Not that I think resignation the last word of wisdom.  I am too much the creature of my time for that.  But I think that the proper wisdom is to will what the gods will without perhaps being certain what their will is—­or even if they have a will of their own.  And in this matter of life and art it is not the Why that matters so much to our happiness as the How.  As the Frenchman said, “Il y a toujours la maniere.”  Very true.  Yes.  There is the manner.  The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments—­and even in love.  The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind.

Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills.  It rests notably, amongst others, on the idea of Fidelity.  At a time when nothing which is not revolutionary in some way or other can expect to attract much attention I have not been revolutionary in my writings.  The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas.  Its hard, absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains.  No doubt one should smile at these things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher.  All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free. . .

I fear that trying to be conversational I have only managed to be unduly discursive.  I have never been very well acquainted with the art of conversation—­that art which, I understand, is supposed to be lost now.  My young days, the days when one’s habits and character are formed, have been rather familiar with long silences.  Such voices as broke into them were anything but conversational.  No.  I haven’t got the habit.  Yet this discursiveness is not so irrelevant to the handful of pages which follow.  They, too, have been charged with discursiveness, with disregard of chronological order (which is in itself a crime), with unconventionality of form (which is an impropriety).  I was told severely that the public would view with displeasure the informal character of my recollections.  “Alas!” I protested mildly.  “Could I begin with the sacramental words, ‘I was born on such a date in such a place’?  The remoteness of the locality would have robbed the statement of all interest.  I haven’t lived through wonderful adventures to be related seriatim.  I haven’t known distinguished men on whom I could pass fatuous remarks.  I haven’t been mixed up with great or scandalous affairs.  This is but a bit of psychological document, and even so, I haven’t written it with a view to put forward any conclusion of my own.”

But my objector was not placated.  These were good reasons for not writing at all—­not a defence of what stood written already, he said.