The Project Gutenberg EBook of Collections and Recollections
by George William Erskine Russell

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Title: Collections and Recollections

Author: George William Erskine Russell

Release Date: March 22, 2004 [EBook #11665]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS

George William Erskine Russell

THE MOST GENIAL OF COMPANIONS

JAMES PAYN

AT WHOSE SUGGESTION THESE PAPERS WERE WRITTEN AND TO WHOM THEY WERE
INSCRIBED

DIED MARCH 25, 1898

* * * * *

Is he gone to a land of no laughter--
This man that made mirth for us all?
Proves Death but a silence hereafter,
Where the echoes of earth cannot fall?
Once closed, have the lips no more duty?
No more pleasure the exquisite ears?
Has the heart done o'erflowing with beauty,
As the eyes have with tears?

Nay, if aught be sure, what can be surer
Than that earth's good decays not with earth?
And of all the heart's springs none are purer
Than the springs of the fountains of mirth?
He that sounds them has pierced the heart's hollows,
The places where tears are and sleep;
For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows
Are wrung from life's deep.

J. RHOADES

PREFACE.

It has been suggested by Mr. Reginald Smith, to whose friendliness and
skill the fortunes of this book have been so greatly indebted, that a
rather fuller preface might be suitably prefixed to this Edition.

When the book first appeared, it was stated on the title-page to be
written "by One who has kept a Diary." My claim to that modest title
will scarcely be challenged by even the most carping critic who is
conversant with the facts. On August 13, 1865, being then twelve years
old, I began my Diary. Several attempts at diary-keeping I had already
made and abandoned. This more serious endeavour was due to the fact that
a young lady gave me a manuscript-book attractively bound in scarlet
leather; and such a gift ins