WCP3186

[1]^{1, 2}

16 Fielding Terrace

Pevensey Bay

Sussex

July 10 [no year]

Dear Mr Wallace —

Your letter interests me very much, its frank & unbiased criticism being most valuable in every way, quite apart from the noble & unselfish source from which it springs. Only on one point must I join issue with you, and that is your crediting me with a larger faith than I possess. In many of the pieces doubtless the faith is present, but poems of this kind must be taken as representing moods, not fixed opinions. Intellectually and au fond I have no belief whatever; emotionally I have a great deal, and I only cling to a belief in a Divine solution because, like most men, I am a coward. I know nothing of spiritualism; what experience I have had of its professors has simply disgusted and shocked me. In one a word, I am a man whose whole life is warped & darkened because he [2] desires passionately to believe, & cannot — cannot, that is, with any pretence of logical conviction, yet still, feebly & sentimentally makes the 'wish the father to the thought'³ & writes[?] L'Envir⁴[?] to which you allude.

My great sorrow was the loss of my mother, under circumstances which shattered broke the last thread of my belief in immortality.

Always yours | R Buchanan⁵ [signature]

A. R. Wallace Esq.

I have had a long illness & am down by the sea recuperating[?]. When I return to town I will send you my Devil's Case⁶ & my Mary the Mother⁷, to glance at if ever you feel inclined. I only care to write for the few good & true men who are honestly feeling Light, and I need hardly say that I relish[?] you among them — B.