Editor’s Note + 

Before I continue my friend Rutherford’s autobiography, I wish to correct a misunderstanding in the minds of some of my reviewers. It has been supposed that I set him up as hero. This is the very last thing I should have thought of doing. I always knew him to be weak, the victim of impressions, especially of self-created impressions; and I always pitied him for his strange propensity to entangle himself in problems which he had not the power to solve. I knew also that he was morbid, and defective in that gaiety of heart which is so necessary to conquer the world. But I knew also that he had great qualities, a deep sincerity, a capacity of almost passionate affection; and he was to me a type of many excellent persons whom this century troubles with ceaseless speculations, yielding no conclusions and no peace. After half a life had been passed in a struggle in which he was well-nigh overcome, his mind seemed to find rest, and his sinews became thickened and invigorated. The questions which had tormented him remained unanswered, but they had lost their terrible urgency; and somehow or other, by what means I can hardly tell, he had fought his way to that victory which every man must in some measure achieve if he is to live. + 

After the death of Mardon there is a blank of many months in the Rutherford papers. Wollaston and Theresa had emigrated to America, and nothing was ever heard of them. Rutherford, once more thrown out of employment, had taken one small room in a street on the right-hand side of the Camden Road, a little short of the point where the North London Railway Station now is. It is here that his story begins again. + 