of the party, and
when the holidays were over he seemed to be all the
better for the fun and festivity, and was eager to take
up his work again. On the morning of January 5
1 899, he was going on some business to town, and I
was preparing to accompany him, when he strolled
into the dining-room and asked the maid to give him
some whiskey, remarking that he felt the morning very
cold. She was about to comply with his request
when she was startled by a wild cry of " O my God ! "
Looking up she saw that his face had become ghastly
white, that the expression of it was agonised, and
that he was pressing his left hand to his heart. It
needed but a moment to summon me to his side, and
by that time the perspiration was rolling down his
face and dripping from his hair. When we succeeded
in getting him to his room we tried every remedy
conceivable to alleviate the pain, but it was all of no
avail. Thus he remained till the arrival of the
doctor, when he gained relief from an injection of
morphia.
The illness which followed this attack lasted several
weeks, and though at the end of that time the patient
seemed to get better, he could not get well. He was
subject to intermittent attacks of pain which were
more or less severe, and which were only alleviated by
injections of morphia. The doctors advised a change
and we went to Brighton. From there he wrote to
Dr. Harry Campbell : " Thanks for your kind letter.
The day after being weighed at the chemist's and
scaling i6st. 81bs., I went on the pier and weighed
myself on one of the automatic things, scaling exactly
I 5st. Bibs., so that I am losing a sionc a day, and at
294 Robert Buchanan
the end of a week shall weigh about 8st. odd and be
able to ride in flat races ! Are you satisfied ? I still
keep very seedy and shan't stay here long if I don't
improve.
" Your remarks about the ' New Rome ' are very
kind. The book has been more or less boycotted,
owing to its non-patriotic character. Depend upon
it, it is a mistake to have any ideas of one's own on
any possible subject. The only way to thrive is to
shout with the crowd, and alas ! I can't do it. I
maun ' gang my ain gait,' and be content with the
esteem of the fit and few."
We remained in Brighton for about a fortnight,
then, as his health showed no sign of improvement,
and as his pulse kept alarmingly high, we returned
home. We arrived at Clapham on a bitterly cold day
at the end of February, and found the air thick with
fog and the Common covered with snow. A few
days later he was stricken with influenza, which was
quickly followed by double pneumonia. When the
violence of this second attack had passed away, and
while he was still confined to his bed, he managed,
with no little difficulty, to write the following : —
" To the Right Hon. W. E. H. Lecky.
" Dear Mr. Lecky, — I am at last able to sit up
and write a few letters, and my first impulse is to
send you my affectionate thanks for your great
sympathy and kindness to me at a time when I was
so helpless. It is good to think that there are such
men as you among us, to brighten the not too
abundant sunshine.
" I have never had so long an illness, or one in
which I was so completely incapable of thought of
Closing Scenes 295
any kind. I suppose it was fundamentally influenza,
but if so, Influenza is a frightful thing. The doctors
gave me up just before Broadbent was called, but
when he came I had taken a turn for the better.
" I shall not be equal to much for some time, I
fancy, but God willing, I shall soon put everything
right again.
" With thanks and thanks again for all your
sympathy,
" Believe me, always yours,
"Robert Buchanan."
As this last attack passed off I noticed a great
change in him. A restlessness had seized him, he
could not settle for any time either to read or write.
His pulse was constantly intermittent, and was never
lower than ninety. About the beginning of June we
again left town, going this time to a small furnished
house in Pevensey Bay. The house was not very
comfortable, and it was, moreover, somewhat depress-
ing, but the quiet and perfect unconventionality of
the little spot suited him so well that he resolved to
remain. At this time he learned by some means
that the first attack had been one of angina pectoris,
and he wrote to Dr. Harry Campbell : " I shall be in
London this week, from to-morrow till about Friday,
when we return to another house here. Should like
to see you when in town. Have had a very good
time on the whole, bathed about eight or nine times,
and been much out of doors. I want to find out once
for all if that a?igina attack is bound to return, or
whether there is any chance of escape from it ? You
have not been quite frank with me about it, I'm afraid!
I shall cross-examine you when we meet, and you
won't be able to hoodwink me on the subject."
296
Robert Buchanan
During that visit to town his fears were partially
allayed, and he returned to the second house in better
spirits than he had been for some time. We remained
at Pevensey Bay till the second week in October, and
had a very happy time there. The roads were good,
and he took up his cycling with relish, and he equally
enjoyed his dips in the sea. We made one or two
excursions to Bexhill, visiting together the places
which we had known so many years before ; we put
up a tent on the shore and spent most of our time
in the open air, taking our meals in the tent even on
wet days. We had a succession of visitors, and only
a few hundred yards from our front door stood the
house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Slaughter,
both jovial and most delightful companions. They,
too, had their visitors, and we formed a little colony
in ourselves. We all cycled, we all played cricket,
we all enjoyed to the full the sunny blue skies and
the rippling waves of the sea, and it seemed to me
that Mr. Buchanan was laying in a stock of health
which would last him for many years.
It was about this time that his attention was called
to a book which dealt with the cure of heart disease
by means of the Nauheim Baths, and on our return to
town he consulted the author of the work in question
and was advised by him to undergo a course of
treatment. It was not the season to go to Nauheim,
but he was assured that certain ingredients could
be used and the baths taken quite as effectively at
home. Two courses were open to him — he could
either remain in London, or he could go to Hastings
and place himself under the care of a local doctor
and a nurse, the special attention of both a doctor
and a nurse being necessary, as the patient while
undergoing the treatment required to be very care-
closing Scenes 297
fully watched. Mr. Buchanan chose to adopt the
latter course. We arrived at Hastings during the
first week in December, and a few days after our
arrival the first bath was taken ; after the second bath
the patient was prostrated by a severe stomach
attack, and so for a time they were discontinued, and
he took to his bed, passing his Christmas Day in the
endurance of much pain. The attack, however,
passed off, leaving him little, if any, the worse for it —
indeed, between Christmas Day and New Year's Day
he was sufficiently recovered to write the following
article, which appeared in the Sunday Special. I give
it in its entirety, because, being almost the last thing
he wrote, it will have become invested with special
interest to the public.
" The End of the Century.
