which I have treated my subject. At first sight I expect that my book
will seem chaotic and bewildering, a mighty maze and quite without a
plan. As a matter of fact, however, the work was very carefully planned.
My sins of omission and of commission were deliberate and, as our
forefathers would have said, matters of art.

My first object was a negative one; that is, to avoid the kind of
autobiography in which the author waddles painfully, diligently, and
conscientiously along an arid path, which he has strewn, not with
flowers and fruits of joy, but with the cinders of the commonplace. My
readers know such autobiographies only too well. They are usually based
upon copious diaries and letters. The author, as soon as he gets to
maturity, spares us nothing. We look down endless vistas of dinners and
luncheon parties and of stories of how he met the celebrated Mr. Jones
at the house of the hardly less celebrated Mr. Smith and how they talked
about Mr. Robinson, the most celebrated of all of them. If I have done
nothing else worthy of gratitude, I have, at any rate, avoided such
predestinated dullness.

What I have made my prime object is the description of the influences
that have affected my life and, for good or evil, made me what I am. The
interesting thing about a human being is not only what he is, but how he
came to be what he is.

The main influence of my life has been _The Spectator_, and,
therefore, as will be seen, I have made _The Spectator_ the pivot
of my book, or, shall I say, the centre from which in telling my story I
have worked backwards and forwards. But this is not all. Though I pay a
certain homage to chronology and let my chapters mainly follow the
years, I am in this matter not too strict. Throughout, I obey the