Notes on Life and Letters - Page 2

and receding from the world
not because of weariness or misanthropy but for other reasons that
cannot be helped: because the leaves fall, the water flows, the clock
ticks with that horrid pitiless solemnity which you must have observed
in the ticking of the hall clock at home. For reasons like that. Yes! It
recedes. And this was the chance to afford one more view of it--even to
my own eyes.

The section within this volume called Letters explains itself though I
do not pretend to say that it justifies its own existence. It claims
nothing in its defence except the right of speech which I believe
belongs to everybody outside a Trappist monastery. The part I have
ventured, for shortness' sake, to call Life, may perhaps justify itself
by the emotional sincerity of the feelings to which the various papers
included under that head owe their origin. And as they relate to events
of which everyone has a date, they are in the nature of sign-posts
pointing out the direction my thoughts were compelled to take at the
various crossroads. If anybody detects any sort of consistency in the
choice, this will be only proof positive that wisdom had nothing to do
with it. Whether right or wrong, instinct alone is invariable; a fact
which only adds a deeper shade to its inherent mystery. The appearance
of intellectuality these pieces may present at first sight is merely the
result of the arrangement of words. The logic that may be found there is
only the logic of the language. But I need not labour the point. There
will be plenty of people sagacious enough to perceive the absence of all
wisdom from these pages. But I believe sufficiently in human sympathies
to imagine that very few will question their sincerity. Whatever
delusions I may have suffered from I have had no delusions as to the
nature of the facts commented on here. I may have misjudged their
import: but that is the sort of error for which one may expect a certain
amount of toleration.

The only paper of this collection which has never been published before
is the Note on the Polish problem. It was written at the request of a
friend to be shown privately, and its "Protectorate" idea, sprung from a
strong sense of the critical nature of the situation, was shaped by the
actual circumstances of the time. The time was about a month before the
entrance of Roumania into the war, and though, honestly, I had seen
already the shadow of coming events I could not permit my misgivings to
enter into and destroy the structure of my plan. I still believe that
there was some sense in it. It may certainly be charged with the
appearance of lack of faith and it lays itself open to the throwing of
many stones; but my object was practical and I had to consider warily