I have said already that but for the hazard of a journey to Tahiti I should doubtless never have written this book.It is thither that after many wanderings Charles Strickland came,and it is there that he painted the pictures on which his fame most securely rests.I suppose no artist achieves completely the realization of the dream that obsesses him,and Strickland,harassed incessantly by his struggle with technique,managed,perhaps,less than others to express the vision that he saw with his minds eye;but in Tahiti the circumstances were favourable to him;he found in his surroundings the accidents necessary for his inspiration to become effective,and his later pictures give at least a suggestion of what he sought.They offer the imagination something new and strange.It is as though in this far country his spirit,that had wandered disembodied,seeking a tenement,at last was able to clothe itself in flesh.To use the hackneyed phrase,here he found himself.

　　It would seem natural that my visit to this remote island should immediately revive my interest in Strickland,but......