Lanterna Rally

Author: Mary Lesley Ames

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-27

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 9781330242261

Excerpt from Life and Letters of Peter and Susan Lesley It has been my desire in writing this Memoir to give a lifelike impression of my father and mother. They were unusually full of vitality, their interests were varied, and their affections strong and constant. Any account of them which did not show their abundant strength of mind and heart would be of little value. The most direct and natural way to accomplish this end has seemed to be the use of their own intimate correspondence, since by self-revelation rather than by the description of others is the most vivid impression of personality made. Fortunately we had for use not only the long series of their letters, but also a large number of letters to intimate friends. It is always difficult to decide how much or how little of a private correspondence it is proper to give to the public in such an undertaking. But, if a true picture is to be shown, family reserve must be thrown aside to some extent, and something more than the mere chronicle of events or the statement of abstract opinions must be included. In preparing these volumes, I have had it constantly in mind that they would be read by many friends for whom everything that related to my father and mother would have interest, and perhaps on that account I have included more than would have been done for an impersonal public. The method of portraiture by means of letters has the disadvantage of lack of continuity in any particular subject. But what it lacks in that respect it gains in vividness. And, since I have not so much wished to make a full record of the external events of their lives as to give a faithful picture of their personalities, I have felt this method to be best fitted to my purpose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.