till then. I mean the
positive feeling of it, which is a thing that cannot be discussed. Neither will
I discuss here the regrets of those critics, which seem to me the most
irrelevant thing that could have been said in connection with literary
criticism.
    I never tried to conceal the origins of the subject matter of this book
which I have hesitated so long to write; but some reviewers indulged themselves
with a sense of triumph in discovering in it my Dominic of »The Mirror of the
Sea« under his own name (a truly wonderful discovery) and in recognising the
balancelle Tremolino in the unnamed little craft in which Mr. George plied his
fantastic trade and sought to allay the pain of his incurable wound. I am not in
the least disconcerted by this display of perspicacity. It is the same man and
the same balancelle. But for the purposes of a book like »The Mirror of the Sea«
all I could make use of was the personal history of the little Tremolino. The
present work is not in any sense an attempt to develop a subject lightly touched
upon in former years and in connection with quite another kind of love. What the
story of the Tremolino in its anecdotic character has in common with the story
of »The Arrow of Gold« is the quality of initiation (through an ordeal which
required some resolution to face) into the life of passion. In the few pages at
the end of »The Mirror of the Sea« and in the whole volume of »The Arrow of
Gold,« that and no other is the subject offered to the public. The pages and the
book form together a complete record; and the only assurance I can give my
readers is, that as it stands here with all its imperfections it is given to
them complete.
    I venture this explicit statement because, amidst much sympathetic
appreciation, I have detected here and there a note, as it were, of suspicion.
Suspicion of facts concealed, of explanations held back, of inadequate motives.
But what is lacking in the facts is simply what I did not know, and what is not
explained is what I did not understand myself, and what seems inadequate is the
fault of my imperfect insight. And all that I could not help. In the case of
this book I was unable to supplement these deficiencies by the exercise of my
inventive faculty. It was never very strong; and on this occasion its use would
have seemed exceptionally dishonest. It is from that ethical motive and not from
timidity that I elected to keep strictly within the limits of unadorned
sincerity and to try to enlist