Within the Tides - Page 2

sensations. The problem was to make unfamiliar things credible. To do
that I had to create for them, to reproduce for them, to envelop them in
their proper atmosphere of actuality. This was the hardest task of all
and the most important, in view of that conscientious rendering of truth
in thought and fact which has been always my aim.

The other utterance of the two I have alluded to above consisted in the
observation that in this volume of mine the whole was greater than its
parts. I pass it on to my readers merely remarking that if this is
really so then I must take it as a tribute to my personality since those
stories which by implication seem to hold so well together as to be
surveyed en bloc and judged as the product of a single mood, were
written at different times, under various influences and with the
deliberate intention of trying several ways of telling a tale. The hints
and suggestions for all of them had been received at various times and
in distant parts of the globe. The book received a good deal of varied
criticism, mainly quite justifiable, but in a couple of instances quite
surprising in its objections. Amongst them was the critical charge of
false realism brought against the opening story: The Planter of Malata.
I would have regarded it as serious enough if I had not discovered on
reading further that the distinguished critic was accusing me simply of
having sought to evade a happy ending out of a sort of moral cowardice,
lest I should be condemned as a superficially sentimental person. Where
(and of what sort) there are to be found in The Planter of Malata any
germs of happiness that could have fructified at the end I am at a loss
to see. Such criticism seems to miss the whole purpose and significance
of a piece of writing the primary intention of which was mainly
aesthetic; an essay in description and narrative around a given
psychological situation. Of more seriousness was the spoken criticism of
an old and valued friend who thought that in the scene near the rock,
which from the point of view of psychology is crucial, neither Felicia
Moorsom nor Geoffrey Renouard find the right things to say to each
other. I didn't argue the point at the time, for, to be candid, I didn't
feel quite satisfied with the scene myself. On re-reading it lately for
the purpose of this edition I have come to the conclusion that there is
that much truth in my friend's criticism that I have made those people a
little too explicit in their emotion and thus have destroyed to a
certain extent the characteristic illusory glamour of their
personalities. I regret this defect very much for I regard The Planter
of Malata as a nearly successful attempt at doing a very difficult thing
which I would have liked to have