192 Later Years 



VII 



taken on the question by German authors, know 

 that he did not consider it sufficiently complete for 

 publication. I do not like, therefore, to make him 

 responsible for it now that he is dead, unable to 

 give to it all the care and further research his 

 death stayed him in. 



There was one man, and one man only in his 

 generation, that George Kingsley can be likened to, — 

 I mean Sir Richard Burton. But it is merely the like- 

 ness lying in their enthusiasm for scholarship, coupled 

 with their power of action, and equal love of both. 

 Sir Richard was a born writer, a man not afraid of 

 writing, who fully knew his power over literature. 

 George Kingsley, on the other hand, did not think 

 literature a thing much worth his while. If he wrote 

 for publication on a subject he really cared for and 

 deemed serious, he felt he must do it thoroughly, 

 and in a manner worthy of himself and of the 

 subject ; and he was a difficult man to satisfy on 

 these points, for ingrained in his nature was pride, 

 — not that bastard pride vanity, but the real thing, 

 — and he always knew his subject well enough to 

 know the depth of it. You may say his pages 

 reprinted in this volume do not show this, but I 

 am certain he would not hold any of them as 

 worthy of your attention ; yet his having once 

 published them exonerates me from responsibility 

 towards him on this point, and I hope you will 

 forgive me also. 



The other main reason why George Kingsley 



