(In response to my request, Mr. Burroughs began in 1903 to write for me
a series of letters, autobiographical in character. It is from them, for
the most part, helped out by interviews to fill in the gaps, that I
have compiled this part of the book. The letters were not written
continuously; begun in 1903, they suffered a long interruption, were
resumed in 1906, again in 1907, and lastly in 1912. The reader will, I
trust, pardon any repetition noted, an occasional return to a subject
previously touched upon being unavoidable because of the long intervals
between some of the letters.
It seems to me that these letters picture our author more faithfully
than could any portrait drawn by another. Thomas Bailey Aldrich has said
that no man has ever yet succeeded in painting an honest portrait of
himself in an autobiography, however sedulously he may have set about
it; that in spite of his candid purpose he omits necessary touches and
adds superfluous ones; that at times he cannot help draping his thought,
and that, of course, the least shred of drapery is a disguise. But,
Aldrich to the contrary notwithstanding, I believe Mr. Burroughs has
pictured himself and his environment in these pages with the same
fidelity with which he has interpreted nature. He is so used to
"straight seeing and straight thinking" that these gifts do not desert
him when his observation is turned upon himself. He seems to be a
shining example of the exception that proves the rule. Besides, when
Aldrich pronounced that dictum, Mr. Burroughs had not produced these
sketches.
This record was not written with the intention of its being published as
it stood, but merely to acquaint me with the facts and with the author's
feelings concerning them, in case I should some day undertake his
biography. But it seems to me that just because it was so written, it
has a value which would be considerably lessened were it to be worked
over into a more finished form. I have been willing to sacrifice the
more purely literary value which would undoubtedly grace the record,
were the author to revise it, that I may retain its homely, unstudied
human value.
I have arranged the autobiographical material under three headings:
Ancestry and Family Life, Childhood and Youth, and Self-Analysis.--C.
B.)