He shall tell his own tale till 1861, the first forty years, annotated by me. Whilst dictating to me I sometimes remarked, "Oh, do you think it would be well to write this?" and the answer always was, "Yes! I do not see the use of writing a biography at all, unless it is the exact truth, a very photograph of the man or woman in question." On this principle he taught me to write quite openly in the unconventional and personal style—being the only way to make a biography interesting, which we now class as the Marie Bashkirtcheff style. As you will see, he always makes the worst of himself, and offers no excuse. As a lad he does not know what to do to show his manliness, and all that a boy should, ought, and does think brave and honourable, be it wild or not, all that he does.
What appals me is, that the task is one of such magnitude—the enormous quantity of his books and writings that I have to look through, and, out of eighty or more publications, to ascertain what has seen the light and what has not, because it is impossible to carry the work of forty-eight years in one's head; and, again, the immense quantity of subjects he has studied and written upon, some in only a fragmentary state, is wonderful. My wish would be to produce this life, speaking only of him—and afterwards to reproduce everything he has written that has not been published. I propose putting all the heavier matter, such as pamphlets, essays, letters, correspondence, and the résumé of his works—that is, what portion shows his labours and works for the benefit of the human race—into two after-volumes, to be called "Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton." After his biography I shall renew his "Arabian Nights" with his Forewords, Terminal Essay, and Biography of the book in such form that it can be copyrighted—it is now protected by my copyright. His "Catullus" and "Pentamerone" are now more or less in the Press, to be followed by degrees by all his unpublished works. His hitherto published works I shall bring out as a Uniform Library, so that not a word will be lost that he ever wrote for the public. Fortunately, I have kept all his books classified as he kept them himself, with a catalogue, and have separate shelves ticketed and numbered; for example, "Sword," "Gypsy," "Pentamerone," "Camoens," and so on.
If I were sure of life, I should have wished for six months to look through and sort our papers and materials before I began this work, because I have five rooms full. Our books, about eight thousand, only got housed in March, 1892, and they are sorted—but not the papers and correspondence; but I fancy that the public would rather have a spontaneous work sooner, than wait longer. If I live I shall always go on with them. I have no leisure to think of style or of polish, or to select the best language, the best English,—no time to shine as an authoress. I must just think aloud, so as not to keep the public waiting.
From the time of my husband's becoming a real invalid—February, 1887—whilst my constant thoughts reviewed the dread To Come—the catastrophe of his death—and the subsequent suffering, I have been totally incapable, except writing his letters or attending to his business, of doing any good literary work until July, 1892, a period of five years, which was not improved by four attacks of influenza.
Richard was such a many-sided man, that he will have appeared different to every set of people who knew him. He was as a diamond with so many facets. The tender, the true, the brilliant, the scientific,—and to those who deserved it, the cynical, the hard, the severe. Loads of books will be written about him, and every one will be different; and though perhaps it is an unseemly boast, I venture to feel sure that mine will be the truest one, for I have no interest to serve, no notoriety to gain, belong to no party, have nothing to sway me, except the desire to let the world understand what it once possessed, what it has lost. With many it will mean I. With me it means HIM.
When this biography is out, the public will, theoretically, but not practically, know him as well as I can make them, and all of his friends will be able after that to put forth a work representing that particular facet of his character which he turned on to them, or which they drew from him. He was so great, so world-wide, he could turn a fresh facet and sympathy on to each world. I always think that a man is one character to his wife at his fireside corner, another man to his own family, another man to her family, a fourth to a mistress or an amourette—if he have one,—a fifth to his men friends, a sixth to his boon companions, and a seventh to his public, and so on ad infinitum; but I think the wife, if they are happy and love each other, gets the pearl out of the seven oyster-shells.
I fear that this work will be too long. I cannot help it. When I embarked on it I had no conception of the scope: it was a labour of love. I thought I could fly over it; but I have found that the more I worked, the more it grew, and that the end receded from me like the mirage in the desert. I only aim at giving a simple, true recital without comment, and at fairness on all questions of whatever sort. I am very personal, because I believe the public like it. I want to give Richard as I knew him at home. I apologize in advance to my readers if I am sometimes obliged to mention myself oftener than they and I care about; but they will understand that our lives were so interwoven, so bound together, that I should very often spoil a good story or an anecdote or a dialogue were I to leave myself out. It would be an affectation that would spoil my work.
I am rather disheartened by being told by a literary friend that the present British public likes its reading "in sips." How can I give a life of seventy years, every moment of which was employed in a remarkable way, "in sips"? It is impossible. Though I must not detail much from his books, I want to convey to the public, at least, what they were about; striking points of travel, his schemes, wise warnings, advice, and plans for the benefit of England—then what about "sips"? It must not be dry, it must not be heavy, nor tedious, nor voluminous; so it shall be personal, full of traits of character, sentiments and opinions, brightened with cheerful anecdotes, and the more serious part shall go into the before-mentioned two volumes, the "Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton."
I am not putting in many letters, because he generally said such personal things, that few would like them to be shown. His business letters would not interest. To economize time he used to get expressly made for him the smallest possible pieces of paper, into which he used to cram the greatest amount of news—telegram form. He only wrote much in detail, if he had any literary business to transact.
One of my greatest difficulties, which I scarcely know how to express, is, that which I think the most interesting, and which most of my intimates think well worth exploring; it is that of showing the dual man with, as it were, two natures in one person, diametrically opposed to each other, of which he was himself perfectly conscious. I had a party of literary friends to dinner one night, and I put my manuscript on the table before them after dinner, and I begged them each to take a part and look over it. Feeling as I do that the general public never understood him, and that his mantle after death seemed to descend upon my shoulders, that everything I say seems to be misunderstood, and that, in some few eyes, I can do nothing right, I said at the end of the evening, "If I endeavour to explain, will it not be throwing pearls to swine?" (not that I meant, dear readers, to compare you to swine—it is but an expression of thought well understood). And the answer was, "Oh, Lady Burton, do give the world the ins and outs of this remarkable and interesting character, and let the swine take care of themselves." "If you leave out by order" (said one) "religion and politics, the two touchstones of the British public, you leave out the great part of a man." "Mind you gloss over nothing to please anybody" (said a second). I think they are right—one set of people see one side, and another see another side, and neither of the two will comprehend (like St. Thomas) anything that they have not seen and felt; or, to quote one of Richard's favourite mottoes from St. Augustine, "Let them laugh at me for speaking of things which they do not understand, and I must pity them, whilst they laugh at me." So I must remain an unfortunate buffer amidst a cyclone of opinions. I can only avoid controversies and opinions of my own, and quote his and his actions.