LITMIR.BIZ

      "BARTY JOSSELIN IS NO MORE. … "

      When so great a man dies, it is generally found that a tangled growth of more or less contentious literature has already gathered round his name during his lifetime. He has been so written about, so talked about, so riddled with praise or blame, that, to those who have never seen him in the flesh, he has become almost a tradition, a myth—and one runs the risk of losing all clew to his real personality.

      This is especially the case with the subject of this biography—one is in danger of forgetting what manner of man he was who has so taught and touched and charmed and amused us, and so happily changed for us the current of our lives.

      He has been idealized as an angel, a saint, and a demigod; he has been caricatured as a self‑indulgent sensualist, a vulgar Lothario, a buffoon, a joker of practical jokes.

      He was in reality the simplest, the most affectionate, and most good‑natured of men, the very soul of honor, the best of husbands and fathers and friends, the most fascinating companion that ever lived, and one who kept to the last the freshness and joyous spirits of a school-boy and the heart of a child; one who never said or did an unkind thing; probably never even thought one. Generous and open‑handed to a fault, slow to condemn, quick to forgive, and gifted with a power of immediately inspiring affection and keeping it forever after, such as I have never known in any one else, he grew to be (for all his quick‑tempered impulsiveness) one of the gentlest and meekest and most humble‑minded of men!

      On me, a mere prosperous tradesman, and busy politician and man of the world, devolves the delicate and responsible task of being the first to write the life of the greatest literary genius this century has produced, and of revealing the strange secret of that genius, which has lighted up the darkness of these latter times as with a pillar of fire by night.

      This extraordinary secret has never been revealed before to any living soul but his wife and myself. And that is one of my qualifications for this great labor of love.

      Another is that for fifty years I have known him as never a man can quite have known his fellow‑man before—that for all that time he has been more constantly and devotedly loved by me than any man can ever quite have been loved by father, son, brother, or bosom friend.

      Good heavens! Barty, man and boy, Barty's wife, their children, their grandchildren, and all that ever concerned them or concerns them still—all this has been the world to me, and ever will be.

      He wished me to tell the absolute truth about him, just as I know it; and I look upon the fulfilment of this wish of his as a sacred trust, and would sooner die any shameful death or brave any other dishonor than fail in fulfilling it to the letter.

      The responsibility before the world is appalling; and also the difficulty, to a man of such training as mine. I feel already conscious that I am trying to be literary myself, to seek for turns of phrase that I should never have dared to use in talking to Barty, or even in writing to him; that I am not at my ease, in short—not me—but straining every nerve to be on my best behavior; and that's about the worst behavior there is.

      Oh! may some kindly light, born of a life's devotion and the happy memories of half a century, lead me to mere naturalness and the use of simple homely words, even my own native telegraphese! that I may haply blunder at length into some fit form of expression which Barty himself might have approved.

      One would think that any sincere person who has learnt how to spell his own language should at least be equal to such a modest achievement as this; and yet it is one of the most difficult things in the world!

      My life is so full of Barty Josselin that I can hardly be said to have ever had an existence apart from his; and I can think of no easier or better way to tell Barty's history than just telling my own—from the days I first knew him—and in my own way; that is, in the best telegraphese I can manage—picking each precious word with care, just as though I were going to cable it, as soon as written, to Boston or New York, where the love of Barty Josselin shines with even a brighter and warmer glow than here, or even in France; and where the hate of him, the hideous, odious odium theologicum—the sæva indignatio of the Church—that once burned at so white a heat, has burnt itself out at last, and is now as though it had never been, and never could be again.

      P.S.—(an after‑thought):

      And here, in case misfortune should happen to me before this book comes out as a volume, I wish to record my thanks to my old friend Mr. du Maurier for the readiness with which he has promised to undertake, and the conscientiousness with which he will have performed, his share of the work as editor and illustrator.

      I also wish to state that it is to my beloved god‑daughter, Roberta Beatrix Hay (née Josselin), that I dedicate this attempt at a biographical sketch of her illustrious father.

      Robert Maurice.

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