R. F. MURRAY: HIS POEMS WITH MEMOIR BY ANDREW LANG




R. F. MURRAY--1863-1893



Much is written about success and failure in the career of
literature, about the reasons which enable one man to reach the
front, and another to earn his livelihood, while a third, in
appearance as likely as either of them, fails and, perhaps, faints
by the way. Mr. R. F. Murray, the author of The Scarlet Gown, was
among those who do not attain success, in spite of qualities which
seem destined to ensure it, and who fall out of the ranks. To him,
indeed, success and the rewards of this world, money, and praise,
did by no means seem things to be snatched at. To him success meant
earning by his pen the very modest sum which sufficed for his wants,
and the leisure necessary for serious essays in poetry. Fate denied
him even this, in spite of his charming natural endowment of humour,
of tenderness, of delight in good letters, and in nature. He died
young; he was one of those whose talent matures slowly, and he died
before he came into the full possession of his intellectual kingdom.
He had the ambition to excel, [Greek text], as the Homeric motto of
his University runs, and he was on the way to excellence when his
health broke down. He lingered for two years and passed away.

It is a familiar story, the story of lettered youth; of an ambition,
or rather of an ideal; of poverty; of struggles in the `dusty and