Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/342



Most people want to be happy if they can. I suppose it may be safely set down without fear of contradiction that no one who is sane and healthy wilfully elects to be miserable. Yet the secret of happiness seems to be solved by very few. People try to be happy in all sorts of queer ways—in speculation, land-grabbing, dram-drinking, horse-racing, bridge-playing, newspaper-running, and various other methods which are more or less suited to their constitutional abilities—but in many cases these channels, carefully dug out for the reception of a perpetual inflowing of the stream of happiness, appear very soon to run dry. I have been asked scores of times what I consider to be the happiest life in the world, and I have always answered without the least hesitation—the Life Literary. In all respects it answers perfectly to the description of the "Happy Life" portrayed by that gentle sixteenth-century poet, Sir Henry Wotton:—

How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will, Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill.

Herein we have the vital essence of all delight—*