Book Description

Excerpt from Poems, Letters, and Memories of Philip Sidney Nairn The verses which form the original and essential part of this book are somewhat overshadowed in bulk by the introductory Memoir. The justification of this (to my mind a complete justification) is that it is due not (at least I hope not) to prolixity on the part of the editor, but to the inclusion of long quotations from Nairn's letters and from his diary. Some of the poems are undoubtedly worthy, in themselves and for their own sake, to be preserved. But their author wrote himself down less vividly and unmistakably in these essays in finished art than in his less studied writings, and any lasting value possessed by this compilation will, in my opinion, rest chiefly on such success as it may have in snatching from oblivion some living traits of a personality which has far more than a personal interest. Of the defects of my share in the book I am painfully aware. It has been written in time of war, on Sundays or on late evenings, in such moments of leisure as could be found amid urgent official duties. In more favourable circumstances the area of correspondence covered might have been widened, and the balance of the whole better adjusted. In my estimate of Nairn's character I do not pretend to be judicial. 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.