Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/22

xii I have found that the more I worked, the more it grew, and that the end receded from me like the mirage in the desert. I only aim at giving a simple, true recital without comment, and at fairness on all questions of whatever sort. I am very personal, because I believe the public like it. I want to give Richard as I knew him at home. I apologize in advance to my readers if I am sometimes obliged to mention myself oftener than they and I care about; but they will understand that our lives were so interwoven, so bound together, that I should very often spoil a good story or an anecdote or a dialogue were I to leave myself out. It would be an affectation that would spoil my work.

I am rather disheartened by being told by a literary friend that the present British public likes its reading "in sips." How can I give a life of seventy years, every moment of which was employed in a remarkable way, "in sips"? It is impossible. Though I must not detail much from his books, I want to convey to the public, at least, what they were about; striking points of travel, his schemes, wise warnings, advice, and plans for the benefit of England—then what about "sips"? It must not be dry, it must not be heavy, nor tedious, nor voluminous; so it shall be personal, full of traits of character, sentiments and opinions, brightened with cheerful anecdotes, and the more serious part shall go into the before-mentioned two volumes, the "Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton."

I am not putting in many letters, because he generally said such personal things, that few would like them to be shown. His business letters would not interest. To economize time he used to get expressly made for him the smallest possible pieces of paper, into which he used to cram the greatest amount of news—telegram form. He only wrote much in detail, if he had any literary business to transact.

One of my greatest difficulties, which I scarcely know how to express, is, that which I think the most interesting, and which most of my intimates think well worth exploring; it is that of showing the dual man with, as it were, two natures in one person, diametrically opposed to each other, of which he was himself perfectly conscious. I had a party of literary