written as part of hard daily journalistic work in India; written in
torrid newspaper offices, to fill columns. Yet they were written
with the delight of the artist, and are masterpieces in their genre.
Murray could not make the best of ordinary pen-work in this manner.
Again, he was incapable of `transactions,' of compromises; most
honourably incapable of earning his bread by agreeing, or seeming to
agree with opinions which were not his. He could not endure (here I
think he was wrong) to have his pieces of light and mirthful verse
touched in any way by an editor. Even where no opinions were
concerned, even where an editor has (to my mind) a perfect right to
alter anonymous contributions, Murray declined to be edited. I
ventured to remonstrate with him, to say non est tanti, but I spoke
too late, or spoke in vain. He carried independence too far, or
carried it into the wrong field, for a piece of humorous verse, say
in Punch, is not an original masterpiece and immaculate work of art,
but more or less of a joint-stock product between the editor, the
author, and the public. Macaulay, and Carlyle, and Sir Walter Scott
suffered editors gladly or with indifference, and who are we that we
should complain? This extreme sensitiveness would always have stood
in Murray's way.

Once more, Murray's interest in letters was much more energetic than
his zeal in the ordinary industry of a student. As a general rule,
men of original literary bent are not exemplary students at college.
`The common curricoolum,' as the Scottish laird called academic
studies generally, rather repels them. Macaulay took no honours at
Cambridge; mathematics defied him. Scott was `the Greek dunce,' at
Edinburgh. Thackeray, Shelley, Gibbon, did not cover themselves
with college laurels; they read what pleased them, they did not read
`for the schools.' In short, this behaviour at college is the rule