MEMORIES
[Portrait by J. C. Beresford.
Lord Fisher, 1917.
Admiral of the Fleet.
MEMORIES
BY
ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET
LORD FISHER
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIX
Readers of this book will quickly observe that Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher has small faith in the printed word; and those who have enjoyed the privilege of having “his fist shaken in their faces” will readily admit that the printed word, though faithfully taken down from his dictation, must lack a large measure of the power—the “aroma,” as he calls it—which his personality lends to his spoken word.
Had Lord Fisher been allowed his own way, there would have been no Book. Not for the first time in his career, the need of serving his country and his country’s Navy has over-ridden his personal feeling. These “Memories,” therefore, must be regarded as a compromise (“the beastliest word in the English language”—see “The Times” of September 9th, 1919) between the No-Book of Lord Fisher’s inclination and the orderly, complete Autobiography which the public wishes to possess.
The book consists in the main of the author’s ipsissima verba, dictated during the month of September, 1919. One or two chapters have been put together from fugitive writings which Lord Fisher had collected and printed (in noble and eloquently various type) as a gift to his friends after his death. The discreeter passages of the letters which he wrote to Lord Esher between 1903 and 1912 illustrate some portions of the life’s work which—caring little for the past and much for the future,[1] much for the idea and little for the fact—Lord Fisher has successfully declined to describe in his own words.
Preamble
There is no plan nor sequence! Just as the thoughts have arisen so have they been written or dictated! The spoken word has not been amended—better the fragrance of the fresh picked flower than trying to get more scent out of it by adding hot water afterwards! Also it is more life-like to have the first impulse of the heart than vainly to endeavour after studied phrases! Perhaps the only curiosity is that I begin my life backwards and leave my birth and being weaned till the end!
“The last shall be first” is good for Autobiography!
I think a text is a good thing! So I adopt the following (from R. L. Stevenson) as being nice for the young ones to read what follows:—
To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary, and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but those without capitulation, above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself, here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.