" Sitting apart by the troubled waters of the Sea,
close to the Eve of the last Year of a wonderful
Century, I, the writer of these leaves, am conscious of
three great Personalities, with each of whom I have
had more or less personal communication. Of the
first I wrote only a few days ago in these columns,
to the second I carried my affection and my homage,
somewhat over a decade ago, in America ; the third
is still with us in England, flashing the light of his
inspiration far away into the Age to come. All
three, I fear, have been Dreamers, staking their
eternal salvation on ideas which are still more or less
indifferent to our latter-day Civilisation ; all three
represent what is visionary rather than what is fixed
and real ; yet the influence of all three is potent still,
in spite of the World's forgetfulncss, indifference, or
neglect. The first represents Fairyland, the second
298
Robert Buchanan
Democracy, the third Philosophy ; and strange to
say all three words, like all three men, possess a
meaning which is interchangeable ; for when the
hope of Democracy is realised, the prophecy of
Philosophy will be fulfilled, and finally we shall
discover that the World is Fairyland after all!
" ' The World knows little of its wisest men.' On
my arrival in the United States some twelve years
ago, I discovered to my amazement that the one
great poet whom America had produced, the one man
whose electric thought had travelled into Europe to
illuminate the Eastern mind, was practically non-
existent to the popular or Bostonian intelligence,
while innumerable men of straw (or snow, or mud, or
plaster) were set up in every literary market-place
and photographed in every magazine. ' Where are
your gods, O Americans ? ' I demanded ; and, ' Look
round,' they answered, * they are here ! ' I looked
around and I beheld them : divers deft man-milliners
and drapers, busy in the manufacture of European
underclothing and the importation of fashionable hats
from Paris; an amiable old gentleman playing old
Lutheran hymns on a musical-box made in Germany,
a belated Quarterly Reviewer, plus Poetaster, posing
in an English court dress as a lover of Liberty and a
pioneer ; and half a hundred other deities of the
same sort, from a good-humoured medical prac-
titioner and Chatterbox in Boston to a Byron in red
shirt and breeches just discovered out West. I asked
for bread, and they offered me Publisher's or Nestl6's
food ; I inquired about Walt Whitman, and they
volubly assured me that Lowell and Holmes and
Longfellow were still alive ! Then faintly remember-
ing that the literary classes in America had not used
Whitman very kindly, I said as much to an authori-
Closing Scenes 299
tative city Scribe, who combined the avocations of
banking and poetical criticism. ' O you are quite
mistaken,' was his reply, ' we have never been unkind
to Whitman. On the contrary, we all like the old
fellow exceedingly, and are very sorry for him ! '
" There it was— they liked him exceedingly, and
were very sorry for him ! — as the learned gentlemen
in Greece were sorry for Socrates, as the more
strenuous gentlemen in Palestine were sorry for one
still Divine.
" I sent my New Year's greetings to Walt
Whitman, with the assurance that at least half a
dozen Englishmen joined with me in that message of
affectionate homage ; and shortly afterwards I visited
him personally in his lonely lodgings in New Jersey,
across the ferry from Philadelphia. He was old,
worn, weary and weather-beaten but when the
chord of fellowship was struck as gently dominant
and simply wise as ever. The rooms where he dwelt
were very poor, his diet appeared chiefly to consist of
brackish tea and custard pie — many English labourers
indeed have better shelter and more sumptuous fare.
And his talk ! Well, I have heard Scottish peasants
and English mariners talk as simjaly, with something
of the same grave faith in the Law of Life which flows
to righteousness. His very vanity was beautiful and
childlike. I had with me a lady who had been
reared in the belief that Walt was a great and Christ-
like man, and when she asked for his photograph he
offered her not one but many, writing his autograph
under each with boyish satisfaction and delight. Yet
with all this he was sublimely free of the slightest
literary self-consciousness, only it seemed to him the
most natural thing in the world that we should be
there with him, offering him the eager tribute of our
300 Robert Buchanan
love. He had not one word of regret over his pitiable
poverty, or of bitterness towards the literary classes
which had insulted and neglected him ; he was
perfectly satisfied with himself, with the world, with
all Humanity. Though he loved such simple fame
as came to him, though praise and sympathy made
him happy, he did not live for these things — his
thoughts were fixed higher, in the region of a perfectly
peaceful and innocent Joy of Life.
" ' Pioneers, O Pioneers ! ' As I sat and looked at
Walt, with his own brave words ringing in my brain,
I thought of that other great Personality (first of the
three to be memorised in this article), who, unlike
the American, had spent all his days in the full light
and prosperity of earthly Fame. At a first glance no
two writers could seem so different, so utterly unlike, as
Walt Whitman and Charles Dickens ; yet the instant
that I shook hands with Walt, and shared his custard
pie, and saw how simple and sweet and childlike he
was to the bottom of his big heart, I knew that
Democracy, too, meant Fairyland, the one real
Fairyland of Brotherhood and Love. It would need
the pen of Dickens himself to describe the good grey
Poet as he sat there, despised by all the Talents, but
surrounded by all the Elves ! His own countrymen
knew him not, but the spirits of Democracy had
woven for him an immortal crown !
" What Dickens found in the dark streets of this
City of London, Walt discovered everywhere in the
many-coloured life of x'\merica, the spirit of natural
Love and Sympathy filling every occupation with
enchantment and turning Earth into Wonderland.
Whitman expressed in colossal cypher the same
rudimentary Joy of Life, the same elemental passions
and affections, which Dickens expressed in delightful
closing Scenes 301
Fairy Tales ; and in both one faith was supreme and
dominant, faith in Man and in the divinity of Man's
human destiny. Democracy to Walt was Fairyland,
because it meant Joy and Love incarnate, emerging
wherever human beings lived and breathed. Walt
was a great Poet and Philosopher, Dickens was a
great Poet and Romancist, but both were close akin
in that elemental faith of which I have spoken, and
both were simple, lovable, child-like men — Dickens
in spite of his popularity and waistcoats, Walt in
spite of that florid diffusiveness which caused him to
be christened by an English criticaster as ' the Jack
Bunsby of Parnassus ! '
" It was not until some years later that I found
myself face to face with the third of the great
Personalities to whom my thoughts are turning at
this close of the Year, and of whom, since he still
lives, I must speak more guardedly, though not less
reverently. At the first glance, again, he was utterly
unlike the others, yet the instant that we met I
realised that the Philosopher, as well as the Romancist
and the Democrat, was a Wanderer from Fairyland !
