WCP3187

Letter (WCP3187.3155)

[1]1

16 Fielding Terrace

Pevensey Bay

Sussex

Aug[us]t 4. 1899

Dear Mr Wallace.

It was most kind of you to write to me so fully, but I don't want you to think that I wished to bore you with my cerebrations[?]2 or to insist on your reading them. I really sent the books as an expression of my sympathy and admiration; not to extract[?] friendly criticism.

But since you have read the books, I thank you for your remarks about them — remarks of great[illeg. letters struck through] value coming from one 'so strongly arm'd in honesty'3. My only objection is to your suggestion that the two works are contradictory. I regard them as facets of the same conception, viz. [2] that all creation is governed by inexorable Law, ag[ains]t which the creature strives in vain. The Devil's Case4 is an arraig[n]ment[?] of the priestly dogma, that knowledge is evil in itself; the Devil being the adumbration5 of the human quest for truth & certainty, as well as the spirit of human pity. Mary the Mother6 is a reduction into natural terms of a supernatural tradition. In both books, something strong & living is found revolting in the very heart of the cosmic Law.

If you glance at the enclosed "Letter to Neitzsche" 7, one of my letters to the Sunday Special8, you will gather that I sympathise deeply with the [3]9Christian10 conception, unable as I am to accept it on any kind of supernaturalism. What you say ab[ou]t Spiritualism interests me deeply, coming from such a quarter; but all my personal experience is opposed to it, in every way. I would cut off my right hand to feel as you do on the subject. My whole life has been darkened and frustrated by the growing belief that there is no solution to the great problem. I am not a pessimist, but my optimism has no power to cheer my advancing age.

As to the preponderance of happiness, you are doubtless right — but if ninety-nine percent of living creatures were happy, and only one miserable, that would be en[o]ugh to poison my cup. I see no moral justification for the horrible tortures by sentient11 things. And I fail altogether [4] to feel that pain is beneficent. On the contrary, I think that it is often corrupting & corroding, besides being generally capricious. — But this is too long a theme to traverse in a letter.

Your note ab[ou]t technical defects in the poems is valuable, but you may be assured that I am never wilfully careless, & possibly some of the faults you observe are systematic. I have sent the books by me to refer to, so I cannot enter into detail. I can only say that in most cases where such objections are raised, the difference is one of opinion as to the true technique of verse.

Thanking you once more for your kind & thoughtful letter, I am as ever

Yours most truly | Robert Buchanan12 [signature]

Alfred Russel Wallace Esq.

1
Page numbered 195 in pencil in top RH corner. Note in ink across the top LH corner of the page by author: "I shall endeavour to get your Miracle book from the Library." This is Alfred Russel Wallace (1875) On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism: Three Essays, James Burns, London.
2
The putative "cerebrations" is encircled in pencil with a line leading to a question mark opposite in the LH margin. ARW may not have deciphered the handwriting, which is far from clear.
3
A quotation from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Brutus: "For I am armed so strong in honesty | That they pass by me as the idle wind, | Which I respect not".
4
Buchanan, Robert (1896) The Devil's Case: A Bank Holiday Interlude. Robert Buchanan, London.
5
The word "adumbration" is encircled in pencil with a line leading to a question mark opposite in the LH margin. ARW may not have deciphered the handwriting, although the word appears moderately clear, rather than questioning the sense.
6
Buchanan, Robert (1897) The Ballad of Mary the Mother: a Christmas carol (and other poems). Robert Buchanan, London.
7
This letter not traced. Neitzsche is one of the Latter Day Gospels in Buchanan's volume of poetry (1898) The New Rome: Poems and Ballads of Our Empire, Walter Scott Ltd., London.
8
The editor of the newly-founded Sunday Special in early 1898 invited Buchanan to discuss topical issues every week. For a year, he fulminated on, in his view, ills including capital punishment, vivisection, militarism, scientific materialism, Positivism and Christianity.
9
Page numbered 196 in pencil in top RH corner.
10
The word "Christian" is encircled in pencil with a question mark immediately opposite in the LH margin. ARW may not have deciphered the handwriting, although the word appears fairly clear, rather than questioning the sense.
11
The word "sentient" is encircled in pencil with a line leading to a question mark opposite in the LH margin. ARW may not have deciphered the handwriting, although the word appears moderately clear, rather than questioning the sense.
12
British Museum stamp.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3187.3155)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2015-03-31] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-03-31] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Please cite as “WCP3187,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3187