It is not surprising that, under this strain and stress, even that magnificent physique showed signs of breaking down, like every other writer’s.  A long holiday on the Mediterranean, and another at Torquay, restored him happily to his wonted health; but he saw he must now choose between schoolmastering and journalism.  To run the two abreast was too much, even for James Runciman’s gigantic powers.  Permanent work on Vanity Fair being offered to him on his return, he decided to accept it; and thenceforth he plunged with all the strength and ardour of his fervid nature into his new profession.

“It was during this period of insatiable greed for work,” says the correspondent of a Nottingham journal, “that I first knew him.  You may wonder how he could possibly get through the tasks which he set himself.  You would not wonder if you had seen him, when he was in the humour, tramp round the room and pour out a stream of talk on men and books which might have gone direct into print at a high marketable value.  The London correspondent of a Nottingham paper says that Runciman was justly vain of the speed of his pen.  That is true.  He considered that a journalist ought to be able to dictate an article at the rate of 150 words a minute to a shorthand writer.  I doubt whether anybody can do that, but Runciman certainly thought he could.  He loved to settle a thing off on the instant with one huge effort.  Here is an authentic story that shows his method.  It is a physical performance, but he tackled journalistic obstacles in the same spirit: 

“A parent, who fancied he had a grievance, burst furiously into the schoolroom one day, and startled its quietness with a string of oaths.  ‘That isn’t how we talk here,’ said Runciman, in his quiet way.  ’Will you step into my room if you have anything to discuss?’ Another volley of oaths was the reply, and the unwary parent added that he wasn’t going out, and nobody could put him out.  Runciman was not the man to allow such a challenge of his authority and prowess to be issued before his scholars and to go unanswered.  Without another word, he took the man by the coat-collar with one hand, by the most convenient part of his breeches with the other hand, carried him to the door, gave him a half-a-dozen admonitory shakings, and chucked him down outside.  Then he returned and made this cool entry in the school log-book:  ’Father of the boy ——­ came into the school to-day, and was very disorderly.  I carried him out and chastised him.’”

It was while he was engaged on Vanity Fair that I first met Runciman—­I should think somewhere about the year 1880.  He then edited (or sub-edited) for a short time that clever but abortive little journal, London, started by Mr. W.E.  Henley, and contributed to by Andrew Lang, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edmund Gosse, and half a dozen more of us.  Here we met not infrequently.  I was immensely impressed by Runciman’s vigorous personality, and by his profound sympathy with the troubles and trials and poverty of the real people.  He called himself a Conservative, it is true, while I called myself a Radical; but, except in name, I could not see much difference between our democratic tendencies.  Runciman appeared to me a most earnest and able thinker, full of North-country grit, and overflowing with energy.