Scholar's Farewell

I wish there were more time. I feel I have only just begun the actual work, and suddenly I must give over to another, to you, whose care of the Archives will naturally be dictated by your own preoccupations. My curacy is over now.

I have decided not to withhold anything, but instead to offer up the entire story, and let you decide how to proceed. Since I am to have no say in what is done with (or to) the Archives, nor any access to them after the handing-over, I have resolved not to serve badly my precious charge, in these last days, by making it difficult for my supplanter to come to the same appreciation of its worth.

This may be made difficult for you by others. As the Remnant say, Beware the giver with nothing to gain.

I urge you not to depend upon the benignity of your sponsors. Not to give offense, but the Council members surely regard this as minor research, or it would not have been entrusted to you: had your betters regarded this project as really important you may be sure they would have seized upon it themselves.

On the other hand, they clearly believed the Archives important enough to take them away from me. What they most likely told you was that this would be a good project for their golden protégé, thus trivializing not only all my labor but the Archives themselves.

Well. I put myself under their power, so I must not complain of maltreatment. But I will never forgive their light regard for the object of my life's work. And if you are wise, you will realize that you too have been trivialized in this maneuver.

But neither their rhetoric nor their machinations can diminish the true value of the Archives in the slightest.

Therefore, I exhort you not to broadcast too soon the excitement you will certainly feel once you have penetrated to the heart of the Archives. As you will see, this was my first mistake, if not my last. However, it was safer for me to err so than it will be for you, because the reaction against my enthusiasm has as it were poisoned the well for those who follow.

I have every confidence that you have been told I am an eccentric — and worse, perhaps: a fool. That's as may be; I only ask that you come to that conclusion on your own, on the basis of the work I have done, not on the superficial pronouncements of self-important persons who have no idea of the value of this treasure. Think of what is most important to them: reputation among others like themselves. Then read the Archives.

I once believed that bringing forth these writings from the remote past would make my reputation, gain me equal status amongst those august personages. You see what happened. Now consult your own heart. If you are likewise motivated, beware. An older man than yourself would perhaps not need this warning, having suffered a blow or two to his pride and found that the damage could be outlived.

However, what is truly important here is neither your maturity (or lack of it) nor my pride. What matters is the integrity of the Archives, which will soon make a claim upon your loyalty, or so I hope, that will transcend these pathetic preoccupations.

Now to the matter at hand. Included herein, in addition to the Archives themselves, are all my notes, abstracts, conjectures, drafts, and diagrams. I apologize for their disarray, but I was given only enough time to put the Archives themselves into some kind of arrangement.

No doubt you will find this arrangement unsatisfactory, and will wish to assemble the writings according to your own sense of their proper presentation. I cannot stop you, but would plead that I had good reason for putting things in the order I did, even if I was not allowed leisure to write out in detail the rationale for that order.

At some later date, when I have had time to regain my composure, I will send you any final thoughts I may have on the Archives, either advice based on my experience with them, or further meditations upon their significance. You will of course be entirely free to ignore these messages — if they are permitted to reach you at all.

But please know that I hereby freely renounce any right I may have imagined I had to control their destiny. Having made their way through many generations to me and now to you, their capacity to survive can hardly be in doubt.