Introduction
In the year 1906 "The House of Souls" was issued by the firm of E. Grant Richards. The publisher, I know not why, thought the book ought to have a preface, and so I wrote one. This preface had nothing very much to do with the contents of the volume; it served me as a vehicle for the expression of my hatreds. I find that I disliked many things in 1906. I abhorred the notion that literature should be "practical," or utilitarian; the notion that made Macaulay condemn the Platonic philosophy because it had not led to the invention of anything useful to man, materially useful, that is. Then, I detested "big business" in all its ways. Big business meant to me a nest of horrible factories and appalling chimneys, rows of mean streets, staring or deplorable, the pleasant country laid waste, the rivers running black as ink. Again, Puritanism,
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