Aylwin

hing' between these two; just as what we call colour and sound are born of the play of undulation upon organism. INTRODUCTION TO THE SNOWDON EDITION OF 1901

Though written many years ago this story was, for certain personal reasons easy to guess, withheld from publication--withheld, as The Times pointed out, because 'with the Dichtung was mingled a good deal of _Wahrheit_,' But why did I still delay in publishing it after these reasons for withholding it had passed away? This is a question that has often been put to me both in print and in conversation. And yet I should have imagined that the explanation was not far to seek. It was simply diffidence; in other words it was that infirmity which, though generally supposed to belong to youth, comes to a writer, if it comes at all, with years. Undoubtedly there was a time in my life when I should have leapt with considerable rashness into the brilliant ranks of our contemporary novelists. But this was before I had reached what I will call