The Adventure of Living | Page 2

only by me
and by our children. It can also be found in certain wise and cunning
little hearts, inscrutable as those of kings, in a London nursery. Susan,
Charlotte, and Christopher could tell if they would.
If that sounds inconsequent, or, at any rate, incomprehensible, may I
not plead that so do the ineffable Mysteries of Life and Death.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION
It is with great pleasure that I accept Major Putnam's suggestion that I
should write a special preface to the American edition of my
autobiography. Major Putnam, I, and the _Spectator_, are a triumvirate
of old friends, and I should not be likely to refuse a request made by
him, even if its fulfilment was a much less agreeable task than that of
addressing an American audience.
I was born with a mind which might well be described as Anima

naturaliter Americana. I have always loved America and the
Americans, and, though I cannot expect them to feel for me as I feel for
them, I cherish the belief that, at any rate, they do not dislike me
instinctively. That many of them regard me as somewhat wild and
injudicious in my praise of their country I am well aware. They hold
that I often praise America not only too much, but that I praise her for
the wrong things,--praise, indeed, where I ought to censure, and so
"spoil" their countrymen. Well, if that is a true bill, all I can say is that
it is too late to expect me to mend my ways.
During my boyhood people here understood America much less than
they do now. Though I should be exaggerating if I said that there was
anything approaching dislike of America or Americans, there were
certain intellectual people in England who were apt to parade a kind of
conscious and supercilious patronage of the wilder products of
American life and literature. I heard exaggerated stories about
Americans, and especially about the Americans of the Far West,--heard
them, that is, represented as semi-barbarians, coarse, rash, and boastful,
with bad manners and no feeling for the reticences of life. Such legends
exasperated me beyond words. I felt as did the author of Ionica on
re-reading the play of Ajax.
The world may like, for all I care, The gentler voice, the cooler head,
That bows a rival to despair, And cheaply compliments the dead.
That smiles at all that's coarse and rash, Yet wins the trophies of the
fight, Unscathed in honour's wreck and crash, Heartless, but always in
the right.
* * * * *
There were my superior persons drawn to the life!
When the complaisant judge would not acknowledge the rights of the
noble Ajax, but gave to another what was due to him, the poet touched
me even more nearly:--
Thanked, and self-pleased: ay, let him wear What to that noble breast
was due; And I, dear passionate Teucer, dare Go through the homeless
world with you.
The poem I admit does not sound very apposite in the year 1922, but it
well reflected my indignation some fifty years ago. The West might
then be regarded as the Ajax of the Nations. Nowadays, not even the
youngest of enthusiasts could think it necessary to show his devotion

by wanting to "go through the homeless world" with the richest and the
most powerful community on the face of the earth.
I am not going to make any show of false modesty by suggesting that
Americans may not care to read about the intimate details of my life
and opinions, or to follow "the adventure of living" of a journalist and a
public writer whose life, judged superficially, has been quite uneventful.
I read with pleasure the lives of American men and women when they
were not people of action, and I daresay people across the Atlantic will
pay me a similar compliment.
Yet--I should like to give a word or two of explanation as to the way in
which I have treated my subject. At first sight I expect that my book
will seem chaotic and bewildering, a mighty maze and quite without a
plan. As a matter of fact, however, the work was very carefully planned.
My sins of omission and of commission were deliberate and, as our
forefathers would have said, matters of art.
My first object was a negative one; that is, to avoid the kind of
autobiography in which the author waddles painfully, diligently, and
conscientiously along an arid path, which he has strewn, not with
flowers and fruits of joy, but with the cinders of the commonplace. My
readers know such autobiographies only too well. They are usually
based upon copious diaries and letters. The author, as soon as he gets to
maturity,