THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK RUTHERFORD
EDITED BY HIS FRIEND REUBEN SHAPCOTT




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION



The present edition is a reprint of the first, with corrections of
several mistakes which had been overlooked.

There is one observation which I may perhaps be permitted to make on
re-reading after some years this autobiography. Rutherford, at any
rate in his earlier life, was an example of the danger and the folly of
cultivating thoughts and reading books to which he was not equal, and
which tend to make a man lonely.

It is all very well that remarkable persons should occupy themselves
with exalted subjects, which are out of the ordinary road which
ordinary humanity treads; but we who are not remarkable make a very
great mistake if we have anything to do with them. If we wish to be
happy, and have to live with average men and women, as most of us have
to live, we must learn to take an interest in the topics which concern
average men and women. We think too much of ourselves. We ought not
to sacrifice a single moment's pleasure in our attempt to do something
which is too big for us, and as a rule, men and women are always
attempting what is too big for them. To ninety-nine young men out of a
hundred, or perhaps ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine