Excerpt from Notes of a Private On the first day of June, 1909, the first copies of this book were placed upon the market, and within the first thirty days my personal sales paid the entire cost of the edition, which was exhausted within a few months. Its success may be said to have been immediate, and for this I am greatly indebted to those who bought the book, read it, and gave me personally many a kindly expression of the pleasure they had derived from its perusal. Many of the expressions came from capable men and women, here and elsewhere, whose favorable opinion of a literary production I would always be willing to take as a flattering compliment to an author. In truth, the assurances that I have contributed to the pleas ure of so many good people have been far more grat ifying to me than the ready sales of the book. The comments of scholarly friends, too partial perhaps, which I cover with the words that the book is as meritorious as a literary performance as it is interesting as an authentic history will abide with me. 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.