X PKEFACE 



store on) are enough to provoke a saint : I go back to the 

 fourteenth century in Graubiinden when I am vexed '- 

 referring to his preliminary studies in the mediaeval history 

 of the canton which he proposed to write. The revises of 

 the Essays were passed ' for press ' in March, and in June 

 the book appeared. On June 19 (' 1.30 at night ') he writes : 

 ' I have to-night received a copy of my Essays. ... I am 

 glad it is out. It is a weight off my mind. And the book 

 has so much stuff of myself in it that I am rather glad it 

 goes forth to the world in forma pauperis. . . . It is off my 

 mind : and even though one has sent some twenty-nine 

 volumes out, one is always glad when the last has flown. 

 I think this feeling of impatience about the rupture of the 

 umbilical cord of authorship grows more intense the more 

 one publishes.' On July 15 he reiterates his interest in 

 the book. ' I am interested in this book more than I have 

 been in any other : not in its success that must take care 

 of itself, and really does not matter but in what people 

 think of it ; for I put a great deal of myself into it, and 

 what they think of it is what they think of me, the man 

 here. I hope you will, sometime, tell me where you find me 

 "flinging out " in a way you do not like. I thought I had only 

 indulged in one fling ... in the Essay on Democratic Art. 

 But it seems I must already have done so in the first four 

 Essays. I want much to be enlightened on the subject. For 

 my aim at present in writing is not to fling out, except when 

 the occasion makes it necessary. And yet I know that, 

 living so much alone, I am not always in proper rapport to 

 my audience, and probably take many for accepted truths, 

 which may appear to others sallies of my own humour.' 

 Again, on July 29, he writes : ' You make me feel that the 

 long discipline I gave myself in preparing that book 

 altering my nature, correcting my proclivities, working 

 towards a conscious aim, has not been thrown away . . . 

 For I have lived a strange, anxious life in many ways of 

 late ; and all the time I have striven to gain precise views and 

 methods of expression. I have wanted to be as sincere in sense 

 and in thought, in the indulgence of natural proclivities and 



