One thing, however, I know for certain, that the truant’s parents were greatly concerned over his disappearance. After considerable trouble the fugitive was recaptured. Not long after he was put into a lawyer’s office, ostensibly to teach him business habits, but also the better to chain him to work, to the accepted conventions of life, and to remove him out of the way of dangerous temptations offered by the freer College life with its long vacations.
“Not long after my return to civilisation, at my parent’s urgent request, I not only resumed my classes at the University, but entered a lawyer’s office in Glasgow (on very easy conditions, hardly suitable for a professional career), so as to learn something of the law. I learned much more, in a less agreeable fashion, when I spent my first years in London and understood the pains and penalties of impecuniosity! The only outside influence which had strongly perturbed my boyhood was the outbreak of the Franco-German War, and I recall the eager excitement with which I followed the daily news, my exultation when the French were defeated, my delight when the Prussians won a great victory. A few years later I would have ‘sided’ differently, but boys naturally regarded the French as hereditary foes.”
In the autumn of 1871 he had been enrolled as student at the Glasgow University, and he attended the sessions of 1871-72 and 1872-73 during the Lord Rectorship of The Right Honourable B. Disraeli. He did not remain long enough at the university to take his degree. Yet he worked well, and was an attentive scholar. Naturally, English Literature was the subject that attracted him specially; in that class he was under Prof. John Nichol, whose valued friendship he retained for many years. At the end of his second session he was one of three students who were found ‘worthy of special commendation.’ The chief benefit to him of his undergraduate days was the access it gave him to the University Library. There new worlds of fascinating study were opened to him; not only the literature and philosophy of other European countries, but also the wonderful literatures and religions of the East. He read omnivorously; night after night he read far into the morning hours literature, philosophy, poetry, mysticism, occultism, magic, mythology, folk-lore. While on the one hand the immediate result was to turn him from the form of Presbyterian faith in which he had been brought up, to put him in conflict with all orthodox religious teachings, it strengthened the natural tendency of his mind toward a belief in the unity of the great truths underlying all religions; and, to his deep satisfaction, gave him a sense of brotherhood with the acknowledged psychics and seers of other lands and other days. At last he found a sympathetic correspondence with his thoughts and experiences, and a clew to their possible meaning and value.
In 1874, with a view to finding out in what direction his son’s capabilities lay, Mr. David Sharp put him into the office of Messrs. Maclure and Hanney, lawyers, in Glasgow, where he remained till his health broke down and he was sent to Australia. It was soon evident that he would never be a shining light in the legal profession: his chief interest still lay in his private studies and his earliest efforts in literature. In order to find time for all he wished to do, which included a keen interest in the theatre and opera whenever the chance offered, he allowed himself during these two years four hours only out of the twenty-four for sleep; a procedure which did not tend to strengthen his already delicate health. At no time in his life did he weigh or consider what amount of physical strength he had at his disposal. His will was strong, his desires were definite; he expected his strength to be adequate to his requirements, and assumed it was so, until, from time to time, a serious breakdown proved to him how seriously he had overdrawn on his reserve.
CHAPTER II
AUSTRALIA
My second meeting with my cousin was in August of 1875, when he spent a week with us at a cottage my mother had taken at Dunoon, then one of the most charming villages on the Clyde.
I remember vividly the impression he made on me when I saw the tall, thin figure pass through our garden gateway at sunset—he had come down by the evening steamer from Glasgow—and stride swiftly up the path. He was six feet one inch in height, very thin, with slightly sloping shoulders. He was good-looking, with a fair complexion and high colouring; gray-blue eyes, brown hair closely cut, a sensitive mouth, and winning smile. He looked delicate, but full of vitality. He spoke very rapidly, and when excited his words seemed to tumble one over the other, so that it was not always easy to understand him.