Now before you put any more questions to my book, I will answer for it; and
that we may not miss any, we will call them questions (_a_), (_b_), (_c_),
(_d_), and answer one at a time.

Your first question (_a_)--the first part of it at least--is what grown
people as well as children have a right to ask of a book; and it would be a
poor thing for the book to answer, "Oh, I am about nothing in particular! I
can't quite tell you why I was written." But most books are about something
in particular, and what that is you can best find out by reading them right
through; for many people miss their way in a book by beginning at the end
and travelling backwards, or beginning about the middle, and not knowing
whether to go backwards or forwards. So you see I want you to find out for
yourself the answer to question (_a_), only I will just say that the book
is mostly about your own dwelling-place. I do not mean your body, though
that is, in one sense, your dwelling-place; neither do I mean your own
home, nor even that part of England where you were born. By your own
dwelling-place I mean this wonderful world which you see all around you,
where God has made so much for you to see and enjoy; and learn about too,
that you may use and enjoy it better.

[Illustration: GOOD-BYE TO THE SWALLOWS]

So you will find in this book something about the firm ground upon which
you trod as soon as you were old enough to run about the fields and pick
the daisies. Something too about the blue sky, where the lark sings and the
swallows fly; and the great wide sea, where the fishes live; and a little
about what the Bible tells us of how all that you see around you came to
be; long, long ago, when everything was quite new and beautiful, and God
said that all that He had made was "very good."