But yet I bring it to you, simply because it is my first. For whatever altars I may have raised by the wayside, whatever ephemeral loyalties may have swayed me, my one real lodestar has always been your love, and sympathy, and guidance. And as in life it has always been to you first that I have brought my troubles, my aims, my hopes, so in the world of ideas it is to you that I would bring this, the first-born of my dreams.

Accept it. For it carries with it the very real and very deep love of a most grateful son.

A.W.

CONTENTS

Prefacepage [9]
[BOOK I:] WARP AND WOOF
I Groping[15]
II Finding his Feet[21]
III The New Philosophy[31]
IV New Faces[44]
V Emerging[52]
VI Clarke[62]
VII When One is in Rome[69]
[BOOK II:] THE TANGLED SKEIN
I Quantum Mutatus[79]
II Healthy Philistinism[102]
III Tin Gods[119]
IV Through a Glass Darkly[130]
[BOOK III:] UNRAVELLING THE THREADS
I Common Room Faces[134]
II Carnival[169]
III Broadening Outlook[179]
IV Thirds[185]
V Dual Personality[196]
VI The Games Committee[200]
VII Rebellion[208]
VIII The Dawning of many Dreams[213]
[BOOK IV]: THE WEAVING
I The Twilight of the Gods[226]
II Setting Stars[239]
III Romance[242]
IV The Dawn of Nothing[249]
V The Things that Seem[259]
VI The Tapestry Completed[277]

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION