Release date : May 22, [eBook ] Most recently updated: October 23, Augustus J. Hare At the Ballantyne Press.
Reviews will doubtless, in general, continue to abuse the book, especially for its great length. But personally, if I am interested in a story, I like it to be a long one; and there is no obligation for any who dislike a long book to read this one: they may look at a page or two here and there, where they seem promising; or, better still, they can leave it quite alone: they really need have nothing to complain of.
In the later volumes I have used letters for my narrative even more than in the former. Many will feel with Dr. Not only for the interest of a biography, but for arriving at the inside of things, the publication of letters is the true method. Biographers varnish, they assign motives, they conjecture feelings, but contemporary letters are facts. In calling up the vivid image of long-ago days spent with her, I seemed to live those days over again, and I found constant proof of her loving forethought for the first months of my solitude in the materials which, without my knowledge, and without then the slightest idea of publication, she must have frequently devoted herself to arranging during the last few years of her life.
As each day passed, and the work unravelled itself, I was increasingly convinced of the wisdom of her death-bed decision that until the book was quite finished I should give it to none of the family to read. They must judge of it as a whole. Still the harshness with which I was now continually treated and spoken of by those with whom I had always hitherto lived on terms of the utmost intimacy was a bitter trial.
In a time when a single great grief pervades every hour, unreasonable demands, cruel words, and taunting sneers are more difficult to bear than when life is rippling on in an even course. I was by no means blameless: I wrote sharp letters: I made harsh speeches; but that it was my duty to fight in behalf of the fulfilment of the solemn duty which had devolved upon me, I never doubted then, and I have never doubted since.
