sees it in a chosen light of noon or eve; one feels its dominant
emotion, its harmony of proportion and outline. Or else one may wander
about and take sketches of it from a dozen different points of view,
record little delicacies of detail, tiny whims and irregularities; and
thus one learns more of the variety and humours of the place, its
gestures and irritabilities, its failures of purpose or design. The
question is whether you like a thing idealised or realised. As to the
different methods of interpretation, they can hardly be compared or
subordinated. An artist does not choose his method, because his method
is himself.

The book that follows is an attempt, or rather a hundred attempts, to
sketch some of the details of life, seen from a simple plane enough,
and with no desire to conform it to a theory, or to find anything very
definite in it, or to omit anything because it did not fit in with
prejudices or predilections. The only unity of mood which it reflects
is the unity of purpose which comes from a decision. I had chosen a
life which seemed to me then to be wholesome, temperate, and simple, in
exchange for a life that was complicated, restless, and mechanical. The
choice was not in the least a revolt against conventions; it was only
the result of a deliberate belief that conventions were not necessary
to contentment, and that if one never ventured anything in general, one
would never gain anything in particular. It was not, to speak with
absolute frankness, intended to be an attempt to shirk my fair share of
the natural human burden. If I had believed in my own power of bearing
that burden profitably and efficiently, I hope I should not have laid
it down. It was rather that I thought that I had carried a burden long
enough, without having the curiosity to see what it contained. When I
did untie it and inspect it, it seemed to me that a great part of what
it contained was not particularly useful, but designed, like the