' Mr. Lowell could not
accept a compliment which pleased him, because of his official
position, and the misfortune of his birth!
Murray was already doing a very little `miniature journalism,' in
the form of University Notes for a local paper. He complains of the
ultra Caledonian frankness with which men told him that they were
very bad. A needless, if friendly, outspokenness was a feature in
Scottish character which he did not easily endure. He wrote a good
deal of verse in the little University paper, now called College
Echoes.
If Murray ever had any definite idea of being ordained for the
ministry in any `denomination,' he abandoned it. His `bursaries'
(scholarships or exhibitions), on which he had been passing rich,
expired, and he had to earn a livelihood. It seems plain to myself
that he might easily have done so with his pen. A young friend of
my own (who will excuse me for thinking that his bright verses are
not BETTER than Murray's) promptly made, by these alone, an income
which to Murray would have been affluence. But this could not be
done at St. Andrews. Again, Murray was not in contact with people
in the centre of newspapers and magazines.
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