With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in
the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer's aim to
exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would
be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope
that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much
importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just
alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means
within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.
To those who have aided him with information and documents, the extreme
slowness in the progress of the work will naturally have caused
surprise. This slowness was unavoidable. During the past eighteen years,
the state of his health has exacted throughout an extreme caution in
regard to mental application, reducing it at best within narrow and
precarious limits, and often precluding it. Indeed, for two periods,
each of several years, any attempt at bookish occupation would have been
merely suicidal. A condition of sight arising from kindred sources has
also retarded the work, since it has never permitted reading or writing
continuously for much more than five minutes, and often has not
permitted them at all.
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