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In dealing with the subsequent stage of affairs in this country, I feel myself at a loss. Matters of fact, sequences of events, definite incidents in a chain of affairs: all these can be described without much difficulty and with a certain detachment on the part of the narrator. But when it comes to indicating the transition from one psychological state to another, the task is one which would require for its proper fulfilment a more practised pen than mine; and it is precisely this transitional period which I must now attempt to make clear in retrospect; for without an understanding of it my narrative would lack one of its corner-stones.

Apart from the mere question of narration, however, there is a further difficulty which cannot be evaded. I myself passed through this crisis and underwent day by day these changes in outlook which I shall have to portray; so that the personal factor cannot be eliminated from my account. Yet my own feelings and views must not be allowed to monopolise the field; since they had not the slightest influence upon the main current of popular feeling.