Title:  The Upton Letters

Author:  Arthur Christopher Benson

Release Date:  November, 2003 [Etext #4615] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 19, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Upton Letters by Arthur Christopher Benson ******This file should be named tultt10.txt or tultt10.zip******

Corrected editions of our etexts get a new number, tultt11.txt
versions based on separate sources get new letter, tultt10a.txt

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the us unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

The “legal small print” and other information about this book may now be found at the end of this file.  Please read this important information, as it gives you specific rights and tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used.

*** This etext was created by Don Lainson (dlainson@sympatico.ca) & Charles Aldarondo (Aldarondo@yahoo.com)

THE UPTON LETTERS

By ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON

aedae muri’ eseidon oneirata, koudepo aos.

1905

PREFACE

These letters were returned to me, shortly after the death of the friend to whom they were written, by his widow.  It seems that he had been sorting and destroying letters and papers a few days before his wholly unexpected end.  “We won’t destroy these,” he had said to her, holding the bulky packet of my letters in his hand; “we will keep them together.  T——­ ought to publish them, and, some day, I hope he will.”  This was not, of course, a deliberate judgement; but his sudden death, a few days later, gives the unconsidered wish a certain sanctity, and I have determined to obey it.  Moreover, she who has the best right to decide, desires it.  A few merely personal matters and casual details have been omitted; but the main substance is there, and the letters are just as they were written.  Such hurried compositions, of course, abound in literary shortcomings, but perhaps they have a certain spontaneity which more deliberate writings do not always possess.  I wrote my best, frankest, and liveliest in the letters, because I knew that Herbert would value both the thought and the expression of the thought.  And, further, if it is necessary to excuse so speedy a publication, I feel that they are not letters which would gain by being kept.  Their interest arises from the time, the circumstance, the occasion that gave them birth, from the books read and criticised, the educational problems discussed; and thus they may form a species of comment on a certain aspect of modern life, and from a definite point of view.  But, after all, it is enough for me that he appreciated them, and, if he wished that they should go out to the world, well, let them go!  In publishing them I am but obeying a last message of love.