unabsorbed fact which has capacities for explosion. All this was in my
mind when The Trespasser was written, and its converse was 'The Pomp of
the Lavilettes', which showed the invasion of the life of the outer land
by the representative of the old civilisation.

I do not know whether I had the thought that the treatment of such themes
was interesting or not. The idea of The Trespasser was there in my mind,
and I had to use it. At the beginning of one's career, if one were to
calculate too carefully, impulse, momentum, daring, original conception
would be lost. To be too audacious, even to exaggerate, is no crime in
youth nor in the young artist. As a farmer once said to me regarding a
frisky mount, it is better to smash through the top bar than to have
spring-halt.

The Trespasser took its place, and, as I think, its natural place, in the
development of my literary life. I did not stop to think whether it was
a happy theme or not, or whether it had popular elements. These things
did not concern me. When it was written I should not have known what was
a popular theme. It was written under circumstances conducive to its
artistic welfare; if it has not as many friends as 'The Right of Way' or
'The Seats of the Mighty' or 'The Weavers' or 'The Judgment House', that
is not the fault of the public or of the critics.




TO DOUGLAS ROBINSON, Esq.,

AND