xiv LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK 



other members of the family, and more particu- 

 larly to the method and care in the arrangement 

 of the papers of the late Lord Avebury himself, 

 is beyond telling. It is right that I should 

 mention, too, the kind help of some of his old 

 friends, such as Sir Algernon West, Sir Charles 

 Fremantle, Mr. Philip Norman, and Mr. Tedder, 

 the Librarian of the Athenaeum Club. Above 

 all I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Elliot for the 

 care with which he has been good enough to go 

 through the proof sheets and for many valuable 

 suggestions. 



It is not for me to impose upon the reader 

 my own view, either of the intellectual or the 

 moral character of the subject of this biography. 

 My aim must be to make his qualities apparent 

 from a perusal of the pages which carry the 

 record of his achievements, and of the value in 

 which they were held by those associated in 

 them. In all confidence the reader may be left 

 to form his judgment. It occurred to me as 

 a curious coincidence, that on the very day on 

 which I was invited to write Lord Avebury's 

 life, I was reading the definition of a " gentle- 

 man " according to the " Note-books " of Samuel 

 Butler. "If we were asked," the writer says, 

 " what is the most essential characteristic that 

 underlies this word, the word itself will guide 

 us to gentleness, to absence of such things as 

 brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, 

 and generally to consideration for other people." 

 I have known no other man by whom this char- 

 acteristic was so fully expressed as by the late 

 Lord Avebury. 



