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 furniture of the White Knight's horse, in _Through the Looking Glass_, to provide against unlikely contingencies.
Author Biography
Arthur Christopher Benson (1862 - 1925) was an English essayist, poet, author and academic and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is noted for writing the words of the song "Land of Hope and Glory." From 1885 to 1903 he taught at Eton, returning to Cambridge in 1904 as a Fellow of Magdalene College to lecture in English Literature. He became president of the college in 1912 and Master of Magdalene in December 1915, a post he held until his death in 1925. From 1906, he was a governor of Gresham's School. The modern development of Magdalene was shaped by Benson. He was a generous benefactor to the college with a significant impact on the modern appearance of the college grounds; at least twenty inscriptions around the college refer to him. In 1930, Benson Court was constructed and named after him. Like his brothers Edward Frederic (E. F.) and Robert Hugh (R. H.), A. C. Benson was noted as an author of ghost stories. The bulk of his published ghost stories in the two volumes The Hill of Trouble and Other Stories (1903) and The Isles of Sunset (1904) were written as moral allegories for his pupils.
