What is the author's tone in Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell?

The tone of the TAO TE CHING is optimistic - provided the reader follows the precepts and embraces the Tao (or Eternal Way). It resembles the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures in characterizing, clarifying, rephrasing, illustrating, exhorting, and exemplifying, seemingly at random. To the believer it is certainly an exposition of objective truth: how the universe is ordered.