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Fire from a Black Opal is the fourth of this series of Stories and
Sketches. It contains the collections, Charity, A Hatchment and
Brought Forward, published between 1912 and 1916, immediately prior
to and during the First World War. Cunninghame Graham was by now in
his sixties, yet many of the stories demonstrate his amazing powers
of recall for the experiences and feelings of his youth. Equally
the later stories reveal a close empathy with the terrible demands
that the war was making on people of different nations. "Honour and
virtue do not of necessity take with them charity; neither can base
estate nor any adverse circumstance of life stifle it in the hearts
of those, to whom it comes, just as the fire shines out from a
black opal, almost without their ken." Charity, Preface. Alan
MacGillivray is a specialist in Scottish Literature, who has
lectured at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and is a former
President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. John C.
McIntyre taught Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at
the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds a postgraduate
Diploma in Scottish Literature. James N. Alison is a retired HM
Inspector of Schools with specialist interests in Scottish
literature, children's books and landscapes.
This fifth and final volume of Cunninghame Graham stories and
sketches brings together the three collections he published in the
last decade of his life. Redeemed, and Other Sketches appeared in
1927, followed in 1933 by Writ in Sand, and in 1936, the year of
his death, by Mirages. There is a sense of winding down in the
pieces presented. The characteristic Graham astringency and irony
are less intense, and there is more conventional sentiment.
However, some of the familiar targets for his distaste and anger
are still being picked off. Graham shows himself to be fully alive
to the increasingly menacing world of 1930s Europe. If he had
lived, there is little doubt about where his sympathies would have
lain. Graham died on the 20th March 1936. Exactly four months
later, the Spanish Civil War began. "I thanked the stationmaster
for his horse, unsaddled him, emptied a tin mug of water over his
sweating back, and threw him down a bundle of fresh Pindo leaves to
keep him occupied till he was ready for his maize. Then I strolled
into the station cafe, where Exaltacion Medina, Joao Ferreira, and,
I think, Enrique Clerici were playing billiards, whilst they waited
for me." (Writ in Sand, "The Stationmaster's Horse"), Preface Alan
MacGillivray is a specialist in Scottish Literature, who has
lectured at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and is a former
President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. John C.
McIntyre taught Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at
the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds a postgraduate
Diploma in Scottish Literature. James N. Alison is a retired HM
Inspector of Schools with specialist interests in Scottish
literature, children's books and landscapes.
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