irrational aspirations, than he would have been if
he had spent his nights in dining out in Mayfair and lounged all day
in the clubs of Pall Mall.

The essays which he contributed to _The Family Herald_ were therefore
adjusted to the note which every week was sounded by his innumerable
correspondents. He was in touch with his public. He did not write above
their heads. His contributions were eminently readable, bright,
sensible, and interesting. He always had something to say, and he said
it, as was his wont, crisply, deftly, and well. And through the chinks
and crevices of the smoothly written essay you catch every now and then
glimpses of the Northumbrian genius whose life burnt itself out at the
early age of thirty-nine.

For James Runciman was anything but a smug, smooth, sermonical
essayist. He was a Berserker of the true Northern breed, whose fiery
soul glowed none the less fiercely because he wore a large soft hat
instead of the Viking's helmet and wielded a pen rather than sword or
spear. Like the war-horse in Job, he smelled the battle afar off, the
thunder of the captains and the shouting. His soul rejoiced in
conflict, in the storm and the stress of the struggle both of nature
and of man. It was born in his blood, and what was lacking at birth
came to him in the north-easter which hurled the waves of the Northern
Sea in unavailing fury against the Northumbrian coast. He lived at a
tension too great to be maintained without incessant stimulus. It was
an existence like that of the heroes of Valhalla, who recruited at
night the energies dissipated in the battles of the day by quaffing
bumpers of inexhaustible mead. In these essays we have the Berserker
in his milder moods, his savagery all laid aside, with but here and
there a glint, as of sun-ray on harness, to remind us of the sinking
in the glory and pride of his strength.

The essays abound with traces of that consummate mastery of English
which distinguished all his writings. He, better than any man of our
time, could use such subtle magic of woven words as to make the green
water of the ocean surge and boil into white foam on the printed page.
As befitted a dweller on the north-east coast, he passionately loved
the sea. The sea and the sky are the two exits by which dwellers in
the slums of Deptford and in North Shields can escape from the inferno
of life. He was a close observer of nature and of men. In his pictures
of life in the depths he was a grim