WCP3186

[1]¹

16 Fielding Terrace

Pevensey Bay

Sussex

July 10 [1899]²

Dear Mr Wallace —

Your letter³ 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 & 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 professers has simply disgusted & 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' & writes L'Envoi to which you allude.

My great sorrow was the loss of my mother,⁴ 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 [illeg.]. When I return to town I will send you my Devil's Case⁵ & my Mary the Mother,⁶ to glance at if ever you feel inclined. I only care to write for the few good & true men who are honestly seeking Light, and I need hardly say that I re[illeg.] you among them — B.