PREFATORY NOTE 



The day before his death, Hudson told me that the last part 

 of this book's final chapter was practically finished. All that 

 was needed by the fragmentary script then lying scattered 

 on his table was the thorough revision his work invariably 

 received. When I offered to have it typed, he said that no 

 one could understand it but himself. This I took to refer 

 to his handwriting, which at its best was at times difficult, 

 even to one who had known it for forty years. He often 

 scribbled so illegibly in pencil on odd pieces of paper that 

 he was occasionally hard pressed to read what he had 

 written. As the book remained incomplete, it was necessary 

 for someone to put the last words into order, and the task 

 fell to me since I was familiar with his themes and had dis- 

 cussed them in letters and in talk. He wrote to me on the 

 2nd August of this year, " I did not want to add anything 

 to the book, but it appears I must do it . . . and so I have 

 had to go into the infernal question of the meaning of art 

 generally — ^its origin and meaning. . . . And as soon as I 

 get it done I want to send a copy for you to read — not for 

 you to tell me to modify anything, but to see that I make 

 myself understood." I quote this, as I could quote other 

 letters, to show why it lay upon me to undertake a laborious 

 and very painful task. But, when I came to examine the 

 incomplete script, the whole of it proved so difllicult that many 



pages took days to interpret, and perhaps one-third were 



vii 



