to speak, his intense family affection, his real though unparaded loyalty
to conviction, and the magic of a kindliness which was never so apparent
as when the way was rough and the heart was sore.

All the letters which arrived after his death--and they came in
battalions--were quick with the sense of personal loss. They came from
all sorts of people--from school-fellows in the distant Newcastle days,
and obscure folk who had their own story to tell of his kindness, to
statesmen of Cabinet rank, and men whose names are famous in almost every
walk of life. Personally, I think I was most touched by the remark of a
poor waiter, "a lame dog" whom, it seems, he had helped over a difficult
stile in life, and who declared that he was "one in a thousand."
Assuredly, as far as courage and sympathy are concerned, those simple
words were true.

STUART J. REID.

_Blackwell Cliff, East Grinstead.
October 12th, 1905._




AUTHOR'S PREFACE


One who tries to tell the story of his life and of his personal
experiences, public and private, undertakes a task of rare difficulty.
Now that I have completed the work that I set myself to perform some
years ago, I recognise more fully than I did at the outset the greatness