There are two ways of recording and communicating to others animpression, say, of a building or a place. One way is to sit downat a definite point, and make an elaborate picture. It is thusperhaps that one grasps the artistic significance and unity of theobject best; one sees it in a chosen light of noon or eve; onefeels its dominant emotion, its harmony of proportion and outline.Or else one may wander about and take sketches of it from a dozendifferent points of view, record little delicacies of detail, tinywhims and irregularities; and thus one learns more of the varietyand humours of the place, its gestures and irritabilities, itsfailures of purpose or design. The question is whether you like athing idealised or realised. As to the different methods ofinterpretation, they can hardly be compared or subordinated. Anartist does not choose his method, because his method ishimself.
The book that follows is an attempt, or rather a hundredattempts, to sketch some of the details of life, seen from a simpleplane enough, and with no desire to conform it to a theory, or tofind anything very definite in it, or to omit anything because itdid not fit in with prejudices or predilections. The only unity ofmood which it reflects is the unity of purpose which comes from adecision. I had chosen a life which seemed to me then to bewholesome, temperate, and simple, in exchange for a life that wascomplicated, restless, and mechanical. The choice was not in theleast a revolt against conventions; it was only the result of adeliberate belief that conventions were not necessary tocontentment, and that if one never ventured anything in general,one would never gain anything in particular. It was not, to speakwith absolute frankness, intended to be an attempt to shirk my fairshare of the natural human burden. If I had believed in my ownpower of bearing that burden profitably and efficiently, I hope Ishould not have laid it down. It was rather that I thought that Ihad carried a burden long enough, without having the curiosity tosee what it contained. When I did untie it and inspect it, itseemed to me that a great part of what it contained was notparticularly useful, but designed, like the furniture of the WhiteKnight's horse, in Through the Looking Glass, toprovide against unlikely contingencies. I thought that I might livelife, of the brevity and frailty of which I had become suddenlyaware, upon simpler and more rational lines.
I was then, in embarking upon this book, in what may bedescribed as a holiday-making frame of mind, as a man might be who,after a long period of sedentary life, finds himself at leisure,strolling about on a sunny morning in a picturesque foreign town,in that delicious mood when the smallest sights and sounds andincidents have a sharpness and delicacy of flavour which bringsback the untroubled and joyful passivity of childhood, when one hadno need to do anything in particular, because it was enough to be.It seemed so futile to go on consuming stolidly and grimly theporridge of life, when one might take one's choice of its dainties!I had no temptation to waste my substance in riotous living. I hadno relish for the passionate and feverish delights of combat andchase. It did not seem to be worth while to pret