52. There is nothing in all the world more just than happiness, nothing
that will more faithfully adopt the form of our soul, or so carefully
fill the space that our wisdom clings open. Yet is it most silent of
all that there is in the world. The Angel of Sorrow can speak every
language--there is not a word but she knows; but the lips of the Angel
of Happiness are sealed, save when she tells of the savage's joys. It
is hundreds of centuries past that misfortune was cradled, but
happiness seems even now to have scarcely emerged from its infancy.
There are some men have learned to be happy; why are there none whose
great gladness has urged them to lift up their voice in the name of the
silent Archangel who has flooded their soul with light? Are we not
almost teaching happiness if we do only speak of it; invoking it, if we
let no day pass without pronouncing its name? And is it not the first
duty of those who are happy to tell of their gladness to others? All
men can learn to be happy; and the teaching of it is easy. If you live
among those who daily call blessing on life, it shall not be long ere
you will call blessing on yours. Smiles are as catching as tears; and
periods men have termed happy, were periods when there existed some who
knew of their happiness. Happiness rarely is absent; it is we that know
not of its presence. The greatest felicity avails us nothing if we know
not that we are happy; there is more joy in the smallest delight
whereof we are conscious, than in the approach of the mightiest
happiness that enters not into our soul. There are only too many who
think that what they have cannot be happiness; and therefore is it the
duty of such as are happy, to prove to the others that they only
possess what each man possesses deep down in the depths of his heart.
To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest of
happiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come to us
one to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman felicity, that
all men regarded with envy; and if he were very simply to say to us,
"All is mine that you pray for each day: I have riches, and youth, and
health; I have glory, and power, and love; and if to-day I am truly
able to call myself happy, it is not on account of the gifts that
fortune has deigned to accord me, but because I have learned from these
gifts to fix my eyes far above happiness. If my marvellous travels and
victories, my strength and my love, have brought me the peace and the
gladness I sought, it is only because they have taught me that it is
not in them that the veritable gladness and peace can be found. It was
in myself they existed, before all these triumphs; and still in myself
are they now, after all my achievement; and I know full well that had
but a little more wisdom been mine, I might have enjoyed all I now
enjoy without the aid of so much good fortune. I know that today I am
happier still than I was yesterday, because I have learned at last that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account