The Observations of Professor Maturin

In the present book, moreover, we shall be able to read the sayings of this philosopher of the cheerful mind as they have been remembered and recorded by one who, better than any one else at all, knew Professor Maturin as he thought, and as he spoke, and as he had his being. It is a record, as it will be very easy to discover, of one who has thought much and thought well, for[xi] there is a great difference, as we all know, in the quality as well as in the quantity of thinking. In it all there is an intellectual optimism that inevitably follows the thought wherever it roams—and it often roams far afield—which is one of the thrice blessed things of life.