is world of good and evil, of doubt and certainty, of action
and inaction, in this world struggling for physical and social and moral
good, what value have aesthetical questions at all? And with these notes,
written latest of all, and threatening to divert me more than they
should from my present field of study to the wider, nobler, far more
intricate and dangerous field of ethics, I have thought it best to
close my book; since these latest notes supply the explanation--felt
all along, but only vaguely formulated till now--of my whole aesthetic,
because of my whole philosophic, tendencies: the greatest amount of good
work to be obtained from everything, and this possible only by all being
seen in its right light, and consequently used in its right place.

This is what my new book is, and this is how such it has come to be. And
just because it is what it is, because it is not a mere piece of work,
not a mere something made by me and thrust away, in its systematic cut
and dryness, from my living personality; but a certain proportion of my
growing, altering, enlarging, disjointed, helter-skelter thoughts, of
the thoughts which come to me whether I will or not; because it is not
a real book but a collection of notes, do I wish it to be read by you.
So now I tie together and make a packet of all the pages of proofs and
sheets of MS., and send it all to you. The summer has come round: the
tall grass, brocaded like some rough, rich mediaeval stuff, with yellow
buttercups and blue sage flowers, is already beginning to be scythed
and raked away; the last clusters of hawthorn, which, a few days since,
still stood out white and crisp against the blue of the sky, fall to
pieces as soon as one tries to gather them; the Tuscan country has
already got its summer sheen of pale green poppied wheat, and pale green
budding vine, and dim blue distance, and pervading faint yellow haze;
the hills of Siena are green with sprouting arbutus and ilex and fern
and hellebore bells; the oakwoods that we saw russet under the reddening
light, are in tender, yellowish new leaf; the olives are in blossom from
which we broke the fruit-laden twigs; it seems so long, so very long,
since that soft grey winter day when last we were together, looking down
from the battlements of the old Sienese villa; and yet the memory of
that winter day seems as real as the present reality of this summer one;
and haunts me still, as I write these words, even as it has haunte