Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development

Cover created by Transcriber, using an illustration from the original book, and placed in the Public Domain.
Fig. 86. Maze at Hatfield House, Herts.
MAZES AND LABYRINTHS A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THEIR HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENTS
BY W. H. MATTHEWS, B.Sc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4 NEW YORK, TORONTO BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1922 All rights reserved
Made in Great Britain
To ZETA whose innocent prattlings on the summer sands of Sussex inspired its conception this book is most affectionately dedicated

Advantages out of all proportion to the importance of the immediate aim in view are apt to accrue whenever an honest endeavour is made to find an answer to one of those awkward questions which are constantly arising from the natural working of a child's mind. It was an endeavour of this kind which formed the nucleus of the inquiries resulting in the following little essay.
It is true that the effort in this case has not led to complete success in so far as that word denotes the formulation of an exact answer to the original question, which, being one of a number evoked by parental experiments in seaside sand-maze construction, was: Father, who made mazes first of all? On the other hand, one hesitates to apply so harsh a term as failure when bearing in mind the many delightful excursions, rural as well as literary, which have been involved and the alluring vistas of possible future research that have been opened up from time to time in the course of such excursions.