The Project Gutenberg eBook, Robert F. Murray, by Robert F. Murray, Edited
by Andrew Lang

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Title: Robert F. Murray
his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang

Author: Robert F. Murray

Editor: Andrew Lang

Release Date: July 4, 2007 [eBook #1333]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT F. MURRAY***

Transcribed from the 1894 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

ROBERT F. MURRAY
(AUTHOR OF THE SCARLET GOWN)
HIS POEMS: WITH MEMOIR

BY
ANDREW LANG

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16TH STREET

1894

Edinburgh: T. AND A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

THE VOLUME
IS DEDICATED TO
J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, ESQ.
MOST INDULGENT OF MASTERS
AND KINDEST OF
FRIENDS

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 '