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 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 of 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 cœur in reading about 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.
CONTENTS VOLUME 1
| PAGE | |
| ANTECEDENTS | 1 |
| CHILDHOOD | 43 |
| BOYHOOD | 170 |
| LYNCOMBE | 247 |
| SOUTHGATE | 297 |
| OXFORD LIFE | 402 |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. I
| GEORGIANA, MRS. HARE NAYLOR. (Photogravure) | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE. (Full-page woodcut) | To face 4 |
| GLAMIS CASTLE | 22 |
| AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE WITH LUCIA CECINELLI. (Photogravure) | To face 50 |
| HURSTMONCEAUX RECTORY | 55 |
| LIME | 58 |
| FRANCIS G. HARE. (Photogravure) | To face 84 |
| HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE | 93 |
| THE DRAWING-ROOM AT LIME | 101 |
| RUIN IN THE PALACE GARDEN, NORWICH | 117 |
| THE CHAPEL DOOR, NORWICH | 119 |
| STOKE RECTORY—THE APPROACH | 126 |
| REV. O. LEYCESTER. (Photogravure) | To face 128 |
| PETSEY | 132 |
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