Of ways of becoming happier, (not happy,) I could never inquire out more than three. The first, rather an elevated road, is this: To soar away so far above the clouds of life, that you see the whole external world, with its wolf-dens, charnel-houses, and thunder-rods, lying far down beneath you, shrunk into a little child's garden. The second is, simply to sink down into this little garden, and there to nestle yourself so snugly, so homewise, in some furrow, that, in looking out from your warm larknest, you likewise can discern no wolf-dens, charnelhouses, or thunder-rods, but only blades and ears, every one of which, for the nest-bird, is a tree, and a sun-screen, and a rain-screen. The third, finally, which I look upon as the hardest and cunningest, is that of alternating between the other two.

The Hero, the Reformer, your Brutus, your Howard, your Republican, he whom civic storm, or genius poetic storm impels; in short, every mortal with a great Purpose, or even a perennial Passion, (were it but that of writing the largest folios,) all these men fence themselves in by their internal world against the frosts and heats of the external, as the madman in a worse sense does; every fixed idea, such as rules every genius, every enthusiast, at least periodically, separates and elevates a man above the bed and board of this earth.

The skyward track, however, is fit only for the winged portion of the human species, for the smallest. What can it profit poor quill-driving brethren, whose souls even wing-shells, to say nothing of wings?

have not

Or these

tethered persons, with the best back, breast, and neck fins, who float motionless in the wicker Fish-box of the State, and are not allowed to swim, because the Box, or State, long ago tied to the shore, itself swims in the name of the Fishes? To the whole standing and writing Host of heavy-laden State-domestics, Purveyors, Clerks of all departments, and all the lobsters packed together heels over head, in the Lobster-basket of the Government office rooms, and for refreshment sprinkled over with a few nettles to these persons, what way of becoming happy here, can I possibly point out?

My second merely and that is as follows: To take a compound microscope, and with it to discover, and convince themselves that their drop of Burgundy is properly a Red Sea, that butterfly-dust is peacock-feathers, mouldiness a flowery field, and sand a heap of jewels.

My purpose is to show to the whole Earth that we ought to value little joys more than great ones; that Plutus's heaps are worth less than his handfuls, the plum than the penny for a rainy day; and that not great, but little goodhaps make us happy.

Man must become a little Tailor-bird, which, not amid the crashing boughs of the storm-tost, roaring, immeasurable tree of Life, but on one of its leaves, sews itself a nest together, and there lies snug.

The third skyward road is the alternation between the other two. The foregoing second way is not good enough for man, who here on Earth should take into his hand not

the Sickle only, but also the Plough. The first is too good for him. He has not always the force, like Rugendas, in the midst of the Battle to compose Battle-pieces; and like Backhuisen in the Shipwreck, to clutch at no board but the drawing-board to paint it on.

But even by walking, a man rests and recovers himself for climbing; by little joys and duties, for great. The victorious Dictator must contrive to plough down his battle Mars-field into a flax and carrot field; to transform his theatre of war into a parlor theatre, on which his children may enact some good pieces from the Children's Friend. Can he accomplish this, can he turn so softly from the path of poetical happiness into that of household happiness, then is he little different from myself, who even now, though modesty might forbid me to disclose it, who even now, I say, amid the creation of this Letter, have been enabled to reflect, that when it is done, so also will the Roses and Elder Berries of pastry be done, which a sure hand is seething in butter for the Author of this Work. Richter, translated by Carlyle.

Philosophers tell us that happiness is the only possible object of a rational being like man.

To suppose a man to be absolutely without desire, is to suppose him to be without correct perception, stupid, brutish, almost any thing rather than a moral and accountable being. We may not only desire in the general sense of the terms, but we may desire our own happiness. To

be absolutely without the desire of our own happiness would be inconsistent with our moral nature, and with moral duty.

In all holy persons desire is not absolutely lost, but it is lost relatively; just as a drop in the ocean is not absolutely lost, but being in the ocean, and a part of the ocean, who will ever find it. The desire of the holy soul is lost in the will of God. Thomas C. Upham.

The world may be divided into the sensual and the religious. The former think that the Creator owes them a happy life; the latter that they owe him an infinite debt of duty. Frothingham.

A life in which happiness is sought supremely is at best a robe which has a wrong as well as a right side, a vessel in which the figures so pleasantly raised on one surface are sunk and hollow on the other.

An Eye that's strong and rightly disposed is indifferent to all Colours; therefore if it calls for Greens 'tis a sign 'tis weak and out of order. A mind that's sound and healthy is prepared to Digest all sorts of Accidents. And when 'tis clamorous in such wishes as these, 'O that my Children may Live and Flourish, that I may be every body's Favorite, and be commended for everything I do ;' When the Mind, I say, is thus sickly and untoward, it is like an Eye that's all for Green Colours, and like a set of

Teeth that would touch nothing by their Good Will, but Flummery and Pudding. Antoninus.

Intuition does not warrant us to say that "Virtue has a Right to Happiness," in the same sense that "Sin has a Right to Unhappiness. The Justice of God requires that He should inflict proportionate Unhappiness on all sin; which done, His Justice has no further work, but leaves room for His Benevolence.

Essay on Intuitive Morals.

He had wisely seen the world at home and abroad, and thereby observed under what variety men are deluded into the pursuit of that which is not here to be found. And although he had no opinion of reputed felicities below, and apprehended men widely out in the estimate of such happiness, yet his sober contempt of the world wrought no Democritism or Cynicism, no laughing or snarling at it, as well understanding there are not felicities in this world to satisfy a serious mind. And therefore to soften the stream of our lives, we are fain to take in the reputed contentations of this world, to unite with the crowd in their beatitudes, and to make ourselves happy by consortion, opinion, or coexistimation; for strictly to separate from received and customary felicities, and to confine unto the rigor of realities, were to contract the consolation of our beings into too uncomfortable circumscriptions. Sir Thomas Browne.