A Hind in Richmond Park

THIS book contains the last words of the great naturalist who through the power of his love reveals the beauty of things animate and inanimate in the world in which he lived such a long, full, ecstatic life, in spite of the sadness and loneliness that were always his. The publishers, who have enjoyed his friendship for many years, would wish to join with those who knew the man and his work in offering homage to his memory. He fell on sleep, August 18th, 1922. The author before his death handed to us the full manu script of the book with the exctption of the Iast chapter, which he said wanted a little revision. Part of this was in clear typescript, but the last few pages, amounting to some two thousand words, were in his handwriting and exceedingly difficult to decipher. We wish to put on record our thanks to his old friend Mr. Morley Roberts for the loving, patient care which he gave to the work of interpretation, in which he has succeeded in making plain the closing pages of the book, and also to Mr. Charles Lee for his valuable assistance in seeing the book through the press,day before his death, Hudson told me that the last part of this books final chapter was practically fmished. All that was needed by the fragmentary script then lying scattered on his table was the thorough revision his work invariably received. When X offered to have it typed, he said that no one could undersrand it but himself. This I took to refer to his handwriting, which at its best was at times difficult, even to one who had known it for forty years. We often scribbled so illegibly in pencil on odd pieces of paper that he was occasionally hard pressed to read what he had written. As the book remained incomplete, it was necessary for someone to put the last words into order, and the task felI to me since I was familiar with his themes and had dis cussed them in letters and in talk. He wrote to me on the 2nd August of this year, I did nor want to add anything to the book, but it appears I must do it . . . and so I have had to go into the infernal question of the meaning of art generaLly-its origin and meaning. . . . And as soon as I get it done I want to send a copy for you to read-not for you to tell me to modify anything, but to see that 1 make myself understood. 1 quote this, as I could quote other letters, to show why it lay upon me to undertake a laborious and very painful task. But, when I came to examine the incomplete script, the whole of it proved so difficult that many pages took days to interpret, and perhaps one-third were vii viii wholly indecipherable. I have therefore been obliged to divine, by the suggestion of contiguity to which Hudson so often refers, the place of each paragraph and sometimes that of separate significant sentences. My impression now is that the main argument runs clearly enough, for many of the little portions omitted had in them an intelligible line or two which showed that they did but contain additional illustrative reasoning, not necessary matter. I need scarcely say that I have added not a word and have omitted nothing which could find a logical place...