INTRODUCTION N this simple account of my father's life I and work, I have endeavoured to set forth a concise rather than a detailed narrative, letting his own memoirs, as far as possible, tell the story. In one respect his life was a tragedy-the uphill task of the man who is ever ready to speak out and to face the consequences. He lost sight of all his own interests when he was on the war-path, and did not spare his pen in attacking the very foundations of learningthe venerable institutions of Oxford and Cambridge, which he loved so much, but in which he found something wanting. Having at first no recognized position, he worked on year after year with enthusiasm, yet ever haunted with the thought of his work possibly falling off altogether, or his health breaking down and thus imperilling his very means of existence. Ultimately, indeed, he gained such a post as he had for many years desired; but he was now no longer a young man, and being elected, as is usual, on probation for a certain period, he was much harassed, in his depressed moments, by uncertainty as to the future. But his life, as a whole, was no tragedy-very far from it. If he worked hard, he thoroughly enjoyed his work-he had his heart and soul in it. If he ever did fear that his work would fail, the fact remains that it never did. He always had plenty to do, and generally more than he could do; and far from his health breaking down, he was never laid up in the whole of his career. Moreover, his normal disposition was cheerful and buoyant-it was abnormal for him to be otherwise. He derived the utmost enjoyment out of life, and sometimes in ways that his students perhaps would hardly think. Let us imagine one of his students taking a stroll in Hyde Park about seven in the morning; he might be somewhat surprised to see his staid professor thoroughly enjoying a swim in the Serpentine. And suppose later on our student is in the East End, and comes upon his professor, accompanied by detectives and a band of crime enthusiasts, spending a pleasant afternoon over the scenes of the Whitechapel murders, it would be excusable if he were perplexed. Let our student once more be led, by the threads of coincidence, to a lonely country station at the dead of INTRODUCTION ix night-the London express comes nearer and nearer-with a shriek and a roar it dashes past, but in that brief moment our student has detected on the engine a familiar figure in the glare from the furnace-yes, it is his professor ! Thus it will be seen that much as he was absorbed in his work, he was not averse to indulging in recreations, which were sometimes almost boyish. And this youthful enthusiasm he never lost. As regards the serious side of life, he placed duty first, and he was never tired of impressing that on his pupils. He used to say that whatever difficulties beset us, whatever doubts assailed us, one thing we were always certain of-what our next step should be. The future might be hidden from us, but our next step was clear to us. And if he preached "duty" he practised it—all through his life-and it was, moreover, this sense of duty which ever buoyed him up when he felt ready to break down utterly through that strange depression," which, as will be seen, attacked him at various periods. 66 His feelings about religion cannot be better expressed than in his letter to Mrs Edmund Luce, which she quotes in her Memories.1 1 "Memories of John Churton Collins," published by Spottiswoode & Co. |