Transcribed from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK RUTHERFORD * * * * * EDITED BY HIS FRIEND REUBEN SHAPCOTT * * * * * HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO * * * * * [_All rights reserved_] CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD 13 CHAPTER II PREPARATION 33 CHAPTER III WATER LANE 57 CHAPTER IV EDWARD GIBBON MARDON 84 CHAPTER V MISS ARBOUR 107 CHAPTER VI ELLEN AND MARY 138 CHAPTER VII EMANCIPATION 173 CHAPTER VIII PROGRESS IN EMANCIPATION 194 CHAPTER IX OXFORD STREET 215 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE present edition is a reprint of the first, with corrections of several mistakes which had been overlooked. There is one observation which I may perhaps be permitted to make on re-reading after some years this autobiography. Rutherford, at any rate in his earlier life, was an example of the danger and the folly of cultivating thoughts and reading books to which he was not equal, and which tend to make a man lonely. It is all very well that remarkable persons should occupy themselves with exalted subjects, which are out of the ordinary road which ordinary humanity treads; but we who are not remarkable make a very great mistake if we have anything to do with them. If we wish to be happy, and have to live with average men and women, as most of us have to live, we must learn to take an interest in the topics which concern average men and women. We think too much of ourselves. We ought not to sacrifice a single moment’s pleasure in our attempt to do something which is too big for us, and as a rule, men and women are always attempting what is too big for them. To ninety-nine young men out of a hundred, or perhaps ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a hundred thousand, the wholesome healthy doctrine is, “Don’t bother yourselves with what is beyond you; try to lead a sweet, clean, wholesome life, keep yourselves in health above everything, stick to your work, and when your day is done amuse and refresh yourselves.”