Murray

“ What was going to happen, at any rate, was that Murray would show himself as beautifully and consciously understanding—and it would be prodigious that Europe should have inoculated him with that delicacy. Yes, he wouldn't claim to know now till she had told him—an aid to performance he had surely never before waited for, or been indebted to, from any one; and then, so knowing, he would charmingly endeavor to "meet," to oblige and to gratify. He would find it, her case, ever so worthy of his benevolence, and would be literally inspired to reflect that he must hear about it first. ”

“ Miss Murray is tall, with a willowy figure, a round, infantile face, with wondering blue eyes, a dimpled chin, a rather wide mouth, but the lips are exquisitely curved and smiling; not a regular beauty, but possessing much piquant loveliness and the peculiar gift of interesting you at once. ”

“ Lord George Murray rose to greatness: so enduring, and so fearless, so careless of danger to himself, yet so solicitous for others. As a general, some great defects may be pointed out in his composition, without detracting from his merits as a private individual. ”

“ She meant to be the last found, and to elude Murray as long as she could, a very girlish feeling having taken possession of her that the time to run away is the time when you see somebody looking uncommonly as if he would like to be with you. Although she longed to hear the outcome of the conference in the library, she was somehow just a little afraid of the new Murray, and it was with a delightful sense of exhilaration that she made her quick and quiet way up a third flight of stairs to one of Shirley's haunts in an unused portion of the regions under the eaves. ”

“ Murray, how greatly you succeed, when engaged upon a theme which I emphatically call your own. I love to hear you speak upon any subject; but on this, you are, I had almost said, divine; your whole soul seems engaged, when dwelling upon the Redeemer, and His love to man; nothing but the voice of the God who made you, and who hath so wonderfully endowed you, can exceed the honied accents of your heaven-inspired tongue. Do you wonder that I am daily wishing myself among the number of your hearers, your happy hearers! ”

“ Murray put his arm around Edna, and drew her face to his bosom.
"Darling, do you remember that once, in the dark days of my reckless sinfulness, I asked you one night, in the library at Le Bocage, if you had no faith in me? And you repeated so vehemently, 'None, Mr. Murray!'"
"Oh, sir! do not think of it. Why recur to what is so painful and so long past? Forgive those words and forget them! Never was more implicit faith, more devoted affection, given to any human being than I give now to you, Mr. Murray; you, who are my first and my last and my only love." ”

“ In Murray the spirit of the eighteenth century seemed to meet and harmonize with the spirit of the nineteenth. Enthusiasm, daring, originality, and freedom from conventionality made him eminently a man of his time, and, in a certain sense, he did as much as any of his contemporaries to swell that movement in his profession towards complete individual liberty which had been growing almost from the foundation of the Stationers' Company. ”

“ Murray has sung of the life and pleasures of its students, of examinations and Gaudeamuses—supper parties—he has sung of the sands, the links, the sea, the towers, and his name and fame are for ever blended with the air of his city of youth and dream. It is not a wide name or a great fame, but it is what he would have desired, and we trust that it may be long-lived and enduring. We are not to wax elegiac, and adopt a tearful tone over one so gallant and so uncomplaining. ”

“ On the other hand the ' Quarterly,' in spite of change and competition, fully sustained under Murray's auspices its reputation as an organ of the highest criticism. But perhaps the greatest glory of the firm under the third Murray's direction consists in the admirable series of illustrated books of travels, associated with the names of Miss Bird (Mrs. Bishop) , Dr. Lumholtz, Du Chaillu, Bates, and Yule, whose edition of ' Marco Polo ' was largely due to Murray's enlightened enterprise. ”

“ Much against his will, Murray was compelled to take part in some of these riotous festivities with the rollicking, hard-drinking Forfarshire lairds, and doubtless he was not sorry to make his escape at length uninjured, if not unscathed, and to return to more congenial society in Edinburgh. His attachment to Miss Elliot ended in an engagement. ”

“ Murray is the only gentleman, except Constable, in the trade;—I may also, perhaps, except Hood. I have seldom seen a pleasanter man to deal with. .... Our names are what Murray principally wants—yours in particular.... I will not wish, even in confidence, to say anything ill of the London booksellers beyond their deserts; but I assure you that, to compare this offer of Murray's with their usual offers, it is magnanimous indeed.... The fallen prices of literature-which is getting worse by the horrible complexion of the times-make me often rather gloomy at the life I am likely to lead. ”

“ Murray had now attained.
"Murray offers me a thousand guineas for my intended poem in blank verse, and begs it may not be a line longer than "Thomson's Seasons"! I rather think the poem will be a post obit, and in that case, twice that sum, at least, may be demanded for it. What his real feelings may be towards me, I cannot tell; but he is a happy fellow, living in the light of his own glory. The Review is the greatest of all works, and it is all his own creation; he prints 10,000, and fifty times ten thousand read its contents, in the East and in the West. Joy be with him and his journal!" ”

“ Murray had been ill-fitted to withstand the rubs of fortune, it was hardly to be expected that his armour should be stronger or his sword brighter after his twenty years of incarceration from the world. It was, indeed, evident from the first, both to Miss Bellamy and to Gerald, that he would have to be treated in many ways as if he were neither more nor less than a grown-up child. ”

“ He confided in Murray that he was saving for a car, just a little coupé, he couldn’t afford anything else yet, but it would be nice for Elizabeth to take the baby out in. There was a nice eager domestic air about him that was different from anything Murray had experienced among his young men friends, even the married ones. He did not remember that any of them had babies, or if they had they did not speak about them. They were tucked away somewhere with their nurses out of sight till they should be old enough to burst upon the world full-fledged in athletics or society. ”

