Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 | Page 8

moral courage, his quick capacity in the handling of public questions;
all this I know, and I know besides, better perhaps than anyone else
who is likely to speak, his intense family affection, his real though
unparaded loyalty to conviction, and the magic of a kindliness which
was never so apparent as when the way was rough and the heart was
sore.
All the letters which arrived after his death--and they came in
battalions--were quick with the sense of personal loss. They came from
all sorts of people--from school-fellows in the distant Newcastle days,
and obscure folk who had their own story to tell of his kindness, to
statesmen of Cabinet rank, and men whose names are famous in almost
every walk of life. Personally, I think I was most touched by the remark
of a poor waiter, "a lame dog" whom, it seems, he had helped over a
difficult stile in life, and who declared that he was "one in a thousand."
Assuredly, as far as courage and sympathy are concerned, those simple
words were true.
STUART J. REID.
_Blackwell Cliff, East Grinstead. October 12th, 1905._

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
One who tries to tell the story of his life and of his personal experiences,
public and private, undertakes a task of rare difficulty. Now that I have
completed the work that I set myself to perform some years ago, I
recognise more fully than I did at the outset the greatness of this
difficulty, and I am only too conscious that, at the best, I have
succeeded but partially in overcoming it. The egotism which is
inseparable from a narrative written, as this necessarily is, in the first
person, is perhaps the most obvious of all the defects which it must
present to the reader. Quite frankly I may say that, on reading these
pages, I am filled with something like confusion by the extent to which
I have been forced to bring my own personality, my own sayings and
doings, even into those chapters which deal with public affairs. I can
only plead in extenuation of my offence that I do not see how it could
have been avoided in that which is neither more nor less than an
Autobiography. I may add that I have tried always to speak the truth,
and have never consciously magnified my own part in the transactions
upon which I have touched.
The closing chapters of the story have been written under what seemed
to be the shadow of approaching death. Indeed, at one time I had no
hope that I could live to complete my task. No man who writes thus, on
the verge of another world, would willingly swerve by so much as a
hair's-breadth from what he believes to be the truth. But human nature
and human limitations remain the same from the beginning to the end
of life, and I am fully conscious of the fact that the soundness of my
judgments upon affairs and my fellow-men is not less open to
impeachment to-day than when I was moving in the main current of
human activity. If in anything that I have written I have wronged any of
my fellow-creatures it has been absolutely without intention on my part,
and I can only hope that they will vindicate themselves, after the
publication of these pages, as quickly and completely as possible.
I have had no exciting story to tell, and no personal triumphs to
chronicle. My simple desire has been to write of the persons and events
of my own time in the light in which they appeared to my own eyes,
and by doing so to give possibly some information regarding them
which may be new to many of my readers. I have been always much
more of a spectator than of an actor in the arena; but it has been my lot

to be very near, for many years, to those who were actively engaged in
that "high chess game whereof the pawns are men"; and we have
authority for the belief that the onlooker sees more than the actual
player of the drama he describes.
I must add that nowhere, except in a few cases in which I make special
mention of the fact, have I trusted to mere hearsay evidence. I have
confined myself to that which I know to be the truth, either from my
personal observation or from documents of unimpeachable authority.
My opinions may be of very little value, but my facts are, I believe,
incontrovertible.
WEMYSS REID.
_26, Bramham Gardens, South Kensington, January 1st_, 1905.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I
. EARLY DAYS. Birth and Parentage--Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the
'Forties--A Visit to St. Andrews--The Scottish Sabbath--First
Acquaintance with a Printing Office--Tyneside in the Mid-Century--In
Peril of Housebreakers--At Dr. Collingwood Bruce's School--A Plague
of Flies--Cholera--Fire.

CHAPTER