When, some time ago, a collection of my mother’s reminiscences was given
to the public, we received a large number of suggestions that a second
similar volume would be certain of the same cordial welcome as was
extended to the first. The following pages, containing memories and
observations extending over a long period of years, are the result of
these kindly exhortations.
The task of arrangement and of selection from my mother’s scrap-books
and note-books has been carried out by me under her supervision; and I
have also included as many recollections, hitherto unpublished, as her
very excellent memory was able to furnish. Of the many anecdotes which
are given, the majority, it is hoped, are here told for the first time
in print; most of them, indeed, recount personal experiences of her own
or of some of the well-known people with whom during a long life it has
been her privilege to meet. In preparing the volume valuable assistance,
which it is our desire here gratefully to acknowledge, has been rendered
by many well-wishers, some of them old friends, some of them unknown to
us except by their encouraging and helpful letters.
It may be added that my only aim in the pages which follow has been to
arrange a mass of material—some of it no doubt old, but a great deal, I
hope, new—in such a form as may interest and amuse the reader and thus
serve to occupy a few leisure hours. If failure be the result, the blame
must be laid entirely at my door; while should the book in any measure
achieve its aim, the whole credit belongs properly to my mother.