For many a long day I had drunk knowledge and
inspiration from his inspired pages, and once or twice
we had corresponded, and now it fell about that we
were near neighbours, I dwelling at Hampstead, he
at Avenue Road, Regent's Park. Little did I fancy
as I entered his doors for the first time that I should
find the Elves of Dreamland even there ! He who had
proclaimed the doom of all the gods, who had ex-
plored all the Heavens of Theology, and found every
throne therein empty, was as veritable a dreamer, as
gentle and child-like an optimist as either Dickens
or Whitman. And moreover his Dream was their
Dream — the perfectibility of human nature the
302 Robert Buchanan
gradual growth of Love and Altruism among men,
until the Earth in the good time coming should be
a Fairy Place indeed !
" As full as either of those others of the beautiful
Joy of Life, as simple as Dickens, as brave and fearless
as Whitman, Herbert Spencer sat there apart, ' hold-
ing no form of creed yet contemplating all' For
year after year, in the face of constant physical
illness, with the flame of life often flickering so low
as to threaten to go out altogether, he had devoted
himself to the perfection of that great Synthesis
which has made his name memorable wherever
human Science is known and understood. For so
mighty an achievement, so splendid a devotion to
pure thought, we must go as far back as Spinoza,
but Spinoza was never so stretched upon the rack of
pain, he had never to fight so wearily for very breath.
But what was most wonderful in the personality of Mr.
Spencer was the cheerfulness, the sweet reasonable-
ness, the simplicity of his outlook on Life, and his
buoyant delight in human activity and joy. There
was indignation, of course, and deep resentment
against things evil in our political and social systems,
but no faltering, no bitterness, no despair !
" The kernel of Herbert Spencer's moral teaching
is that Race is continually advancing through the
gradual adaptation of human nature to the con-
ditions of social life ; that, in other words, the
egoistic impulses are decreasing in favour of the
impulses which are altruistic. It is far outside
the scope of the present paper to criticise a philo-
sophy which is illustrated with such a perfection of
illustrative detail, and illuminated with all the light
of modern Science. One feature of it however, is of
extraordinary interest at the present moment, when
Closing Scenes 303
the Century is drawing to a close, and that is the
beHef that as Humanity advances, Wars must de-
crease. Instead of the miHtant type characterising
the struggle of Nations as well as of individuals for
existence, the industrial type triumphs. Life becomes
less painful and more beneficent, and the race grows
nearer and nearer to a state of ultimate perfection.
This is the belief of the profoundest thinker of the
century, and without daring to assert whether it is
true or false, justified or not justified by the teachings
of History, I still think that it is in its very essence a
beautiful Dream, like Dickens's Dream of human
Fairyland, like Whitman's Dream of a triumphant
Democracy. At the present juncture particularly,
when a great wave of Militantism appears to be
sweeping us back bodily into Barbarism, it is as
difficult to believe in one Dream as in either of the
others.
*' New Year's Eve comes again, and in little more
than a year the wonderful Century will be completed.
What has it taught us ? What has it brought to us,
and what has it taken away? The delight in Fairy-
land has vanished with Dickens and the other
Dreamers. Democracy has dwindled and become
half-hearted with the passing away of Whitman
and his fellow humanitarians. Herbert Spencer sur-
vives, holding aloft the torch of Science, and flashing
its rays into the dark Future. When he too leaves
us, who will seize the torch of the Optimist, and pass
the inspiring message on ?
" Reflect for a moment how the last Century ended,
after the thrones of Empire had been shaken, and
Humanity had hailed its Avatar, who melted away
in his season like a man of Snow. The Dream
of human perfection filled the air. Prophets in
304 Robert Buchanan
England echoed the cry which Rousseau and the
rest had raised in France, and which had passed from
mouth to mouth as far away as the remotest East
and West. Great Poets were singing the hopes of
the human race ; Byron and Shelley, Schiller and
Goethe were full of the Golden Age to come. War
was indeed decreasing. Industrialism, and Altruism
were indeed triumphing. With the advance of the
Century came the final apotheosis of natural Science,
the discrediting of Superstition and Supernaturalism,
and the realising of Goethe's great Vision, ' The
Draining of the Marsh ! ' More practical good was
done in a decade for poor Humanity by human Know-
ledge than had been done by Supernaturalism in
hundreds of years. It seemed indeed that the Earth
was to become a fairy place, the fit habitation of
creatures who were slowly learning to love one another.
" But, alas ! as the new Century grew older and
older, men awoke to the fact that something had
been lost, although so much had been achieved and
gained. In its exultation at the discovery of new
truths. Humanity had forgotten that deeper than all
Science, more paramount than all progress, had been
the belief in God — the God emerging — the God that
has been, is, and is to be. That belief being practi-
cally dead, the voices of all the Prophets suddenly
became silent, the music of great Poets was heard no
more. True, here and there a voice was heard crying
vainly for light and comfort. Poor Tennyson turned
his eyes from the human God emerging, to bewail
the God who was dead and buried, the militant
and national God of a discredited supernaturalism.
Carlyle, a broken-hearted, grey-hair'd child, cried
aloud in his despair that ' God did nothing,' and
so passed wearily away.
closing Scenes 305
" And now ?
"The Poets and the Fairy Tale-tellers are silent,
Democracy and Humanitarianism are almost as dis-
credited as Christianity, the Dream of perfection is
over, and instead of the old Fairyland we have the
endless babble of journalism and the triumph of the
Banjo in the Street ! Among all the great Prophets
of the dying Century, only one remains to us — Herbert
Spencer, on his sick-bed, still proclaiming Utopia,
in the very face of a steadily increasing Darkness !
Great indeed must be his faith if it has survived until
this moment. So far, unfortunately, it has only been
translated into the literature of imagination by the
inspired pupil-teacher, who turned its moral axioms
into the vocabulary of Miss Pinkerton's Academy for
Young Ladies ; but George Eliot is already forgotten,
or is remembered, if at all, only for her occasional
somewhat flat-footed ventures into Fairyland.
" ' Pioneers, O pioneers ! ' Whence will they come
now, and what will they preach ? The new Century
is close upon us, and all the old Creeds (including
the last despairing Dream of a transcendental Ethics,
offered to poor men and women as a substitute for
the Joy of Life) have been contemptuously rejected.
Up to the present hour no one has suggested a
reasonable substitute. Are we drifting carelessly
back to Barbarism after all, and beginning all over
again by cutting each other's throats ? " ^
' " Latter Day Leaves."
21
CHAPTER XXX
THE LAST SCENE OF ALL
ONCE the New Year had fairly begun, Mr.
Buchanan, who had not lost faith in the
Nauheim system, determined to recommence the
baths. He took them with the utmost regularity,
and with strict adherence to all the rules, but the
result was disastrous. His pulse, instead of falling,
rose, and was often intermittent and irregular.
