E-text prepared by David Clarke, Carla Foust,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from digital material generously made available by
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofsirjamesfi00stepuoft |
Transcriber's note
Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without notice. Printer'serrors have been corrected, and they are indicated witha mouse-hoverand listed at theend of this book. All otherinconsistencies are as in the original.
Walker & Boutalls Ph. Sc.J F Stephen
From a drawing by G. F. Watts. R. A. 1863.
London. Published by Smith Elder & Co. 15 Waterloo Place.
THE LIFE
OF
SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN
BART., K.C.S.I.
A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BY HIS BROTHER
LESLIE STEPHEN
WITH TWO PORTRAITS
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1895
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE
In writing the following pages I have felt very strongly onedisqualification for my task. The life of my brother, Sir J. F. Stephen,was chiefly devoted to work which requires some legal knowledge for itsfull appreciation. I am no lawyer; and I should have considered thisfact to be a sufficient reason for silence, had it been essential togive any adequate estimate of the labours in question. My purpose,however, is a different one. I have wished to describe the man ratherthan to give any history of what he did. What I have said of the valueof his performances must be taken as mainly a judgment at second hand.But in writing of the man himself I have advantages which, from thenature of the case, are not shared by others. For more than sixty yearshe was my elder brother; and a brother in whose character and fortunes Itook the strongest interest from the earliest period at which I wascapable of reflection or observation. I think that brothers havegenerally certain analogies of temperament, intellectual and moral,which enable them, however widely they may differ in many respects, toplace themselves at each other's point of view, and to be so far[vi]capable of that sympathetic appreciation which is essential tosatisfactory biography. I belie