Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/17

Rh cut short by her death, and I have also pieced together all her letters, manuscripts, and journals which have a bearing on her travels and adventures. I have striven to give a faithful portrait of her as revealed by herself. In what I have succeeded, the credit is hers alone: in what I have foiled, the fault is mine, for no biographer could have wished for a more eloquent subject than this interesting and fascinating woman. Thus, however imperfectly I may have done my share of the work, it remains the record of a good and noble life—a life lifted up, a life unique in its self-sacrifice and devotion.

Last December, when this book was almost completed, a volume was published calling itself The True Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, written by his niece, Miss Georgiana M. Stisted, stated to be issued "with the authority and approval of the Burton family." This statement is not correct—at any rate not wholly so; for several of the relatives of the late Sir Richard Burton have written to Lady Burton's sister to say that they altogether disapprove of it. The book contained a number of cruel and unjust charges against Lady Burton, which were rendered worse by the fact that they were not made until she was dead and could no longer defend herself. Some of these attacks were