Added to this he was rapidly losing flesh. He
became alarmed, had a serious talk with his doctor,
and on learning from him that his disease was
mortal and that there was absolutely no hope of
cure, he hastily returned to London.
From the moment of his return to the great city
his strength steadily declined. The doctors did all
they could to reassure him, but his spirit seemed
broken and his old hopefulness and cheerfulness
gone. On March i6th he wrote to Dr. Stodart
Walker : " Since I wrote to you I have been suffering
infinite torments. I went to Hastings to try
some Nauheim baths, and they did me more harm
than good, and since then I have had a series of
illnesses with much pain. I had to use morphia and
it upset my nervous system terribly. Just now I am
30G
The Last Scene of All 307
trying vainly to conquer the nightly pain without
resorting again to the infernal drug.
" My only prayer is that I may live for a year or
two and complete certain work. I am miserable too,
because if I go now my dear and only companion
will be left penniless, at the mercy of the world.
With a very little more time I can alter that.
Imagine, my dear friend, how deep my sorrow has
been during the last few months ! Sometimes
indeed I have felt as if my heart was broken. But
after all why should I grieve ? " " Dear Friend " (he
wrote a few months later), " thanks for your kind
letter. For the last two months I have been troubled
with pain in the chest, chiefly at night, and lately I
have dreaded the coming of the dark. Broadbent
suggested morphia (injected) and while it brought
relief the morphia made me miserably ill. I am now
under the care of Doctor Morrison, trying to fight
the pain without morphia, hitherto without avail.
Morrison is confident of pulling me round. I will
never, he says, be altogether ' fit ' but the affection of
the heart is slight and is not in fact the cause of my
present pain and trouble. I hope he is right, and
that I shall put in a few more years."
The trying of a new system under a new doctor
seemed to give him fresh hope. His health im-
proved, and though the improvement was not great it
was enough to relieve the state of terrible depression
into which he had fallen. As the weather grew warmer
he longed to get away from London, so we went to
a small furnished house at Deal. " We are here by
the briny" (he wrote to Dr. Gorham); "and I have
had one or two runs on the cycle with quite pleasant
results. The weather is delightful though a little cold,
and I am looking forward to seeing you down."
3o8
Robert Buchanan
Though the air of Deal was very health giving and
was certainly doing him much good, he was soon
eager to be on the move again. " I expect to be in
town for a few days after this week, so don't have a
fit if you see my spectre at your door ! " A few days
later he wrote, " I don't think the new cycle cure for
heart-disease wholly commendable ! I have had
several accidents — once being chucked at a dead
wall in trying to avoid child-slaughter, and only two
days ago being nearly run over ! In the last affair I
was walking, wheeling the bike, and I got into trouble
in trying to save Betsy, and only escaped by
turning a summersault under the carriage wheels !
Seriously, apart from these accidents, I don't seem
any the worse, but the weather is beastly, and does
not give me a fair chance." ^
Our visit to London lasted a fortnight ; at the end
of that time we set out for France, our destination
being Cap Gris-nez, where we were to occupy a small
furnished house called Villa Gris-nez, the property of
Monsieur Ducloy. At first is seemed that this move
would be productive of much happiness. The villa
was charming, and attached to it was a French cook
called Rosalie, who was an artist in her way, and
who produced dainties which would have tempted
the most fastidious appetite in the world. Only a
few yards from our door was the residence of
Monsieur Ducloy's daughter, Madame Paul, whose
house was filled with guests of all nationalities. We
were constantly invited to join their social evenings
or picnics on the shore, but Mr. Buchanan elected to
live the life of a recluse, his sole recreation being
short cycle rides which we took together, while in
the evenings he would sit in the flower garden in
' Letter to Dr. Gorham.
KnliKltl l!l ( IIANAN AM) "]>i;TSV."
(Last Portrait.)
To /(ice jxiyf Iill!s
The Last Scene of All 309
front of the villa and smoke his cigarette and chat
with Monsieur Ducloy or play a game of chess with
Monsieur Paul. He had brought with him boxes
full of books and papers, but he could not settle his
thoughts sufficiently to be able either to read or
write. Our occupation of the villa lasted only four
weeks, and during that time we had a visit from
Dr. Gorham, who was so alarmed at the state of
mind in which he found his patient that he urged
him at once to take up his work again. The two
had many long, earnest conversations on the subject,
and on his return to London the doctor emphasised
his advice by writing and urging it even more
strongly. " Thanks for your letter " (wrote Mr.
Buchanan). " I quite gather what you mean about
uphill cycling, &c., but really if one cycles at all there
must be ups and downs. Anyhow I purpose
migrating at the end of my month, but I think it will
be back to your side of the water. Since you left
I've had horrible neuralgia, and neuralgic headaches,
damp plays the devil with me and always did.
To-day the weather is sunnier and brighter, thank
God ! I shall try my best to work, but alas ! I never
could do anything unless I felt the afflatus. I dor^t
misunderstand your diagnosis ; it was good advice to
tell me to shake off my restlessness and work a little
daily, and since you were here I've tried to follow it.
" Our month expires on Wednesday, August 22nd,
and we shall certainly leave then — whither to go I am
not yet quite certain. I don't think I should hasten
back to perfidious Albion, if it were not that I am
dying to see Betsy!! After all, she is the only
thing, pace Miss Jay, that reconciles me to human
life." I
' Letter to Dr. Gorham.
3IO Robert Buchanan
On August 25th we left Cap Gris-nez, and on our
arrival in London he wrote, " We stopped last night
at Folkestone, and I hate, hate, HATE everything
English after the earwigs and Rosalie ! I don't
purpose remaining here many days, but I shall look
you up and curse you for luring me from France." ^
He was now exercised in his mind as to where we
should spend the winter. To remain in London
seemed impossible on account of the delicacy of his
chest, so after some discussion we fixed upon Bos-
combe, where we arrived early in September. Here
again disappointment faced him. " I don't think I
shall ever care for Bournemouth " (he wrote) ; " it is
too noisy and suburban, full of fly-blown lodging:
houses and streets disinfected by the water-cart.
No, it won't do — and I wonder what led people to
recommend it." ^
After much persuasion I induced him to remain
and familiarise himself a little with his new sur-
roundings, hoping by that means to induce him to
settle down quietly for the winter months. Our stay
in Boscombe lasted four or five weeks. We did a
good deal of cycling, which he enjoyed hugely, and
he returned to his work, writing chiefly at his poetry.
