Dedication from the first edition
MAURICE ANDREWS BUCKE
22 November, 1868—8 December, 1899
8 December, 1900
Dear Maurice:—
A year ago to-day, in the prime of youth, of health and of strength, in an instant, by a terrible and fatal accident, you were removed forever from this world in which your mother and I still live. Of all young men I have known you were the most pure, the most noble, the most honourable, the most tender-hearted. In the business of life you were industrious, honest, faithful, intelligent and entirely trustworthy. How at the time we felt your loss—how we still feel it—I would not set down even if I could. I desire to speak here of my confident hope, not of my pain. I will say that through the experiences which underlie this volume I have been taught, that in spite of death and the grave, although you are beyond the range of our sight and hearing, notwithstanding that the universe of sense testifies to your absence, you are not dead and not really absent, but alive and well and not far from me this moment. If I have been permitted—no, not to enter, but—through the narrow aperture of a scarcely opened door, to glance one instant into that other divine world, it was surely that I might thereby be enabled to live through the receipt of those lightning-flashed words from Montana which time burns only deeper and deeper into my brain.
Only a little while now and we shall be again together and with us those other noble and well-beloved souls gone before. I am sure I shall meet you and them; that you and I shall talk of a thousand things and of that unforgettable day and of all that followed it; and that we shall clearly see that all were parts of an infinite plan which was wholly wise and good. Do you see and approve as I write these words? It may well be. Do you read from within what I am now thinking and feeling? If you do you know how dear to me you were while you yet lived and what we call life here and how much more dear you have become to me since.
Because of the indissoluble links of birth and death wrought by nature and fate between us; because of my love and because of my grief; above all because of the infinite and inextinguishable confidence there is in my heart,
I inscribe to you this book, which, full as it is of imperfections which render it unworthy of your acceptance, has nevertheless sprung from the divine assurance born of the deepest insight of the noblest members of your race.
So long! dear boy.
YOUR FATHER
