The Remittance Man

[Timerover51]

I was going through some of Robert Service's poems, and came across the following one. What popped into my mind was the Remittance Man from Supplement 1: 1001 Characters, also known as Anthony Villiers.

The Rhyme of the Remittance Man

There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day;
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now I've had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver salmon play;
And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger, softly dreaming,
In the twilight, of a land that's far away.

Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris,
That I fancy I have gained another star;
Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,
Far away — God knows they cannot be too far.
Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon — how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!
I might have been as well-to-do as they
Had I clutched like them my chances,
learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,
Starved my soul and gone to business every day.

Well, the cherry bends with blossom and the vivid grass is springing,
And the star-like lily nestles in the green;
And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing,
And it doesn't matter what I might have been.
While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory,
The sun-god paints his canvas in the west,
I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story
Of the lazy, lapping water — it is best.

While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover,
And the frozen snow betrays the panther's track,
And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,
I am happy, and I'll nevermore go back.
For I know I'd just be longing for the little old log cabin,
With the morning-glory clinging to the door,
Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces,
Turned my back on lazar London evermore.

So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure;
Put a little in my purse and leave me free.
Say: "He turned from Fortune's offering to follow up a pale lure,
He is one of us no longer — let him be."
I am one of you no longer; by the trails my feet have broken,
The dizzy peaks I've scaled, the camp-fire's glow;
By the lonely seas I've sailed in — yea, the final word is spoken,
I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.

It also brought to mind the character "The Bishop" in H. Beam Piper's story Four Day Planet. That last verse definitely makes him a "Traveller".

 

[BlackBat242]

And there is this:

Remittance Man Jimmy Buffett

Within Victorian British culture, a remittance man was usually the black sheep of an upper or middle-class family who was sent away (from the United Kingdom to the Empire), and paid to stay away. These men were generally of dissolute or drunken character, and may have been sent overseas after one or more disgraces at home.
.....
Not all of these men were considered dissolute disgraces; some were simply younger sons of the English landed gentry or aristocracy, because until 1925, the law of primogeniture meant that the eldest son inherited the estate, leaving the others to find their own fortunes.
.....
A University of Michigan professor of journalism drew on his Alberta childhood to write "Mr Langhorne: A Prairie Sketch", which begins: "The thing about a Remittance Man, of course, is that nobody ever knows for sure whether or not he is a Remittance Man." He characterises them as locked into secrecy, including giving up their real name. The stipend, regular but not lavish, dooms them to eke out an existence: "The remittance naturally saps his energy and wilts his ambition, if any." It isn't enough to set up a business, and so their fates are sealed.
.....
Rudyard Kipling writes repeatedly about remittance men and their brothers-in-arms, the gentleman rankers, men whose birth and station would otherwise usually lead to their commission as officers but who instead enlisted as a common soldier.
.....
In Following the Equator (1897), Mark Twain's travelogue presented as non-fiction, he describes the first remittance men he met. One was a hopeless alcoholic, "the most interesting and felicitous talker"; another on the same ship was only 19 or 20, but already "a good deal of a ruin".

Passengers explained the term to me. They said that dissipated ne'er-do-wells belonging to important families in England and Canada were not cast off by their people while there was any hope of reforming them, but when that last hope perished at last, the ne'er-do-well was sent abroad to get him out of the way. He was shipped off with just enough money in his pocket—no, in the purser's pocket—for the needs of the voyage—and when he reached his destined port he would find a remittance awaiting him there. Not a large one, but just enough to keep him a month. A similar remittance would come monthly thereafter. It was the remittance-man's custom to pay his month's board and lodging straightway—a duty which his landlord did not allow him to forget—then spree away the rest of his money in a single night, then brood and mope and grieve in idleness till the next remittance came. It is a pathetic life.