He was at this time comparatively free from pain,
and very gradually his restlessness and bitterness
passed away. He began to enjoy his life again, and
his heart grew more than usually tender to all living
things. But although his mind became more com-
posed and his health improved in many ways, he did
not seem able to settle at Boscombe. " I think of
coming to London " (he wrote on October 3rd),
" and am writing for some rooms near the Langham.
You will be glad, I know, to hear that during the last
' Letter to Dr. Gorham.
The Last Scene of All 311
few weeks I have been getting on famously with
work. You were quite right, and I had to get back
my writing power or lose it for ever. At first the
place seemed lowering, and we had constant colds,
but we are beginning to like it and shall possibly
return later." ^
The next and last communication from him which
I am able to quote is a postcard, written to Dr.
Gorham. It runs thus : —
" Our address for a few days after to-morrow
(Monday, October 8th) will be 9, Duchess Street
Portland Place W.
" We shall of course try to see you, but if you are
passing westward, pray look in. — Always, R. B."
We arrived at the rooms in Duchess Street on
Monday, October 8, 1900, and all those friends who
saw him at that time were amazed at the wonderful
improvement in his health, for his old gaiety of spirit
seemed to have come back to stay. His interest in
his work was keener than it had been for years, and
he was never tired of talking over future plans.
Although we had taken rooms in the busiest part of
London he continued his cycling as before, going
about among the traffic with an intrepidity which
filled me with terror. On Wednesday, October 17th,
he went to the Avenue Theatre, saw and greatly
enjoyed the performance of " A Messenger from
Mars." On the Thursday morning he interviewed
several people on business, and got a little excited in
conversation, and just before dinner, when we were
again alone, he took up the evening paper, and after
looking at it for a few minutes put it down again,
saying he could not see very well. I thought he
must have tired himself, and persuaded him to cease
' Letters to Dr. Gorham.
312 Robert Buchanan
reading till after dinner. The symptom passed away
and he thought no more of it.
The next morning, Friday, October 19th, his high
spirits had not deserted him, for I heard him whistling
merrily before he came in to breakfast. I asked him
if the muddled vision had troubled him again, and he
replied in the negative, assuring me that he felt par-
ticularly well in every way. Breakfast over and the
morning papers read, we set off on our bicycles
together.
After a ride in Regent's Park, which lasted close
upon two hours, we returned home. He partook of
a hearty lunch, and then fell asleep in an easy chair
beside the fire. He awoke refreshed, and after he
had drunk a cup of tea and had written some half-
dozen letters, proposed that we should cycle again.
" I should like to have a good spin down Regent
Street," he said. Those were the last words he ever
spoke, for five minutes later the cruel stroke had
descended upon him which rendered him helpless as
a little child.
For eight months, passed in the endurance of much
pain, his life was spared. On the morning of the
1 0th of June, 1901, he passed away in blessed
unconsciousness, in the sixtieth year of his age.
At the Graveside.
By Henry Murray.
As the train winds swiftly from the turmoil and
clangour of Liverpool Street, through the bustling
city and the squalid suburbs, making its way at last
into the fresh open country, where the golden glint
of the gorse and the ruddy splendour of the poppy
Thk Pokt's Gkavk.
To face page :!12.
The Last Scene of All 313
contrast with the tranquil verdure of the grass and
the soft blue of the over-arching sky, the journey
seems to present a confused allegory of the passage
of a Soul from the troubled waters of existence to
the calm of death. The temper of the day would
almost seem in purposed keeping with the mood of
the little band of friends who are escorting all that
is mortal of Robert Buchanan to its last resting-place.
Twice during the brief journey the fleeting clouds
which chequer the blue of the air disperse themselves
in a light rain, leaving the heavens fresh and fair
again. We are precisely such a company as our
friend would have desired to have about him at this
moment ; not a swarm of perfunctory mourners
attracted by the splendour of a reputation, but a
chosen few whose days have been brightened by his
friendship. His sister-in-law and adopted daughter,
the gentle lady whose affectionate care made bear-
able so many hours of pain ; the good physician,
most genial of Irishmen, whose kindly skill made
smooth the rugged path he trod so patiently ; the
old servant who represents the faithful service of the
antique world — these, and a handful of his closest
friends, whose faces were often seen about his table,
and, in these sad days about his bed, form the
cortege.
Through the monotonous clank of the train which
bears us down to Southend-on-Sea ; through the
hush which silences the babble of the passengers in
the streets of the little town as the funeral procession
slowly passes to the churchyard ; mingling, not in-
appropriately nor unworthily with the sublime and
pathetic cadences of the Burial Office and the
yearning voice of the organ, with the murmur of
prayer and the muttered response^ at the grave-side,
314 Robert Buchanan
and the soft rustle of the over-arching trees, the lines
addressed by the dead poet to the mother who lies
beneath the flower-strewn coffin are beating in my
brain : —
" When the life-thread was spun
From the blood in her breast,
She look'd on her Son,
Smiled, and rocked him to rest. . . .
How swift the Hours run
From the East to the West !
Erect stood the son.
And the Mother was blest.
Yet lo ! all is done !
('Twas, O God, Thy behest !)
In his turn the gray son
Rocks the Mother to rest.
AH is o'er, ere begun ! . . . .
O my dearest and best,
Sleep in peace — till thy Son
Creepeth down to thy breast ! "
The ever-rolling, silent hours have done their work,
and Robert Buchanan stands on the other side of
the great gulf impassable, side by side with the mother
he worshipped and the wife he loved. Those simple
and terrible lines, which were so often on his lips, as
the problem they suggest dwelt so constantly in his
mind —
" Le passe n'est pour nous qu'un triste souvenir,
Le present est affreux, s'il n'est point d'avenir.
Si la nuit du tombeau detruit I'etre qui pense " —
ring in my ears a sad antiphony to his tender and
beautiful verses, almost as if I heard them again
spoken by his voice. What is it that is here in the
coffin at my feet — the husk and shell, the outworn
The Last Scene of All 315
envelope, the discarded garment — or alH The gene-
rous hand whose pressure was so warm within my
own is cold, the brilliant brain is darkened, the eyes
which looked so frankly and bravely on the world
are closed, the kindly lips have spoken their last
word of hope and counsel. Is it indeed the end?
