In order to thrust back from its free horizons these invasions of its prerogatives by alien powers, Art must prove itself able to evoke the very tang and salt and bitter-sweetness of the actual pell-mell of life--its unfolding spaces, its shell-strewn depths. She must defend herself from those insidious traitors in her own camp who would betray her into the hands of the system-makers, by proving that she can approach nearer to the magic of the world, without a system, than all these are able to do, with all of theirs! She must keep the horizons open--that must be her main concern. She must hold fast to poetry and humour, and about her creations there must be a certain spirit of _liberation_, and the presence of large tolerant after-thoughts. The curious thing about so many modern writers is, that in their earnest preoccupation with philosophical and social problems, they grow strained and thin and sententious, losing the mass and volume, as well as the elusive-blown airs, of the flowing tide. On the other hand there is an irritating tendency, among some of the cleverest, to recover their lost balance after these dogmatic speculations, by foolish indulgence in sheer burlesque--burlesque which is the antithesis of all true humour. Heaven help us! It is easy enough to criticize the lath and plaster which, in so many books, takes the place of flesh and blood. It is less easy to catch, for oneself, the breath of the ineffable spirit! Perhaps the deplorable thinness and sententiousness, to which reference has been made, may be due to the fact that in the excitement of modern controversy, our enterprising writers have no time to read. It is a strange thing, but one really feels as though, among all modern English authors, the only one who brings with him an atmosphere of the large mellow leisurely humanists of the past,--of the true classics, in fact,--is Mr. Thomas Hardy. It is for this reason, for the reason that with this great genius, life is approached in the old ample ironic way, that the narrator of the following tale has taken the liberty of putting Mr. Hardy’s name upon his title-page. In any case mere courtesy and decency called for such a recognition. One could hardly have the audacity to plant one’s poor standard in the heart of Wessex without obeisance being paid to the literary over-lord of that suggestive region. It must be understood, however, that the temerity of the author does not carry him so far as to regard his eccentric story as in any sense an attempted imitation of the Wessex novelist. Mr. Hardy cannot be imitated. The mention of his admirable name at the beginning of this book is no more than a humble salutation addressed to the monarch of that particular country, by a wayward nomad, lighting a bivouac-fire, for a brief moment, in the heart of a land that is not his. CONTENTS