anity which were at that time colliding with
complete unbelief in England. But I had from the first--from the days
when I was planning _The New Republic_ onward--urged that all doctrines
pertaining to particular forms of Christianity were merely parts of a
wider question--namely, that of the credibility of supernatural religion
of any kind, and that this credibility must be tested, not by an
examination of religious doctrines as such, or even of religious emotion
in the purer and more direct manifestations of it, but in the indirect
effects produced by it on the quality of life generally. Thus merely in
the capacity of a thinker I felt myself presently impelled to a
reconsideration of the contents of the life of the individual; and this
impulsion was aggravated by certain domestic dramas which, in one way or
another, came to my own knowledge.

In describing my visit to Hungary I mentioned a young and extremely
engaging lady, who looked as though she were made for happiness, but
whose life, though prematurely ended, had had time since then to become
entangled in tragedy. I had often, since I left Hungary, wondered what
had become of her; but not till some years later did I learn, quite
accidentally, what her story and her end had been. I was told few
details, but these sufficed to enable me, by a mere use of the
imagination, to reconstruct it, and see in it certain general meanings.
Of this reconstructive process the result was my novel, _A Human
Document_. It was not, indeed, due to the stimulus of this story alone,
and of the philosophic meanings which I read either in or into it. It
was partly due, I must confess, to the effects which Hungarian life had
on my imagination generally--effects with which the affairs of this lady
had nothing at all to do--and to an impulse to reproduce these in some
sort of literary form. The castles, the armor, the shepherds playing to
their flocks, the wild gypsy music, the obeisances of the peasants, the
mysteries of the great forests--all these things, like an artist when he
paints a landscape, I longed to reproduce for the mere pleasure of
reproducing them. Such being the case, the heroine of my novel and her
experiences became unified with the scenes among which I had actually
known her.

For this work, as a picture of Hungary and Hungarian life, I am well
supported in claiming one merit, at all events. Count Deym, who at that
time was Austrian Ambassador in London, told a friend of