Page:Morley Roberts--The private life of Henry Maitland.djvu/15

 CHAPTER I It is never an easy thing to write the life, or even such a sketch as I propose making, of a friend whom one knew well, and in Henry Maitland's case it is most uncommonly difficult. The usual biographer is content with writing panegyric, and as he must depend for his material, and even sometimes for his eventual remuneration, on the relatives of his subject, he is from the start in a hopeless position, except, it may be, as regards the public side of the life in question. But in the case of a man of letters the personal element is the only real and valuable one, or so it seems to me, and even if I were totally ignorant of Maitland's work I think it would yet be possible for me to do a somewhat lifelike and live sketch of him. I believe, moreover, that it is my duty to do it, although no doubt in some ways it must be painful to those connected with him. Yet soon after his death many came to me desiring me to write his biography. It was an understood thing that of all his friends I knew him best, and was certainly the greatest and chief authority on his career 11