Transcribed from the 1894 London William Heinemann edition byDavid Price,
MEMOIRS
BY
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
(hans breitmann)
WITH PORTRAIT
Second Edition
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1894
[All rights reserved]
p. iiFIRSTEDITION (2 Volumes), October 1893.
p. iiiPREFACE.
It happened once in Boston, in the year 1861 or 1862, that Iwas at a dinner of the Atlantic Club, such as was held everySaturday, when the question was raised as to whether any man hadever written a complete and candid autobiography. Emerson,who was seated by me at the right, suggested the“Confessions” of Rousseau. I objected that itwas full of untruths, and that for plain candour it was surpassedby the “Life of Casanova.” Of this work(regarding which Carlyle has said, “Whosoever has lookedtherein, let him wash his hands and be unclean until even”)neither Emerson nor Lowell, nor Palfrey nor Agassiz, nor any ofthe others present seemed to have any knowledge, until Dr.Holmes, who was more adventurous, admitted he knew somewhatthereof. Now, as I had read it thrice through, I knew itpretty well. I reflected on this, but came to theconclusion that perhaps the great reason why the world has so fewand frank autobiographies is really because the world exacts toomuch. It is no more necessary to describe everythingcynically than it is to set forth all our petty diseases indetail. There are many influences which, independent ofpassion or shame, do far more to form character.
Acting from this reflection, I wrote this book with nointention that it should be published; I had, indeed, some ideathat a certain friend might use it after my death as a sourcewhence to form a Life. Therefore I wrote, as fully andhonestly as I could, everything which I could rememberp.ivwhich had made me what I am. It occurred to me asa leading motive that a century or two hence the true inner lifeof any man who had actually lived from the time whenrailroads, steamboats, telegraphs, gas, percussion-caps,fulminating matches, the opera and omnibuses, evolution andsocialism were quite unknown to his world, into the modern age,would be of some value. So I described my childhood oryouth exactly as I recalled, or as I felt it. Such a bookrequires very merciful allowance from humane reviewers.
It seemed to me, also, that though I have not lived familiarlyamong the princes, potentates, and powers of the earth, yet as Ihave met or seen or corresponded with about five hundredof the three thousand set down in “Men of the Time,”and been kindly classed among them, it was worth while to mentionmy meetings with many of them. Had the humblest scribblerof the age of Elizabeth so much as mentioned that he had everexchanged a word with, or even looked at, any of the greatwriters of his time, his record would now be read withavidity. I have really never in my life run after such men,or sought to make their acquaintance with a view of extending mylist; all that I can tell of them, as my book will show, has beenthe result of chance. But what I have written will be ofsome interest