For us, yes. For him ? He thought not so. Only
a few hours before the falling of the swift and cruel
stroke which severed him, eight months ago, from
the society of living men, he had said that " God and
his own soul were the only entities of whose real
existence he had living proof." To one who knows
with what reluctance he said farewell to so many
once passionately cherished beliefs, may it not be
permitted at this last moment to wish, if not to hope,
that the pleasant dream may be something more
than merely a dream ; that Robert Buchanan and
his mother, his wife, and the long-lost friend of his
youth, David Gray, have met again, and are awaiting
in the peace of perfect understanding and of certain
hope, the advent of those other friends they left
behind on earth ?
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE POETICAL
AND PROSE WRITINGS OF ROBERT
BUCHANAN.
" Poems and Lo\'e Lyrics." Published by Thomas Murray and
Son, of Glasgow ; Sutherland and Knox, of Edinburgh ;
Hall, Virtue and Co., of London.
1863.
" Undertones." (Poems.) Published by Edward Moxon
and Co.
1865.
" Idyls and Legends of Inverburn.'' (Poems.) Published
by Alexander Strahan.
1866.
" London Poems." Published by Alexander Strahan.
" Ballad Stories of the Affections." (Translated from the
Danish.) Published by George Routledge and Sons.
1867.
" North Coast and other Poems." Published by George
Routledge and Sons.
1868.
" David Gray and other Essays." Published by Sampson,
Low, Son and Marston.
1870.
"The Book of Orm." (Poem.) Pubhshed by Alexander
Strahan.
" Napoleon Fallen." (Lyrical Drama.) Published by
Alexander Strahan.
316
Poetical and Prose Works 317
1871.
"The Drama of Kings." (Dramatic Poem.) Published by
Alexander Strahan.
"The Land of Lome." (Sketches in the Hebrides.) Pub-
lished by Chapman and Hall.
1872.
"The Fleshly School of Poetry." (Pamphlet.) Published by
Alexander Strahan.
"St. Abe and his Seven Wives." (Poem.) Published
anonymously by Alexander Strahan,
1873-
"White Rose and Red." (Poem.) Published anonymously
by Alexander Strahan.
1874.
" Master Spirits.'' (Essays.) Published by Henry S. King
and Co.
1876.
"The Shadow of the Sword," (Novel.) Published by
Richard Bentley and Son.
1877.
" Balder the Beautiful." (Poem.) Published by W. Mullan.
1881.
"God and the Man." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus,
"A Child of Nature." (Novel.) Published by Richard
Bentley and Son.
1882.
"The Martyrdom of Madeline." (Novel.) Published by
Chatto and Windus.
"Ballads of Life, Love, and Humour." Published by Chatto
and Windus.
"Love Me for Ever." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
"Annan Water." (Novel.) Pubhshcd by Chatto and
Windus.
3i8 Poetical and Prose Works
1884.
"Foxglove Manor." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
" The Now Abelard." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
1885.
"The Earthquake." (Poem.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
" The Master of the Mine." (Novel.) Published by Chatto
and Windus.
" Matt." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and Windus.
" Stormy Waters." (Novel.) Published by John Maxwell.
1886.
"That Winter Night. (Novel.) Published by Simpkin,
Marshall, and Co.
1887.
" A Look Round Literature." (Essays.) Published by Ward
and Downey.
"The Heir of Linne." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
1888.
"The City of Dream." (Poem.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
1890.
"The Moment After." (Story.) Published by William
Heinemann.
1891.
" The Outcast." (Poem.) Published by Chatto and Windus.
"The Coming Terror, and Other Essays." Published by
William Heinemann.
1892.
" Come Live with Me and be My Love." (Novel.) Published
by William Heinemann.
" The Buchanan Ballads." Published by John Haddon.
1893.
"The Wandering Jew. (Poem.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
"Woman and the Man." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
Poetical and Prose Works 319
1894.
" Red and White Heather." (Tales and Ballads.) Published
by Chatto and Windus.
1895-
"Lady Kilpatrick." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and
Windus.
" The Charlatan." (Novel written in collaboration witli
Henry Murray.) Published by Chatto and Windus.
1896.
" The Devil's Case." (Poem.) Published by the Author.
"Diana's Hunting." (Story.) PubHshed by Fisher Unwin.
"Marriage by Capture." (Story.) Published by Fisher
Unwin.
" Effie Hetherington." (Novel.) Published by Fisher Unwin.
1897.
" The Ballad of Mary the Mother." Published by the Author.
1898.
" Father Anthony." (Novel.) Published by John Long.
" The Rev. Anabel Lee." (Novel.) Published by Pearson
and Co.
1900.
"The New Rome." (Poems.) Published by Walter Scott,
of Edinburgh.
" Andromeda." (Novel.) Published by Chatto and Windus.
