ld of the life of letters.
They are haunting forms of fear, but they have to be wrestled with, like
the Angel (to change the figure), till they bless you, and make words
become, in your hands, like the clay of the modeller. Could we write
Greek like Mr. Jebb, we would never write anything else.

Murray had naturally, it seems, certainly not by dint of wrestling with
Greek prose, the mastery of language. His light verse is wonderfully
handled, quaint, fluent, right. Modest as he was, he was ambitious, as
we said, but not ambitious of any gain; merely eager, in his own way, to
excel. His ideal is plainly stated in the following verses:--

[GREEK TITLE]

Ever to be the best. To lead
In whatsoever things are true;
Not stand among the halting crew,
The faint of heart, the feeble-kneed,
Who tarry for a certain sign
To make them follow with the rest--
Oh, let not their reproach be thine!
But ever be the best.

For want of this aspiring soul,
Great deeds on earth remain undone,
But, sharpened by the sight of one,
Many shall press toward the goal.
Thou running foremost of the throng,
The fire of striving in thy breast,
Shalt win, although the race be long,
And ever be the best.

And wilt thou question of the prize?
'Tis not of silver or of gold,
Nor in applauses manifold,
But hidden in the heart it lies:
To know that but for thee not one
Had run the race or sought the quest,
To know that thou hast ever done
And ever been the best.

Murray was never a great athlete: his ambition did not lead him to desire
a place in the Scottish Fifteen at Football. Probably he was more likely
to be found matched against 'The Man from Inversnaid.'

IMITATED FROM WORDSWORTH

He brought a team from Inversnaid
To play our Third Fifteen,
A man whom none of us had played
And very few had seen.

He weighed not less than eighteen stone,
And to a practised eye
He seemed as little fit to run
As he was fit to fly.

He looked so clumsy and so slow,
And made so little fuss;
But he got in behind--and oh,
The difference to us!

He was never a golfer; one of his best light pieces, published later in
the _Saturday Review_, dealt in kindly ridicule of _The City of Golf_.

'Would you like to see a city given over,
Soul and body, to a tyrannising game