NOTE

I AM fortunate in being able to illustrate this volume with five drawings, and for that privilege I have to thank my friends Gordon Craig, Jo Davidson, Lovat Fraser and Joseph Simpson, R.B.A., and I am indebted also to the editor of The Mask for the courtesy of permitting me to reproduce Mr Craig's study of Whitman from the pages of his excellent journal, and to Messrs Maunsel & Co., of Dublin, the publishers of Synge's works, for permission to reproduce the drawing of John M. Synge by J. B. Yeats, R.H.A.

MILL HILL, N.W.,
June 1912

H. J.

We move about in nature, cunning and cheerful, in order that we may surprise everything in the beauty peculiar to it; we make an effort, whether in sunshine or under a stormy sky, to see a distant part of the coast with its rocks, bays, and olive and pine trees under an aspect in which it achieves its perfection and confirmation. Thus also we should walk about among men as their discoverers and explorers, meting out to them good and evil in order that we may unveil the peculiar beauty which is seen with some in the sunshine, in others under thunder-clouds, or with others again only in twilight and under a rainy sky.-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

CONCERNING PERSONALITIES

LL books save those which subserve some fact such as, say, ferro-concrete or the migration of swallows or the differential calculus, and even, perhaps, these also, are about persons. The best books are about one person-the author. I have yet to meet the writer, or any kind of artist, who has other interests. The test of an artist lies in his power of attracting attention to himself, for by doing so he aids others in the same pleasant occupation in reference to themselves. Most people will deny this. They prefer to assert their interest in things, in ideas, in persons, men, women and children, races and castes, and, whilst such an assertion is far from being untrue, it is not the whole truth. It is a kind of truth -possibly the truth that passeth understanding— and I am not one to deny that it is a very good kind of truth, meet for dwellers on the edge of mystery, fair currency for those who have no desire to spend themselves in argument. But behind the truth that passeth understanding (which is an impossible proposition, for no one can get behind it) argumentative persons might, for purposes of discussion, affix labels, as it were, indicating starting points and directions for more argument. (Let us remember