Excerpt from The Land of Joy John's thoughts went back to the day three years before when from this very window he had watched, as he was watching now, the scene beneath. Then he had been filled with the keenest interest, even excitement; had been impatient for the morrow and the real commencement of his college life. His mind had been charged with thoughts of the great things he was going to do. Well, that had been three years ago, he reflected; to-day his thoughts were somewhat soberer. In the three years he had seen many illusions fade and had stored by a certain amount of practical common sense. As for the great things, some few of them had come to pass; unfortunately, seen in retrospect they were shrunken out of all similitude to the glorious subjects of his early dreams. It must not be thought, however, that disillusion ment had soured him. At twenty-four, given a sane mind and a healthy body, one can bear with equanimity more disenchantment than had fallen to the lot of John North. And John, being the possessor of twenty - four years, sanity and health. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.