"BARTY JOSSELIN IS NO MORE...."
When so great a man dies, it is generally found that a tangled
growth of more or less contentious literature has already gathered
round his name during his lifetime. He has been so written about, so
talked about, so riddled with praise or blame, that, to those who
have never seen him in the flesh, he has become almost a tradition,
a myth--and one runs the risk of losing all clew to his real
personality.
This is especially the case with the subject of this biography--one
is in danger of forgetting what manner of man he was who has so
taught and touched and charmed and amused us, and so happily changed
for us the current of our lives.
He has been idealized as an angel, a saint, and a demigod; he has
been caricatured as a self-indulgent sensualist, a vulgar Lothario,
a buffoon, a joker of practical jokes.
He was in reality the simplest, the most affectionate, and most
good-natured of men, the very soul of honor, the best of husbands
and fathers and friends, the most fascinating companion that ever
lived, and one who kept to the last the freshness and joyous spirits
of a school-boy and the heart of a child; one who never said or did
an unkind thing; probably never even thought one. Generous and
open-handed to a fault, slow to condemn, quick to forgive, and
gifted with a power of immediately inspiring affection and keeping
it forever after, such as I have never known in any one else, he
grew to be (for all his quick-tempered impulsiveness) one of the
gentlest and meekest and most humble-minded of men!
On me, a mere prosperous tradesman, and busy politician and man of
the world, devolves the delicate and responsible task of being the
first to write the life of the greatest literary genius this century
has produced, _and of revealing the strange secret of that genius_,
which has lighted up the darkness of these latter times as with a
pillar of fire by night.
This extraordinary secret has never been revealed before to any
living soul but his wife and myself. And that is _one_ of my
qualifications for this great labor of love.
Another is that for fifty years I have known him as never a man can
quite have known his fellow-man before--that for all that time he
has been more constantly and devotedly loved by me than any man can
ever quite have been loved by father, son, brother, or bosom friend.
Good heavens! Barty, man and boy, Barty's wife, their children,
their grandchildren, and all that ever concerned them or concerns
them still--all this has been the world to me, and ever will be.
He wished me to tell the _absolute truth_ about him, just as I know
it; and I look upon the fulfilment of this wish of his as a sacred
trust, and would sooner die any shameful death or brave any other
dishonor than fail in fulfilling it to the letter.
The responsibility before the world is appalling; and also the
difficulty, to a man of such training as mine. I feel already
conscious that I am trying to be literary myself, to seek for turns
of phrase that I should never have dared to use in talking to Barty,
or even in writing to him; that I am not at my ease, in short--not
_me_--but straining every nerve to be on my best behavior; and
that's about the worst behavior there is.
Oh! may some kindly light, born of a life's devotion and the happy
memories of half a century, lead me to mere naturalness and the use
of simple homely words, even my own native telegraphese! that I may
haply blunder at length into some fit form of expression which Barty
himself might have approved.
One would think that any sincere person who has learnt how to spell
his own language should at least be equal to such a modest
achievement as this; and yet it is one of the most difficult things
in the world!
My life is so full of Barty Josselin that I can hardly be said to
have ever had an existence apart from his; and I can think of no
easier or better way to tell Barty's history than just telling my
own--from the days I first knew him--and in my own way; that is, in
the best telegraphese I can manage--picking each precious word with
care, just as though I were going to cable it, as soon as written,
to Boston or New York, where the love of Barty Josselin shines with
even a brighter and warmer glow than here, or even in France; and
where the hate of him, the hideous, odious odium theologicum--the
_saeva indignatio_ of the Church--that once burned at so white a
heat, has burnt itself out at last, and is now as though it had
never been, and never could be again.
P. S.--(an after-thought):
And here, in case misfortune should happen to me before this book
comes out as a volume, I wish to record my thanks to my old friend
Mr. du Maurier for the readiness with which he has promised to
undertake, and the conscientiousness with which he will have
performed, his share of the work as editor and illustrator.
I also wish to state that it is to my beloved god-daughter, Roberta
Beatrix Hay (nee Josselin), that I dedicate this attempt at a
biographical sketch of her illustrious father.
Robert Maurice.