title: The Allen House, Or Twenty Years Ago And Now
author: Arthur, T.S. / Arthur, Timothy Shay
description: "We point to two ways in life, and if the young man and maiden, whose feet are lingering in soft green meadows and flowery walks, will consider these two ways in sober earnest, before moving onward, and choose the one that truth and reason tell them leads to honor, success, and happiness - our book will accomplish its right work for them. It is a sad thing, after the lapse of twenty years, to find ourselves amid ruined hopes - to sit down with folded hands and say, "Thus far life has been a failure!" Yet, to how many is this the wretched summing up at the end of a single score of years from the time that reason takes the helm! Alas! that so few, who start wrong - ever succeed in finding the right way; life proving, even to its last burdened years - a miserable failure!Timothy Shay Arthur was a popular 19th-century American author most famous for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There. He was also the author of dozens of stories for Godey's Lady's Book. Arthur did much to articulate and disseminate the values, beliefs, and habits that defined respectable life in America. Arthur was one of the most popular and widely read author of his time."