which can console and sustain, and he held it to be the supreme
duty of a man to ease, if he could, the burden of another. He knew
that there is no sympathy in the world so effective as the sharing
of similar experiences, as the power of assuring a sufferer that
another has indeed trodden the same dark path and emerged into the
light of Heaven. I will even venture to say that he deliberately
intended that his records should be so used, for purposes of
alleviation and consolation, and the bequest that he made of his
papers to myself, entrusting them to my absolute discretion, makes
it clear to me that I have divined his wishes in the matter. I
think, indeed, that his only doubt was a natural diffidence as to
whether the record had sufficient importance to justify its
publication. In any case, my own duty in the matter is to me
absolutely clear.

But I think that it will be as well for me to sketch a brief
outline of my friend's life and character. I would have preferred
to have done this, if it had been possible, by allowing him to
speak for himself. But the earlier Diaries which exist are nothing
but the briefest chronicle of events. He put his earlier
confessions into his books, but he was in many ways more
interesting than his books, and so I will try and draw a portrait
of him as he appeared to one of his earliest friends. I knew him
first as an undergraduate, and our friendship was unbroken after
that. The Diary, written as it is under the shadow of a series of
calamities, gives an impression of almost wilful sadness which is
far from the truth. The requisite contrast can only be attained by
representing him as he appeared to those who knew him.

He was the son of a moderately wealthy country solicitor, and was