PREFACE. I HAVE, in concluding this book, to thank almost all the persons most closely connected with Laurence Oliphant for their kind confidence in intrusting me with the numerous letters which reveal his character so much more clearly than anything else can,-especially those which show the formation of that character, addressed to his mother in the early part of his life, which I owe to the courtesy of Mrs Rosamond Oliphant, now Mrs James Murray Templeton: a courtesy all the more marked that I believe she herself intended, or still intends, to make some record, though probably from a different point of view, of her late husband's life. I have also to render my best thanks to Mrs Wynne Finch, the mother of the late Mrs Laurence Oliphant; to Mrs Waller, her sister, and to Hamon le Strange, Esq., her brother, for much most interesting information and a num ber of important letters. Other letters have come to me through Mrs Wynne Finch and other channels-from Lady Guendolen Ramsden, the Hon. F. Leveson Gower, Major Goldsmid, and others, to whom my best thanks are also due. I have also most grateful thanks to give to Mr and Mrs J. D. Walker, formerly of San Rafael, California, for an account of many incidents of great value in the record of the two lives; to Mrs Hankin, of Malvern, for the use of her notes of intercourse, both by letter and personally; to Arthur Oliphant, Esq.; and to Lady Grant Duff, in whose house Mr Oliphant died. I have one other acknowledgment to make, which in happier circumstances would have been said only to the private ear of him to whom it is due. A great part of the letters quoted here were selected, arranged, and connected for me by my dear son, Cyril Francis Oliphant, whom it pleased God to take to Himself just as the book was ended, the last work he did on earth being included in these pages. It can never bear to me any other memorial and inscription than his beloved name. December 8, 1890. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. The house of Oliphant-The Oliphants of Condie-Sir Anthony's letter-The judge and the officer-The Chief-Justice's ideal— His unusual education-Revolution in Italy-At the Bar-Life in Ceylon-Diverse counsellors-Letters to his mother--Friends in India-Receiving the natives-Young ladies-Elephant-hunting Voyage to England—Letters to his father—Social life-The Exhibi- PAGE |