The Lake | Page 2

is with the mistake that was made when
'The Lake' was excluded from the volume entitled 'The Untilled Field,'
reducing it to too slight dimensions, for bulk counts; and 'The Lake,'
too, in being published in a separate volume lost a great deal in range
and power, and criticism was baffled by the division of stories written
at the same time and coming out of the same happy inspiration, one that
could hardly fail to beget stories in the mind of anybody prone to
narrative--the return of a man to his native land, to its people, to
memories hidden for years, forgotten, but which rose suddenly out of
the darkness, like water out of the earth when a spring is tapped.
Some chance words passing between John Eglinton and me as we
returned home one evening from Professor Dowden's were enough. He
spoke, or I spoke, of a volume of Irish stories; Tourguéniev's name was
mentioned, and next morning--if not the next morning, certainly not
later than a few mornings after--I was writing 'Homesickness,' while
the story of 'The Exile' was taking shape in my mind. 'The Exile' was
followed by a series of four stories, a sort of village odyssey. 'A Letter
to Rome' is as good as these and as typical of my country. 'So on He
Fares' is the one that, perhaps, out of the whole volume I like the best,
always excepting 'The Lake,' which, alas, was not included, but which
belongs so strictly to the aforesaid stories that my memory includes it
in the volume.
In expressing preferences I am transgressing an established rule of
literary conduct, which ordains that an author must always speak of his
own work with downcast eyes, excusing its existence on the ground of
his own incapacity. All the same an author's preferences interest his
readers, and having transgressed by telling that these Irish stories lie
very near to my heart, I will proceed a little further into literary sin,
confessing that my reason for liking 'The Lake' is related to the very
great difficulty of the telling, for the one vital event in the priest's life
befell him before the story opens, and to keep the story in the key in
which it was conceived, it was necessary to recount the priest's life
during the course of his walk by the shores of a lake, weaving his
memories continually, without losing sight, however, of the long,
winding, mere-like lake, wooded to its shores, with hills appearing and

disappearing into mist and distance. The difficulty overcome is a joy to
the artist, for in his conquest over the material he draws nigh to his idea,
and in this book mine was the essential rather than the daily life of the
priest, and as I read for this edition I seemed to hear it. The drama
passes within the priest's soul; it is tied and untied by the flux and
reflux of sentiments, inherent in and proper to his nature, and the
weaving of a story out of the soul substance without ever seeking the
aid of external circumstance seems to me a little triumph. It may be that
I heard what none other will hear, not through his own fault but through
mine, and it may be that all ears are not tuned, or are too indifferent or
indolent to listen; it is easier to hear 'Esther Waters' and to watch her
struggles for her child's life than to hear the mysterious warble, soft as
lake water, that abides in the heart. But I think there will always be a
few who will agree with me that there is as much life in 'The Lake,' as
there is in 'Esther Waters'--a different kind of life, not so wide a life,
perhaps, but what counts in art is not width but depth.
Artists, it is said, are not good judges of their own works, and for that
reason, and other reasons, maybe, it is considered to be unbecoming for
a writer to praise himself. So to make atonement for the sins I have
committed in this preface, I will confess to very little admiration for
'Evelyn Innes' and 'Sister Teresa.' The writing of 'Evelyn Innes' and
'Sister Teresa' was useful to me inasmuch that if I had not written them
I could not have written 'The Lake' or 'The Brook Kerith.' It seems
ungrateful, therefore, to refuse to allow two of my most successful
books into the canon merely because they do not correspond with my
æstheticism. But a writer's æstheticism is his all; he cannot surrender it,
for his art is dependent upon it, and the single concession he can make
is that if an overwhelming demand should arise for these books when
he is among the gone--a storm before which