ROBERT WALLACE LIFE AND LAST LEAVES EDITED BY J. CAMPBELL SMITH AND WILLIAM WALLACE LONDON SANDS & COMPANY 1903 PREFACE SOME years before his death my late brother arranged with the publishers of this volume to write a full account of his varied career under the title of "Recollections of a Chequered Life." The fragment which, as "Reminiscences," forms the first portion of the present work, will show how short a distance he had travelled towards the accomplishment of his design, and how great a loss the literature of autobiography has sustained by his death. No attempt has been made here to continue the contemplated work. Such an attempt could only have met with disastrous failure. It is clear that my brother meant two things by his original design-to show the moral continuity and inevitableness of his "chequered" experiences, and (not being an egotist in the aggressive or self-conscious sense) to illustrate the general life of Scotland and his time, so far as that came within his knowledge, by means of these experiences. It is obvious that only he could have done this. But Sheriff Campbell Smith, who kindly undertook to write a sketch of his early years, elucidating and supplementing the Reminiscences," has, as the oldest and most intimate friend among his surviving contemporaries, been able so far to follow the plan of the original work as to illustrate the university and religious life of Scotland by means of his career. My part in this book, of the slightness of which I am painfully conscious, has been to let my brother speak for himself as a public writer and a politician, because it was in these two capacities that he spoke with a freedom and a power which-in his own opinion, at all events he did not command as a minister of the Church of Scotland. As explained in the chapter on journalism, I have been prevented by considerations of space from giving the whole or even the best of his contributions to newspaper literature; and the same remark applies, though in a lesser degree, to the chapters on politics. Nevertheless the development of his life, as it was largely given up to thought and observation, may, it seems to me, be not inadequately traced in these portions of the book. My brother did not write many letters, at least of a biographical interest, to friends and contemporaries, and seems have preserved very few of the letters he received. He was averse to unbosoming himself; besides, the struggle, if not for existence, certainly for the free development of life, left him no time for the cultivation of the epistolary art either as an amusement or as a relief. The second part of this volume consists mainly of the more important of the lectures, which, in the latest years of his life, my brother delivered in various parts of the country. Though, in my opinion, they are as readable and as much works of art as anything he ever wrote, they cannot be regarded as essential to his life like his speeches or his leading articles. I have also included in this section two speeches he delivered on Burns, and some reminiscences by his and my friend, the Rev. Roderick Lawson. I have been pressed to publish his lectures as professor and some of his sermons, especially those he wrote as minister of Greyfriars Church. But I know from conversations with him that he did not desire any of these to be published, and that he certainly would not have published them had he lived. His wish, wherever I have been certain of it, has been law to me in connection with this book. I have to thank the proprietors and editor of the Scotsman for granting me permission to quote from the articles contributed by my brother to that newspaper, and for enabling me to identify them without difficulty. My thanks are also due to the editors of various magazines for similar courtesies. I have finally to express my gratitude to Mr. J. D. Cockburn, of Glasgow, for varied and valuable assistance. WILLIAM WALLACE. GLASGOW, June, 1903. |