MY DEAR JACK KIRKBY,

To whom can I dedicate this book but to you who were, not only the best
friend of the man I have written about, but one without whom the book
could not have been written? It is to you that I owe practically all the
materials necessary for the work: it was to you that Frank left the
greater part of his diary, such as it was (and I hope I have observed
your instructions properly as regards the use I have made of it); it was
you who took such trouble to identify the places he passed through; and
it was you, above all, who gave me so keen an impression of Frank
himself, that it seems to me I must myself have somehow known him
intimately, in spite of the fact that we never met.

I think I should say that it is this sense of intimacy, this
extraordinary interior accessibility (so to speak) of Frank, that made
him (as you and I both think) about the most lovable person we have ever
known. They were very extraordinary changes that passed over him, of
course--(and I suppose we cannot improve, even with all our modern
psychology, upon the old mystical names for such changes--Purgation,
Illumination and Union)--but, as theologians themselves tell us, that
mysterious thing which Catholics call the Grace of God does not
obliterate, but rather emphasizes and transfigures the natural
characteristics of every man upon whom it comes with power. It was the
same element in Frank, as it seems to me--the same root-principle, at
least--that made him do those preposterous things connected with bread
and butter and a railway train, that drove him from Cambridge in
defiance of all common-sense and sweet reasonableness; that held him
still to that deplorable and lamentable journey with his two traveling
companions, and that ultimately led him to his death. I mean, it was the