Before completing this work I unfortunately submitted a few excerpts to a visionary representative of one of the Los Angeles papers. He immediately published broadcast what he had absorbed and very obligingly gave it the title of his own imagination, "Memoirs of Matrimony," thereby creating the impression that my book was to be devoted simply to my marital experiences. Such was never my intention, but as more than thirty years of my life have been devoted to matrimony naturally my autobiography demands mention of the women who have borne my name.
I have been censured sometimes harshly for my versatility in the selection of wives and many have marvelled at my fortunate (or unfortunate) selections. I have always been long on the market of home and wives.
I truly believe that no home is complete without a wife, providing she is of the kind that enjoys the company of intelligent, honest and clever people. Some men only lease their mates and then prate about their respectability. If I have decided at different times to tear down any of the Ephesian domes which I have erected, is the fact of my destroying them enough to warrant my being known, as was Alexander, as the fool that razed (or is it raised?) them?
While autobiography and a round up of memories will necessarily be conspicuous I shall endeavor also to make this book a medium of retrospective thoughts given to the many people, prominent and otherwise, with whom I have come in contact. As I have no notes I shall write purely from memory's tablets. If inaccuracies occur they will be unintentional.
Many of those dear friends have long since passed down the lonely mountain trail, but their sweet memories still linger by the roadside. If they but leave the perfume of their souls to mark the road for me to follow when I arrive at the corral nature has established in the valley I hope that we all shall meet and that they will elect me their callboy, that I may be privileged to ring up the curtain upon perpetual joy.
N. C. G.
Ocean Park, California.