From Oxford, Buchan went to London to study law at the Middle Temple, supporting himself by contributions to the Spectator and Blackwood's. His first attempt at a contemporary novel, The Half-Hearted (1900), was only moderately successful, but it introduced a theme that appears in the later books. Lewis Haystoun, the novel's introspective hero, is engaged in "making" his soul, deliberately choosing to play an active role in the universal war between good and evil, and triumphing over his feelings of futility and cowardice by sacrificing his life in a heroic rearguard action. Additional treatments of the theme of soul-making are found in A Prince of the Captivity (1933), the Island of Sheep (1936), and Sick Heart River (1941).
After his admission to the bar in 1901, Buchan spent two years on the staff of Lord Alfred Milner, high commissioner for South Africa. Deeply moved by the history and beauty of South Africa, Buchan later wrote The African Colony (1903), a lengthy survey of South African history and politics; A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906), a symposium detailing his political faith in imperialism; and Prester John (1910), a boys' book of high adventure.
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