Preface
(1896)
In the Autumn of 1878, the desire to comfort and
amuse one of my kindest friends during hours of wearing pain and
sickness induced me to begin writing down some of the
reminiscences of my life. As almost all those who shared my
earlier interests and affections had passed away, I fancied at
first that it would be impossible to rescue anything like a
connected story from "the great shipwreck of Time." But
solitude helps remembrance; and as I went on opening old letters
and journals with the view of retracing my past life, it seemed
to unfold itself to memory, and I found a wonderful interest in
following once more the old track, with its almost forgotten
pleasures and sorrows, though often reminded of the story of the
old man who, when he heard for the first time the well-known
adage, "Hell is paved with good intentions," added
promptly, "Yes, and roofed with lost opportunities."
Many will think mine has been a sad life. But, as
A.H.Mackonochie said, "No doubt our walk throguh this little
world is through much fog and darkness and many alarms, but it is
wonderful, when one looks back, to see how little the evils of
life have been allowed to leave real marks upon our course, or
upon our present state."
And besides this, Time is always apt to paint the
long-ago in fresh colours, making what was nothing less than
anguish at the time quite light and trivial in the retrospect;
sweeping over and effacing the greater number of griefs, joys,
and friendships; though ever and anon picking out some unexpected
point as a fixed and lasting landmark. "Le Temps, vieillard
divin, honore et blanchit tout."
Many, doubtless who read these pages, may
themselves recollect, or may remember having heard others give, a
very different impression of the persons described. But, as the
old Italian proverb says, "Every bird sings its own
note," and I only give my own opinion. Pope reminds us that
-
"'Tis with our judgements as our watches -
none
Go just alike - yet each believes his own."
And after all, "De mortuis omnia" is
perhaps a wholsomer motto than "Nil nisi bonum," and if
people believed it would be acted upon, their lives would often
be different. While one is just, however, one ought to remember
that nothing can be more touching or pathetic than the
helplessness of the dead. "Speak of me as I am," says
Othello, "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in
malice."
Since I have latterly seen more of what is
usually called "the world" - the little world which
considers the great world its satellite - and of the different
people who compose it, the later years I have described will
probably be the most interesting to such as care to read what I
have written. I have myself, I think, gradually learnt what an
"immense folio life is, requiring the utmost attention to be
read and understood as it ought to be." 1 But to me,
my earlier years will always seem far the most important, the
years throughout which my dearest mother had a share in every
thought and was the object of every act. To many, my up-bringing
will probably appear very odd, and I often feel myself how
unsuited it was to my character or my own tastes and possible
powers were consulted in considerations of my future. Still,
when from middle life one overlooks one's youthas one would a
plain divided into different fields from a hill-top, when
"la vérité s'est fait jour," one can discern the
faulty lines and trace the mistakes which lead to them, but one
cannot even then see the difficulties and perplexities which
caused inevitable errors of judgment in those who could not see
the end when they were thinking about the beginning. Therefore,
though there is much in the earlier part of my life which I
should wish to rearrange if I could plan it over again, I am sure
that the little that may be good in me is due to the loving
influence which watched over my childhood, whilst my faults are
only my own. In the latter years of her life, my dear adopted
mother and I became constantly more closely united. The long
period of sickness and suffering, which others may have fancied
to be trying, only endeared her to me a thousandfold, and since
the sweet eyes closed and the gentle voice was hushed for ever in
November 1870, each solitary year has only seemed like an another
page in an unfinished appendix.
I once heard a lady say that
"biographies are either lives or stuffed animals," and
there is always a danger of their being only the latter. But, as
Carlyle tells us, "a true delineation of the smallest man
and the scene of his pilgrimage through life is capable of
interesting the greatest man, and human portraits, faithfully
drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls." It
is certainly in proportion as a biography is human or individual
that it can have any lasting interest. Also, "Those
relations are commonly of the most value in which the writer
tells his own story." 2
I have allowed this story to tell itself when it
was possible by means of contemporary letters and journals,
convinced that they at least express the feeling of the moment to
which they narrate, and that they cannot possibly be biassed by
the after-thoughts under the influence of which most
autobiographies are written, and in which "la mémoire se
plie aux fantasies de l'amour propre."
My story is a very long one, and though only, as
Sir C, Bowen would have called it, "a ponderous biography on
nobody," is told in great - most people will say in far too
much - detail. But to me it seems as if it were in the petty
details, not in the great results, that the real interest of
every existence lies. I think, also, though it may be considered
a strange thing to say, that the true picture of a whole life -
at least an English life - has never yet been painted, and
certainly all the truth of such a picture must come from its
delicate touches. then, though most readers of this story will
only read parts of it, they are sure to be different parts.
The book doubtless contains a great deal of esprit
des autres, for I have a helpless memory for sentences read
or heard long ago, and put away somewhere in my senses, but not
of when or where they were read or heard.
Many of the persons described were very important
to those of their own time who might have had a serrement de
coeur in readingabout them. Therefore, if their
contemporaries had been living, much must have remained
unwritten; but, as Sydney Smith said, "We are all dead
now."
Still, in looking over my MS., I have always
carefully cut out everything which could hurt the feelings of
living persons: and I believe very little remains which can even
ruffle their sensibilities.
1 See Lord Chesterfield's Letters
2 Dr.
Johnson, "The Idler," No. 84.
