ries and have them typed.

The executors found it extremely difficult to know how to deal with such
a vast mass of material. Miss Macnaughtan was a very reserved woman.{1}
She lived much alone, and the diary was her only confidante. In one of
her books she says that expression is the most insistent of human needs,
and that the inarticulate man or woman who finds no outlet in speech or
in the affections, will often keep a little locked volume in which self
can be safely revealed. Her diary occupied just such a place in her own
inner life, and for that reason one hesitates to submit its pages even
to the most loving and sympathetic scrutiny.

But Miss Macnaughtan's diary fulfilled a double purpose. She used it
largely as material for her books. Ideas for stories, fragments of plays
and novels, are sketched in on spare sheets, and the pages are full of
the original theories and ideas of a woman who never allowed anyone else
to do her thinking for her. A striking sermon or book may be criticised
or discussed, the pros and cons of some measure of social reform weighed
in the balance; and the actual daily chronicle of her busy life, of her
travels, her various experiences and adventures, makes a most
interesting and fascinating tale.

So much of the material was obviously intended to form the basis for an
autobiography that the executors came to the conclusion that it would be
a thousand pities to withhold it from the public, and at some future
date it is very much hoped to produce a complete life of Miss
Macnaughtan as narrated in her diaries. Meanwhile, however, the
publisher considers that Miss Macnaughtan's war experiences are of
immediate interest to her many friends and admirers, and I have been
asked to edit those volumes which refer to her work in Belgium, at
home, in Russia, and on the Persian front.

Except for an occasional word where the meaning was obscure, I have
added nothing to the diaries. I have, of course, omitted such passages
as appeared to be private or of family interest only; but otherwise I
have contented myself with a slight rearrangement of some of the
paragraphs, and I have inserted a few letters and extracts from letters,
which give a more interesting or detailed account of some incident than
is found in the corresponding entry in the diary. With these exceptions
the book is published as Miss Macnaughtan wrote it. I feel sure that her
own story of her experiences would lose much of its charm if