Preamble
There is no plan nor sequence! Just as the thoughts have arisen so have they been written or dictated! The spoken word has not been amended—better the fragrance of the fresh picked flower than trying to get more scent out of it by adding hot water afterwards! Also it is more life-like to have the first impulse of the heart than vainly to endeavour after studied phrases! Perhaps the only curiosity is that I begin my life backwards and leave my birth and being weaned till the end!
“The last shall be first” is good for Autobiography!
I think a text is a good thing! So I adopt the following (from R. L. Stevenson) as being nice for the young ones to read what follows:—
To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary, and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but those without capitulation, above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself, here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.