“ And Murray would get up and revamp these remarks into the finest kind of a “send-off,” in his [Pg 203] own peculiarly happy phrasing, and then sit down and wonder as some plain little man, with clothes from a cheap department store, and an unspeakable necktie, would get up and tell in murderous English of the souls that had been saved and the workers that had developed in his little corner of the vineyard. Murray found his eyes all dewy and his voice husky when the Scarlett man was done, and he turned for his next cue to his mentor. ”

“ Murray came bustling in, his whole face full of importance.
"Mrs. Clair, I've called to ask you all to spend Christmas with me at a country house. I'm a lonely old man, with no near relations and few friends; but I like young people about me whose hearts are gay and green, even though circumstances may have aged their heads a little. I like the boys; I like the demure little maiden; I like you. Will you all come and cheer up a lonely old man for a week?"
"I shall be delighted indeed, Mr. Murray; and I can answer for each one of the children, if the boys can only get so long a holiday. ”

“ Meanwhile Murray used his literary power to best effect in fiction. In 1879 he contributed his first novel, 'A Life's Atonement,' periodically to 'Chambers's Journal.' From that date until his death scarcely a year passed without the publication of one and at times two novels. ”

“ His father, Robert Murray, a member of an old quaker family, was one of the leading New York merchants. Murray was the eldest of twelve children, all of whom he survived, although, he was puny and delicate in childhood. When six years old, he was sent to school in Philadelphia, but soon left to accompany his parents to North Carolina, where they lived until 1753. ”

“ Murray laying his spread hand upon his breast, answered: "Sir, I feel such a consciousness of innocence here, that I know not what it is to fear. It is with perfect composure that I commit myself to God, and the Laws of this Commonwealth. If I have broken any law, let me be punished by law; but I bless God I am not a lawless person. Sir, I am a stranger to fear, I have committed no action worthy of punishment. Sir, I know not what it is to fear. No man can have any power over me, except it be given to him from above, no injury can be done me, but by the permission of my God. ”

“ Murray had been educated with the young Chevalier was untrue; it was by the desire of his mother, Lady Murray, that he first, in 1741, visited both France and Italy, and perfected himself in the language of those countries, then by no means generally attained by Scotchmen.
Mr. Murray had been brought up in the principles of the Episcopal Church, and therefore there was [Pg 11] less reason, than there would have been in the case of a Roman Catholic, to apprehend his being beguiled into an intimate connection with the exiled Stuarts. ”

“ Here his practice became both large and lucrative, in spite of his conscientious care to 'discourage litigation, and to recommend a peaceable settlement of differences.' On the outbreak of hostilities in America, Murray went with his wife to Long Island, where four years were spent in fishing, sailing, and shooting. On the declaration of independence he returned to New York, and was so successful that he retired in 1783 to a beautiful place on the Hudson. ”

“ It was in the year 1741 that the royal youth, then scarcely nineteen years of age, became acquainted with a man whose qualities of mind, and attractions of manner, exercised a very considerable influence over his destiny; and whose character, pliant, yet bitter, intriguing and perfidious, came afterwards into a painful collision with the haughty overbearing temper, and manly sincerity, of Lord George Murray. ”

“ Murray explained, releasing the hands which were gently drawing themselves away, but continuing to stare down at the engaging young figure in its modest evening attire, as if he had seen nothing so attractive in all Montana, in spite of his fine tales of its glories. ”

“ Think of the vague and vaporous æsthetic paganism which was all that Pater could extract from the spiritual sustenance offered him by Oxford! Professor Murray, as we know, occupies one of the greatest positions in English scholarship; but while he is eminently a scholar among scholars, he is pre-eminently a man among men. His imagination and insight, working upon a solid basis of knowledge, give him an extraordinary power—as no doubt he will show you to-night—of revivifying Greek thought and experience, and making it human and real to us. ”

“ He was hanged on a gallows, about a quarter of a mile outside the village of Guayave.
Chapter XXX. WEST INDIA LIFE
I remained on the Upper Pearl estate, and found much to interest an inquiring mind. Murray, although there were some good points about him, was not considered trustworthy. In his cups he was quarrelsome and as choleric as a Welshman; and a fondness for liquor was his besetting sin. He was an excellent accountant and an efficient clerk, but could hardly be relied on when a clear head and cool judgment were required. ”

“ Murray's early manhood was the most brilliant portion of his career, but, though he never occupied that position in public life which might have been predicted for him from his early distinction, his connection with the past, his generous patronage of art and letters, his geniality and interest in the welfare of his fellow-citizens, gave him in his later years a peculiar position in Edinburgh society. ”

“ Murray had been the first to be discovered, his head so full of the late talk in the library that he had somewhat dazedly secreted himself in a position easily come upon by Mr. Bell. So when the second round began, it was Murray who stood counting the tale of numbers in the hall below, while his quarry scurried away over the house.
"He knows every nook and corner of it, of course," whispered Ross to Jane, as they ran lightly up the second flight of stairs, "so we 'll have to hide pretty close to escape him. I 'm for a closet I know of where there's a pile of blankets as big as a barn. ”

“ He lectured through the winter, against his strength, attracting both students and literary men to his room. His health completely gave way in the spring, and he died of consumption at Edinburgh 15 April 1813, leaving his widow and a son and daughter. Mrs. Murray survived about twelve years, supported by a government pension of 80l., which had been granted to her in return for Murray's translation of the Abyssinian letter. ”

“ Collecting his books, he escaped to Burlington, New Jersey, entered a boarding-school, and commenced to study French. His retreat was discovered, he was brought back to New York, and allowed a private tutor. His father still desired him to apply himself to commerce, but he stated arguments in favour of a literary profession so ably in writing that his father's lawyer advised him to let the lad study law. Four years later Murray was called to the bar, and practised as counsel and attorney in the province of New York. ”