ABSTRACT
I N attempting to convey a correct impression of past events, it is often difficult to decide how far their true sequence may be disregarded for the sake of grouping together things naturally related. To set down all occurrences day by day, as they actually took place, is undoubtedly the easiest, and, in some ways, the most natural plan. On the other hand, it often necessitates the separation of matters intimately connected with one another, while the mind is distracted rather than refreshed by the continual succession of topics presented to it. For this reason I have thought it best to include in a separate chapter all that I have to say concerning my intercourse with the Babis in Shlraz. Had this intercourse been more closely interwoven with the social life which I have endeavoured to portray in the preceding chapter, such dissociation might have been inadvisable, and even impossible. As it was, it was a thing apart; a separate life in a different sphere; a drama, complete in itself, with its own scenes and its own actors.
