strange tangle of our lives, we may see that the
time was most wasted when we were serene, easy, prosperous, and
unthinking, and most profitable when we were anxious, overshadowed, and
suffering. _The Thread of Gold_ is the fibre of limitless hope that
runs through our darkest dreams; and just as the water-drop which I saw
break to-day from the darkness of the hill, and leap downwards in its
channel, will see and feel, in its seaward course, many sweet and
gentle things, as well as many hard and evil matters, so I, in a year
of my pilgrimage, have set down in this book, a frank picture of many
little experiences and thoughts, both good and evil. Sometimes the
water-drop glides in the sun among mossy ledges, or lingers by the edge
of the copse, where the hazels lean together; but sometimes it is
darkened and polluted, so that it would seem that the foul oozings that
infect it could never be purged away. But the turbid elements, the
scum, the mud, the slime--each of which, after all, have their place in
the vast economy of things--float and sink to their destined abode; and
the crystal drop, released and purified, runs joyfully onwards in its
appointed way.

A. C. B.

CIRENCESTER, 8_th April_ 1907.

INTRODUCTION (1906)

I am glad to have the opportunity of saying a few words in my own name
about this book, because the original introduction seems to have misled
some of my readers; and as I have had many kind, encouraging, and
sacred messages about the book from very unexpected quarters, I should
like to add a few further words of explanation.

One of the difficulties under which literary art seems to me to labour
is that it feels bound to run in certain channels, to adopt stereotyped
and conventional media of expression. What can be more conventional
than the average play, or the average novel? People in real life do
not behave or talk--at least, this is my experience--in the smallest
degree as they behave or talk in novels or plays; life as a rule has no
plot, and very few dramatic situations. In real life the adventures
are scanty, and for most of us existence moves on in a commonplace and
inconsequent way. Misunderstandings are not cleared up, complexities
are not unravelled. I think it is time that more unconventional forms
of expression should be discovered and used; and at least, we can try
experiments; the experiment that I have here tried, is to present a
sort of _liber studiorum_, a portfolio o