I have therefore confined the first section
of this book to a mere series of such impressions, and left to the last
section a study of the problem and an attempt at the solution.
Between these two I have inserted a sort of sketch of what seemed to me
the determining historical events that make the problem what it is.
Of these I will only say for the moment that, whether by a coincidence
or for some deeper cause, I feel it myself to be a case of first
thoughts being best; and that some further study of history served
rather to solidify what had seemed merely a sort of vision.
I might almost say that I fell in love with Jerusalem at first sight;
and the final impression, right or wrong, served only to fix
the fugitive fancy which had seen, in the snow on the city,
the white crown of a woman of Bethlehem.
But there is another cause for my being content for the moment,
with this mere chaos of contrasts. There is a very real reason
for emphasising those contrasts, and for shunning the temptation
to shut our eyes to them even considered as contrasts.
It is necessary to insist that the contrasts are not easy to turn
into combinations; that the red robes of Rome and the green
scarves of Islam will not very easily fade into a dingy russet;
that the gold of Byzantium and the brass of Babylon will require
a hot furnace to melt them into any kind of amalgam.
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