It is, then, from College Windows that I look forth. But even so,
though on the one hand I look upon the green and sheltered garden,
with its air of secluded recollection and repose, a place of quiet
pacing to and fro, of sober and joyful musing; yet on another side
I see the court, with all its fresh and shifting life, its swift
interchange of study and activity; and on yet another side I can
observe the street where the infinite pageant of humanity goes to
and fro, a tide full of sound and foam, of business and laughter,
and of sorrow too, and sickness, and the funeral pomp of death.

This, then, is my point of view. I can truthfully say that it is
not gloomy, and equally that it is not uproarious. I can boast of
no deep philosophy, for I feel, like Dr. Johnson's simple friend
Edwards, that "I have tried, too, in my time, to be a philosopher,
but--I don't know how--cheerfulness was always breaking in."
Neither is it the point of view of a profound and erudite student,
with a deep belief in the efficacy of useless knowledge. Neither am
I a humorist, for I have loved beauty better than laughter; nor a
sentimentalist, for I have abhorred a weak dalliance with personal
emotions. It is hard, then, to say what I am; but it is my hope
that this may emerge. My desire is but to converse with my readers,
to speak as in a comfortable tete-a-tete, of experience, and hope,
and patience. I have no wish to disguise the hard and ugly things
of life; they are there, whether one disguises them or not; but I
think that unless one is a professed psychologist or statistician,
one gets little good by dwelling upon them. I have always believed
that it is better to stimulate than to correct, to fortify rather
than to punish, to help rather than to blame. If there is one
attitude that I fear and hate more than another it is the attitude