There is a better reason too. Orthodoxy in art is merely compliance with the instinctive methods of great artists, and no one ever succeeded in art who did not make a method of his own. Originality is like a fountain-head of fresh water; orthodoxy is too often only the unimpeachable fluid of the water company. The best hope for the art and literature of a nation is that men should try to represent and express things that they have thought beautiful in an individual way. They do not always succeed, it is true; sometimes they fail for lack of force, sometimes for lack of a sympathetic audience. I have found, in the case of this book, a good deal of sincere sympathy; and where it fails, it fails through lack of force to express thoughts that I have felt with a profound intensity. I have had critics who have frankly disliked the book, and I do not in the least quarrel with them for expressing their opinion; but one does not write solely for the critics; and on the other hand, I can humbly and gratefully say that I have received many messages, of pleasure in, and even gratitude for, the book which leave me in no sort of doubt that it was worth writing; though I wish with all my heart that it had been worthier of its motive, and had been better able to communicate the delight of my visions and dreams. ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON. MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 24_th November_ 1906. THE THREAD OF GOLD INTRODUCTION I have for a great part of my life desired, perhaps more than I have desired anything else, to make a beautiful book; and I have tried, perhaps too hard and too often, to do this, without ever quite succeeding; by that I mean that my little books, when finished, were not worthy to be compared with the hope that I had had of them. I think now that I tried to do too many things in my books, to amuse, to interest, to please persons who might read them; and I fear, too, that in the back of my mind there lay a thought, like a snake in its hole--the desire to show others how fine I could be. I tried honestly not to let this thought rule me; whenever it put its head out, I drove it back; but of course I ought to have waited till it came out, and then killed it, if I had only known how to do that; but I suppose I had a secret tenderness for the little creature as being indeed a part of myself.