ideas, expressed in different forms, will be found posted to more
than one account, and this kind of repetition is in accordance with
his habit in conversation. It would probably be correct to say that
I have heard him speak the substance of every note many times in
different contexts. In seeking for the most characteristic context,
I have shifted and shifted the notes and considered and re-considered
them under different aspects, taking hints from the delicate
chameleon changes of significance that came over them as they
harmonised or discorded with their new surroundings. Presently I
caught myself restoring notes to positions they had previously
occupied instead of finding new places for them, and the increasing
frequency with which difficulties were solved by these restorations
at last forced me to the conclusion, which I accepted only with very
great regret, that my labours were at an end.

I do not expect every one to approve of the result. If I had been
trying to please every one, I should have made only a very short and
unrepresentative selection which Mr. Fifield would have refused to
publish. I have tried to make suck a book as I believe would have
pleased Butler. That is to say, I have tried to please one who, by
reason of his intimate knowledge of the subject and of the
difficulties, would have looked with indulgence upon the many
mistakes which it is now too late to correct, even if knew how to
correct them. Had it been possible for him to see what I have done,
he would have detected all my sins, both of omission and of
commission, and I like to imagine that he would have used some such
consoling words as these: "Well, never mind; one cannot have
everything; and, after all, 'Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.'"

Here will be found much of what he used to say as he talked with one