INDEX
"Aloxe in London," production
of, 226 ; success of, 236
Andersen, Hans Christian, Robert
Buchanan meets, loi
"Annan Water," when written,
"Balder the Beautiful," 209 ;
proem to, 210
"Ballad of Mary the Mother,
The," publication of, 291
" Ballad Stories of the Affections,"
when written, 136
"Ballads of Life, Love, and
Humour," publication of, 228
Bexhill, life at, n8
Blanc, Louis, 13, 14
Black, William, 104, 137
" Black Domino, The," production
of, 243
" Book of Orm, The," when writ-
ten, 136 ; extracts from, 139, 140
Braddon, Miss M. E., 95
" Bride of Love, The," production
of, 244 ; Mr. Bronson Howard's
opinion of, 245
Browning, Robert, his first meet-
ing with Robert Buchanan, iio ;
Robert Buchanan's first impres-
sion of, 110 ; his love of praise,
no ; Robert Buchanan his
kindest critic, in ; Robert
Buchanan's attitude towards,
III ; his horror of sudden death,
112 ; his last meeting with
Robert Buchanan, 114
Buchanan, Robert, his birth, 1,3,
8 ; his feelings towards his
parents, 8 ; his upbringing, 9 ;
his early recollections, 10-16 ;
goes to Glasgow, 17 ; among
the Socialists, 18 ; is persecuted
on account of his father's views,
18 ; his early religious instincts,
19 ; his yearnings for immor-
tality, 20 ; his homesickness,
23 ; his first scribblings in
verse, 23 ; his restlessness at
school, 24 ; his first love, 25 ;
his first contributions to the
press, 26 ; his first poem is
sold and published, 27 ; his
dramatic yearnings, 31 ; in-
fluence of " King Lear " on,
31-35 ; his poetic yearnings,
41 ; proposes going to London
to seek his fortune, 44 ; his
journey to London, 45 ; his
arrival and first wanderings in
London, 46 ; his first friend
and first night in London, 47 ;
his second day in London, 48 ;
his lack of hero-worship, 55 ;
his love of " Bohemia," 56 ; his
pride, 56 ; his charity, 86 ; his
loneliness in London, 88 ;
edits the Welcome Guest, 95 ;
returns to his father's house,
96 ; his first and only appear-
ance as an actor, 97 ; turns
aside from the theatre, 99 ; his
marriage, 100 ; visits Denmark,
loi ; contributes to Temple Bar,
102 ; his first visit to Etretat,
125 ; returns to Scotland, 129 ;
his feelings with regard to
sport, 137 ; his love of animals,
140-142 ; his first breakdown
320
Index
321
in health, 156 ; his monetary
difficulties, 156 ; his public
readings, 157 ; receives a pen-
sion from Government, 158 ;
brings an action for libel, 166 ;
leaves Oban, 169 ; his first visit
to Malvern, 170 ; his second
visit to Malvern, 171 ; his first
visit to Ireland, 172 ; his first
idea of novel-writing, 183 ;
publishes and edits Li^hf, 214 ;
his second visit to Ireland, 214 ;
his first visit to Southend, 219 ;
his views on Christianity, 222-
224 ; his pantomime, 228 ; his
trip to America, 226 ; offered
the editorship of the North
American Review, 227 ; writes
ode for the opening of the
Glasgow Exhibition, 245 ; his
bankruptcy, 248 ; interviews
himself, 262-268 ; his views on
immortality, 281-290 ; becomes
his own publisher, 291 ; his
first attack of heart-disease,
293 ; goes to Brighton, 293 ;
goes to Pevensey Baj-, 295 ;
tries the Nauheim baths at
Hastings, 297 ; his strength
declines, 306 ; visits Cap Gris-
nez, 308 ; visits Bournemouth,
310 ; returns to London, 311 ;
is struck by paralysis, 312 ; his
death, 312
Buchanan, Mrs. Robert, serious
illness of, 208 ; her death, 220
Campbell, Dr. Harry, letters
from Robert Buchanan to, 293,
295
Canton, William, letters from
Robert Buchanan to, 138, 141,
172, 173, 183-196, 209, 214, 217,
220-222, 233, 234
Caussidiere, 13
" Charlatan, The," production of,
247
" City of Dream, The," publica-
tion of, 228 ; the Right Hon.
W. E. H. Lecky's opinion of, 228
" Clarissa," production of, 244
Clifford, Professor, his views on
immortality, 282
" Coming Terror, The," publica-
tion of, 259
" Corinne," production of, 223
D.-VNVERS, Edwin, 88-90
" David Gray and other Essays,"
when written, 136
" Devil's Case, The," extract from,
147 ; publication of, 291
" Diana's Hunting," publication
of, 291
Diary, Robert Buchanan's, ex-
tracts from, 120, 171, 278, 279,
292
Diary, Mrs. Robert Buchanan's,
extracts from, 170, 171
Dickens, Charles, 297-305
" Dick Sheridan," production of,
247
Dobell, Sydney, his kindness to
David Graj', 66
" Doctor Cupid," production of,
240
" Drama of Kings, The," when
written, 136
" Earthquake, The," publication
of, 228
"Effie Hetherington," publication
of, 291
Eliot, George, Robert Buchanan's
opinion of and attitude towards,
108, 305 ; Robert Buchanan's
last meeting with, 109
" End of the Century, The," 297-
305
" English Rose, The," production
of, 242
Father, Robert Buchanan's, 3 ;
his personality, 8 ; his marriage,
8 ; writes for the press, 10 ; a
newsvendor, 10 ; branded as an
Atheist, 15 ; edits the Glasgow
Sentinel, 17 ; starts the Glas-
goiv Times and Penny Post, 26 ;
his insolvency, 42 ; his death,
125
" Fisher, Jonas," 165
" Fleshly School of Poetry, The,
159-168
" Foxglove Manor," when writ-
ten, 225
22
322
Index
Francillnn, R. E., " an impres-
sion " by, 197-202
Freeland, William, recollection of
Robert Buchanan by, 29 ; and
David Gray, 77
Gentle's, Mr., extracts from let-
ters from Robert Buchanan to,
23, 38-40, 43, 45, 47, 48, 54, 91
Gilibon, Charles, 92 ; goes to
live at 66 Stamford Street,
92 ; collaborates with Robert
Buchanan, 97
Glasgow, religious atmosphere
of, in 1850-1856, 18 ; Robert
Buchanan's school life in, 26 ;
poetic atmosphere of, in 1850-
1856, 29 ; Robert Buchanan's
University life in, 31 ; life
among the Players in, 36
Glover, Edmund, 35
" God and the Man," first concep-
tion of, 205 ; Robert Buchanan
explains, 206 ; dramatisation of,
207
Gorham, Dr., letters from Robert
Buchanan to, 307-311
Gowing, Richard, letter from
Robert Buchanan to, 203
Gray, David, first meets Robert
Buchanan, 38 ; Robert Bucha-
nan's influence on, 38 ; his life,
letters, and death, 57-80 ; his
father, 81 ; Robert Buchanan's
benevolence to his father, 81-86
Ham Common, the community at,
10
Hamlet Court, 227
Hampton-Wick, Robert Bucha-
nan's school life at, 12
Houghton, Lord, his kindness to
David Gray, 61, 62, 67, 69
Hunt, Clari Leigh, 103
Hutton, R. H., his criticism on
Robert Buchanan, 29
" Idyls and Legends of Inver-
