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SATAN THE WASTER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

HORTUS VITÆ, or THE HANGING GARDENS: Moralizing Essays. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. THE ENCHANTED WOODS. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. THE SPIRIT OF ROME. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. HAUNTINGS: Fantastic Stories. Crown 8vo.

3s. 6d. net.

THE SENTIMENTAL TRAVELLER. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

POPE JACYNTH AND OTHER FANTASTIC TALES. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

GENIUS LOCI. Notes on Places. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

LIMBO, and Other Essays. To which is now added 'Ariadne in Mantua." Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. LAURUS NOBILIS: Chapters on Art and Life. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

RENAISSANCE, FANCIES AND STUDIES. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY. With Three Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

ALTHEA: Dialogues on Aspirations and Duties. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

VANITAS: Polite Stories, including the hitherto Unpublished Story entitled, "A Frivolous Conversation." Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

BEAUTY AND UGLINESS. With 9 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

VITAL LIES. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 10s. net.

THE TOWER OF THE MIRRORS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

THE BODLEY HEAD

A PREFACE

TEN YEARS AFTER PUBLICATION, 1920-1930

My war trilogy ends with the angry warning of Stage-Manager Satan to his, by this time, unpresentable Ballet-Master Death: Do you now understand that Heroism has almost found you out for the preposterous, indecent anachronism that you are? And if, by any chance, that Blind Boy should really be surgeoned into seeing, why this will have been the last of our "Ballets of the Nations."

What Heroism, temporarily restored to sight, thought of that performance in which he had played the star part, was expressed some years later by Mr. Galsworthy's young poet in the White Monkey. And Heroism, with the voice of real young poets and novelists, from Sassoon to Remarque and Hemmingway, Williamson, Aldington and Graves, has been repeating, bitterly or sorrowfully, the same thing ever since. And people have listened without being scandalized, except with the war itself and its former promoters.

But this book was originally published ten years ago, when such things could not be said without impiety. So, with the generous exception of Mr. Bernard Shaw, Satan the Waster was boycotted by reviewers; my own friends turned away from it in silence; and I myself felt rather ashamed of having written it.

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