HUGH

This book was begun with no hope or intention of making a formal andfinished biography, but only to place on record some of my brother'ssayings and doings, to fix scenes and memories before they suffered fromany dim obliteration of time, to catch, if I could, for my own comfortand delight, the tone and sense of that vivid and animated atmospherewhich Hugh always created about him. His arrival upon any scene wasnever in the smallest degree uproarious, and still less was it in theleast mild or serene; yet he came into a settled circle like a freshetof tumbling water into a still pool!

I knew all along that I could not attempt any account of what may becalled his public life, which all happened since he became a RomanCatholic. He passed through many circles—in England, in Rome, inAmerica—of which I knew nothing. I never heard him make a publicspeech, and I only once heard him preach since he ceased to be anAnglican. This was not because I thought he would convert me, norbecause I shrank from hearing him preach a doctrine to which I did notadhere, nor for any sectarian reason. Indeed, I regret not having heardhim preach and speak oftener; it would have interested me, and it wouldhave been kinder and more brotherly; but one is apt not to do the thingswhich one thinks one can always do, and the fact that I did not hear himwas due to a mixture of shyness and laziness, which I now regret invain.

But I think that his life as a Roman Catholic ought to be written fullyand carefully, because there were many people who trusted and admiredand loved him as a priest who would wish to have some record of hisdays. He left me, by a will, which we are carrying out, though it wasnot duly executed, all his letters, papers, and manuscripts, and wehave arranged to have an official biography of him written, and haveplaced all his papers in the hands of a Catholic biographer, Father C.C. Martindale, S.J.

Since Hugh died I have read a good many notices of him, which haveappeared mostly in Roman Catholic organs. These were, as a rule, writtenby people who had only known him as a Catholic, and gave an obviouslyincomplete view of his character and temperament. It could not well havebeen otherwise, but the result was that only one side of a very variedand full life was presented. He was depicted in a particular office andin a specific mood. This was certainly his most real and eager mood, anddeserves to be emphasized. But he had oth

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