burn," G. H. Lewes's criticism
of, 106 ; publication of, 1 16 ;
press criticisms of, 116
Irving, Henry, 37
Jones, Lloyd, 14 ; his influence
on Robert Buchanan, 15
"Joseph's Sweetheart," produc-
tion of, 238 ; prologue to, 238
" Killing a Publisher, 93-95
" Lady Clare," production of,
236
" Land of Lome, The," quotation
from, 129-135 ; when written,
136
"Latter Day Leaves," extracts
from, 2-6, 10-16, 19-20, 31-37,
93-95. 105-106, 107, 160, 297-305
Law of Infanticide, the, extract
from article on, 149
Lecky, the Right Hon. W. E. H.,
letters from Robert Buchanan
to, 229, 294
Lewes, George Henry, his first
meeting with RobertBuchanan,
106 ; advises Robert Buchanan
to write the story of David
Gray, 107 ; his last meeting
with Robert Buchanan, 109
" Lights of Home, The," produc-
tion of, 243
Linton, Mrs. Lynn, her opinion
of Robert Buchanan, 258
" London Poems," publication of,
126 ; William Canton's criti-
cism of, 126 ; quotation from
preface to, 126 ; G. H. Lewes's
first and second criticism of,
127 ; Robert Buchanan's ex-
planation of, 127
" Love me for ever," when writ-
ten, 225
Love, William, 17
" Lucy Brandon," production of,
236
Macdonald, Hugh, 27 ; his in-
fluence on Robert Buchanan, 28
"Madcap Prince, The," produc-
of, 232 ; press opinions of, 233
" Man o' Airlie, The," 91
" Man's Shadow, A," production
of, 240
M. A. P., extracts from, 100, loi-
103 (" In the Days of my
Youth,"), 214
Index
323
■' Marriage by Capture," publica-
tion of. 291
Marston, Westland, 90
Marston, Mrs. Westland, 90
" Martyrdom of Madeline, The,"
when written, 225
" Master of the Mine, The," when
written, 225
" Master Spirits," when written,
136
" Matt," when written, 225
Maxwell, John, 93-95
Melvin, Father John, inscription
to, in " Feather Anthony," 176
Merriman, Mr., 49
Merton, Robert Buchanan's
school life at, 12
" Miss Tomboy," production of,
244
Mother, Robert Buchanan's, 3 ;
her birth, 7 ; her relations to
the Socialists and attachment
to Robert Owen, 7 ; her mar-
riage, 3, 8 ; her son's memories
of her, 8 ; letter from her son,
51 ; her illness, 277 ; her death,
278
Muloch, Dinah, 91
Mulranny, 215
Murray, Henry, quotation from
" Robert Buchanan and other
Essays " by, 19, 86 ; reminis-
cence by, 253-257 ; "At the
Graveside " by, 312-315
" Napoleon Fallen," when writ-
ten, 136
" New Abelard, The," when writ-
ten, 225
" Newest Thing in Journalism,
The," 102
" New Harmony," 10
" New Rome, The," 150 ; ex-
tracts from, 151 ; extract from
preface to, 152
" Nine Days' Queen, A," produc-
tion of, 236
Noel, the Hon. Roden, his first
meeting with Robert Buchanan,
119 ; friendship between
Robert Buchanan and, 120 ;
extracts from preface to the
" Canterbury " edition of the
poems of, 119, 121-124; letters
from Robert Buchanan to, 154,
171, 173, 210, 220, 222, 227
" North Coast and other Poems,"
136, 153
Oldh.-vm, William, 10
Owen, Robert, 2-6, 11 ; his mis-
sionaries, 4 ; his benevolence,
4 ; his success, 4 ; political
state of England at the time of,
5 ; his influence wanes, 5 ; his
views on religion and marriage,
5 ; denunciation of, by the pub-
lic, 6 ; Robert Buchanan in-
fluenced by his doctrines, 12
" Partners," production of, 241
Peacock, Thomas Love, 103 ; his
influence on Robert Buchanan,
103
Pevensey Bay, 296
"Pied Piper of Hamelin, The,"
production of, 247
Proctor, Bryan (" Barry Corn-
wall"), extract from letter by,
53 ; Robert Buchanan's inter-
view with, 54
" Queen of Connaught, The,"
Charles Reade and, 234 ; idea
of dramatising, 235 ; production
of the play of, 235
Queenwood, community at, 11
" Rathboys, The," 97
Reade, Charles, reminiscence of,
178-182
Rossport, life at, 174
Rothesay, Robert Buchanan's
school life at, 22
" St. Abe and his Seven Wives,"
13O, 164, 177
Salt, Henry S., " Humanitarian-
ism " by, 144-152 ; extracts
from letters from Robert Bu-
chanan to, 145, 146, 148, 150
" Selected Poems," dedication to,
221
"Shadow of the Sword, The,"
plans for writing, 183, 194 ;
writing of, 204 ; publication of.
324
Index
205 ; press criticisms on, 205 ;
production of dramatic version
of, 236
" Shop-walker, The," production
of, 291
Sims, G. K., extract from article
in the Morniiii^ Leader by,
226 ; collaborates with Robert
Buchanan, 241 ; " reminis-
cence " by, 250-2S2
" Sixth Commandment, The,"
production of, 247
Socialistic revolution, 3
"Society Butterfly, The," pro-
duction of, 248
" Sophia," production of, 237
Southend, 227, 230
Spencer, Herbert, 297-305'
Stamford Street, No. 66, life at,
49, 53 ; dark days at, 56
Steadman, Mr., criticism of
Robert Buchanan by, 30
Stephens, Leslie, extract from
letter from Robert Buchanan
to, 21
" Stormbeaten," production of,
207, 226
"Stormy Waters," when written,
225
Strahan, Alexander, letter to
Harriett Jay from, 117
" Strange Adventures of Miss
Brown, The," production of,
291
" Sweet Nancy," production of,
246
"Trumpet Call, The," production
of, 243 ; Mrs. Patrick Campbell
in, 243
" Truth About the Game Laws,
The," extract from preface to,
148
"Two Little Maids from School,"
production of, 291
" Undertones," publication of,
116
Vandenhoff, the elder, 31
Vandenhoff, Miss, 31
Vezin, Hermann, 91
Walkek, Dr. Stodart, letters
from Robert Buchanan to, 277-
281, 306
" Wandering" Jew, The," first con-
ception of, 126 ; publication of,
259 ; dedication to, 259 ; the
author's superstition regarding,
260 ; extract from, 261 ; news-
paper correspondence on, 268-
275 ; success of, 275
" White Rose, The," production
of, 243
" White Rose and Red," 164 ;
Robert Browning's opinion of,
115
Whitman, Walt, 297-305 ; Robert
Browning's opinion of, 113 ;
Robert Buchanan meets, 227
Williams, " Lawyer " (Robert
Buchanan's grandfather), 6
" Witchfinder, the," 96 ; Fechter's
opinion of, 97 ; production of,
98
Wordsworth, his influence on
Robert Buchanan, 41
Wylie, Mr., extracts from letters
to Robert Buchanan from, 140,
142
Wylie, Rev. W. H., article in the
Christian World by, 165
Yates, Edmund, extract from
letter to Robert Buchanan from,
102 ; Robert Buchanan first
meets, 102 ; personality of, 102 ;
and Thackeray, 102
Zangwill, his opinion of Robert
Buchanan, 258
Zoophilist, The, extract from
article in, 149
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