An Ulster Childhood #246966

This little book is not an autobiography. Neither the characters nor the incidents are taken unaltered from life. Not even the little boy is true, though the author set out to tell the truth about him. But a grown-up can not tell the truth about a little boy, even if he would. In spite of himself humour and sadness will creep in; and little boys have not enough experience of life to be either humorous or sad. So it is the grown-up author who has written the book, and not the little boy he used to be. But the author does not feel that the public is thereby wholly cheated, remembering how often in the writing -of it he became that little boy again.