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 of the cynic.  I believe with all my soul in romance:  that is, in a certain high-hearted, eager dealing with life.  I think that one ought to expect to find things beautiful and people interesting, not to take delight in detecting meannesses and failures.  And there is yet another class of temperament for which I have a deep detestation.  I mean the assured, the positive, the Pharisaical temper, that believes itself to be impregnably in the right and its opponents indubitably in the wrong; the people who deal in axioms and certainties, who think that compromise is weak and originality vulgar.  I detest authority in every form; I am a sincere republican.  In literature, in art, in life, I think that the only conclusions worth coming to are one’s own conclusions.  If they march with the verdict of the connoisseurs, so much the better for the connoisseurs; if they do not so march, so much the better for oneself.  Every one cannot admire and love everything; but let a man look at things fairly and without prejudice, and make his own selection, holding to it firmly, but not endeavouring to impose his taste upon others; defending, if needs be, his preferences, but making no claim to authority.

The time of my life that I consider to have been wasted, from the intellectual point of view, was the time when I tried, in a spirit of dumb loyalty, to admire all the things that were said to be admirable.  Better spent was the time when I was finding out that much that had received the stamp of the world’s approval was not to be approved, at least by me; best of all was the time when I was learning to appraise the value of things to myself, and learning to love them for their own sake and mine.

Respect of a deferential and constitutional type is out of place in art and literature.  It is a good enough guide to begin one’s pilgrimage with, if one soon parts company from it.  Rather one must learn to give honour where honour is due, to bow down in true reverence before all spirits that are noble and adorable, whether they wear crowns and bear titles of honour, or whether they are simple and unnoted persons, who wear no gold on their garments.