Fourth Avenue & 30th Street, New York
1916




PREFACE


This book was begun with no hope or intention of making a formal and
finished biography, but only to place on record some of my brother's
sayings and doings, to fix scenes and memories before they suffered from
any dim obliteration of time, to catch, if I could, for my own comfort
and delight, the tone and sense of that vivid and animated atmosphere
which Hugh always created about him. His arrival upon any scene was
never in the smallest degree uproarious, and still less was it in the
least mild or serene; yet he came into a settled circle like a freshet
of tumbling water into a still pool!

I knew all along that I could not attempt any account of what may be
called his public life, which all happened since he became a Roman
Catholic. He passed through many circles--in England, in Rome, in
America--of which I knew nothing. I never heard him make a public
speech, and I only once heard him preach since he ceased to be an
Anglican. This was not because I thought he would convert me, nor
because I shrank from hearing him preach a doctrine to which I did not
adhere, nor for any sectarian reason. Indeed, I regret not having heard
him preach and speak oftener; it would have interested me, and it would
have been kinder and more brotherly; but one is apt not to do the things
which one thinks one can always do, and the fact that I did not hear him