Page:Morley Roberts--The private life of Henry Maitland.djvu/18

14 be true to others. To myself it is true at any rate. We know very little of each other, and after all it is perhaps in biography that one is most acutely conscious of the truth in the pragmatic view of truth. Those things are true in Henry Maitland's life and character which fit in wholly with all my experience of him and make a coherent and likely theory. I used to think I knew him very well, and yet when I remember and reflect it seems to me that I know exceedingly little about him. And yet again, I am certain that of the two people in the world that I was best acquainted with he was one. We go through life believing that we know many, but if we sit down and attempt to draw them we find here and there unrelated facts and many vague incoherencies. We are in a fog about our very dear friend whom but yesterday we were ready to judge and criticise with an air of final knowledge. There is something humiliating in this, and yet how should we, who know so little of ourselves, know even those we love? To my mind, with all his weaknesses, which I shall not extenuate, Maitland was a noble and notable character, and if anything I should write may endure but a little while it is because there is really something of him in my words. I am far more concerned to write about Henry Maitland for those who loved him than for those