THE MEMOIR 



FOREWORD 



1859-1862 



IN one of his early note-books Mr. Shaler writes, " I have kept 

 a journal since I was twelve years old, but from carelessness I 

 have preserved only a few pages of many hundreds; unless I 

 pursue a greater regularity it can never accomplish the inten- 

 tion I design." Had he taken the time to look over this journal, 

 fragmentary as it is, he would have found how much he had 

 forgotten the spiritual travel toward ideals which later were 

 so amply developed and fulfilled, the names of books which 

 gave him delight and laid the foundation of his education, and 

 poems, full of sentiment, written on the spur of the moment. 

 All these aids to memory might have tempted him to wander 

 still farther afield in the world of reminiscence. Nevertheless 

 in the foregoing pages nothing essential is omitted. The jour- 

 nal and other private papers do, however, declare more con- 

 vincingly than could any retrospective chronicle the fact that 

 in Mr. Shaler's spiritual progress there was no ground lost, but 

 from boyhood onward a steady upward movement of mind and 

 character. Moreover, there are many passages in this youthful 

 record which show singular self-knowledge, and others which 

 reveal doubts and apprehensions that were never justified. 

 He writes : 



June 15, 1859. . . . Life is sweet to me, dearer now because I only now 

 begin to see its glories and to know my duty ; still I feel within me much want 

 of the sterling courage so needful. I cannot float down the waters, and yet I 

 doubt my strength for the long struggle which is before me if I live. If I 

 live my spirit compels me to think, and that too in a tangent to the thing 



