PREFACE
Many of these Soliloquies have appeared in The Athenaeum and one or more in The London Mercury, The Nation, The New Republic, The Dial, and The Journal of Philosophy. The author's thanks are due to the Editors of all these reviews for permission to reprint the articles.
For convenience, three Soliloquies on Liberty, written in 1915, have been placed in the second group; and perhaps it should be added that not a few of the later pieces were written in France, Spain, or Italy, although still for the most part on English themes and under the influence of English impressions.
CONTENTS
[PROLOGUE]
[SOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND], 1914-1918
1. [ATMOSPHERE]
2. [GRISAILLE]
3. [PRAISES OF WATER]
4. [THE TWO PARENTS OF VISION]
5. [AVERSION FROM PLATONISM]
6. [CLOUD CASTLES]
7. [CROSS-LIGHTS]
8. [HAMLET'S QUESTION]
9. [THE BRITISH CHARACTER]
10. [SEAFARING]
11. [PRIVACY]
12. [THE LION AND THE UNICORN]
13. [DONS]
14. [APOLOGY FOR SNOBS]
15. [THE HIGHER SNOBBERY]
16. [DISTINCTION IN ENGLISHMEN]
17. [FRIENDSHIPS]
18. [DICKENS]
19. [THE HUMAN SCALE]
20. [ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE]
21. [THE ENGLISH CHURCH]
22. [LEAVING CHURCH]
23. [DEATH-BED MANNERS]
24. [WAR SHRINES]
25. [TIPPERARY]
26. [SKYLARKS]
27. [AT HEAVEN'S GATE]
[LATER SOLILOQUIES], 1918-1921
28. [SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE]
29. [IMAGINATION]
30. [THE WORLD'S A STAGE]
31. [MASKS]
32. [THE TRAGIC MASK]
33. [THE COMIC MASK]
34. [CARNIVAL]
35. [QUEEN MAB]
36. [A CONTRAST WITH SPANISH DRAMA]
37. [THE CENSOR AND THE POET]
38. [THE MASK OF THE PHILOSOPHER]
39. [THE VOYAGE OF THE SAINT CHRISTOPHER]
40. [CLASSIC LIBERTY]
41. [GERMAN FREEDOM]
42. [LIBERALISM AND CULTURE]
43. [THE IRONY OF LIBERALISM]
44. [JOHN BULL AND HIS PHILOSOPHERS]
45. [OCCAM'S RAZOR]
46. [EMPIRICISM]
47. [THE BRITISH HEGELIANS]
48. [THE PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY]
49. [THE PSYCHE]
50. [REVERSION TO PLATONISM]
51. [IDEAS]
52. [THE MANSIONS OF HELEN]
53. [THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS]
54. [ON MY FRIENDLY CRITICS]
55. [HERMES THE INTERPRETER]
PROLOGUE
The outbreak of war in the year 1914 found me by chance in England, and there I remained, chiefly at Oxford, until the day of the peace. During those five years, in rambles to Iffley and Sandford, to Godstow and Wytham, to the hospitable eminence of Chilswell, to Wood Eaton or Nuneham or Abingdon or Stanton Harcourt,
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,