of this difficulty, and I am only too conscious that, at the best, I have
succeeded but partially in overcoming it. The egotism which is
inseparable from a narrative written, as this necessarily is, in the
first person, is perhaps the most obvious of all the defects which it
must present to the reader. Quite frankly I may say that, on reading
these pages, I am filled with something like confusion by the extent to
which I have been forced to bring my own personality, my own sayings and
doings, even into those chapters which deal with public affairs. I can
only plead in extenuation of my offence that I do not see how it could
have been avoided in that which is neither more nor less than an
Autobiography. I may add that I have tried always to speak the truth, and
have never consciously magnified my own part in the transactions upon
which I have touched.

The closing chapters of the story have been written under what seemed to
be the shadow of approaching death. Indeed, at one time I had no hope
that I could live to complete my task. No man who writes thus, on the
verge of another world, would willingly swerve by so much as a
hair's-breadth from what he believes to be the truth. But human nature
and human limitations remain the same from the beginning to the end of
life, and I am fully conscious of the fact that the soundness of my
judgments upon affairs and my fellow-men is not less open to impeachment
to-day than when I was moving in the main current of human activity. If
in anything that I have written I have wronged any of my fellow-creatures
it has been absolutely without intention on my part, and I can only hope
that they will vindicate themselves, after the publication of these
pages, as quickly and completely as possible.

I have had no exciting story to tell, and no personal triumphs to
chronicle. My simple desire has been to write of the persons and events