Politicus:_--

"In order that I might inquire better into the matter of this science
with the same freedom of mind with which we are wont to treat lines and
surfaces in mathematics, I determined not to laugh or weep over the
actions of men but simply to understand them, and to contemplate their
affections and passions such as love, hate, anger, envy, arrogance, pity,
and all other disturbances of soul not as vices of human nature, but as
properties pertaining to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm, thunder
pertain to the nature of the atmosphere. For these, though troublesome,
are yet necessary and have certain causes through which we may come to
understand them, and thus by contemplating them in their truth, gain for
our minds as much joy as by the knowledge of things which are pleasing to
the senses."

I think that Isabel Meredith, so far as the outlook of her book extends,
is a disciple of Spinoza. But she can speak for herself.

MORLEY ROBERTS.




CONTENTS


I. A STRANGE CHILDHOOD

II. A GATHERING IN CHISWICK