PREFACE
Writing not long ago to my oldest literary friend, I expressed in a moment of
heedless sentiment the wish that we might have again one of our talks of longpast
days, over the purposes and methods of our art. And my friend, wiser than
I, as he has always been, replied with this doubting phrase "Could we
recapture the zest of that old time?"
I would not like to believe that our faith in the value of imaginative art has
diminished, that we think it less worth while to struggle for glimpses of truth
and for the words which may pass them on to other eyes; or that we can no
longer discern the star we tried to follow; but I do fear, with him, that half a
lifetime of endeavour h...