68 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK os. 



entries in his diary, it does not seem to have 

 occurred to him as possible at any time to doubt 

 the wisdom of his father's advice or to dream 

 of acting in opposition to it. 



Very keenly do I regret that in attempting 

 to portray the life and character of the subject 

 of this book, whom I will now, until the date of 

 his elevation to the peerage, refer to as Sir John 

 Lubbock, it has not been possible to make any 

 considerable use of those self -revelations afforded 

 by letters which are often the best of all assistants 

 in the biographer's task. It is hardly to be 

 imagined that a more industrious letter - writer 

 than Sir John has ever lived, and yet in the fullest 

 sense of the term it is not to be said of him that 

 he was a letter-writer at all. The vast number 

 of letters that he wrote were in all cases perfectly 

 clear expositions of the objects for which he 

 took them in hand. Whether it were a problem 

 of science, or intricate matter of business, or a 

 measure that he wished to pass through Parlia- 

 ment — he would deal with one and all of these 

 with an ease and lucidity of expression which 

 were the reflection of the lucidity of his mind. 



But when he had said that which he set out 

 to say, he had finished. In none of his letters 

 do we find any outpouring of his thoughts or 

 feelings, any revelation of the innermost self. 

 Such exposure of the holy sanctities of his being 

 would have been impossible to him and quite 

 contrary to the sensitive reserve which was one 

 of his characteristics. Moreover, it is the kind 

 of literature which would have made no appeal 

 to him from another pen. He took an avid 



