单选题 Some of Winifred Holtby"s friend wanted to see this biography published soon after her death in order to catch a supposed topical market and to forestall the appearance of half-informed studies. For those who loved her, I fully realize how painful and exasperating it has been to wait for a complete account of life, based upon adequate knowledge and that growth of understanding which only years of close friendship can bring. My apologies are due to them for the many explanations offered of the simple fact that I did not write this book earlier because I did not want to. I knew that, if I wrote quickly, I should very soon repent of what I had written.
It would have been easy enough, on the strength of memory and a superficial glance through a mass of papers which Winifred left me, to construct a readable record of her life within a few months of her death anyone accustomed to writing books could produce such a volume; and she had not been a week in her grave before a number of publishers—though not my own—had invited me to do so. From the standpoint of sales such a course would doubtless have benefited my interests as well as theirs, but I cannot believe that it would have assisted Winifred"s reputation.
A hasty portrait may be good journalism, but almost without exception it is bad biography. The chief essential of biography is truth, and truth is seldom served by hurried studies however topical and efficient. In practice, such work usually proves to be short-lived to precisely the degree that it is topical.
The closer one person has been to another, the greater the need for time to elapse in order that the bitterness of loss and the arbitrary selections of memory may be modified by perspective and detachment, by the thorough investigation of available material, and most of all by the quiet process of unhurried reflection. Even within the past few months, many facts of Winifred"s life and character have become clear to me.
I can therefore only plead for understanding and forgiveness when I say that I could not have produced a truthful study of the best friend whom life has given me in the months directly following her death.