Excerpt from The Life of Major-General Sir Henry Marion Durand, Vol. 1 of 2

More than twelve years have elapsed between my father's death and the publication of this Memoir. In the meanwhile many of those who knew him, or who knew something of him by reputation, have also died, and for others probably the lapse of time will have lessened the interest which the book might have possessed if published earlier. Various reasons have combined to cause the delay. When I went out to India two years after my father's death I did not feel competent to take up immediately the story of an Indian career, while, on the other hand, I believed that my father's wishes in the matter had been clearly indicated, and that the writing of his life was a duty which I had no right to make over to others. I therefore put the matter off, being further actuated by the feeling, which my father had also entertained, that for some reasons a certain amount of delay in the publication of his papers might not be altogether undesirable. After I had gained a little experience of India, and had begun to think that I could properly undertake the task, the constant pressure of Secretariat duties, interrupted only by a period of service in Afghanistan, left me very scanty leisure, and it was not until last year that I was able to set to work in earnest.

Now that the book is finished I am very sensible of the fact that after all it has been roughly and imperfectly put together.

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