HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH LITTLE.



Folks suffering from Jingoism, Spreadeagleism, Chauvinism--all such
like isms, to whatever country they belong--would be well advised to
take a tour in Holland. It is the idea of the moment that size
spells happiness. The bigger the country the better one is for
living there. The happiest Frenchman cannot possibly be as happy as
the most wretched Britisher, for the reason that Britain owns many
more thousands of square miles than France possesses. The Swiss
peasant, compared with the Russian serf, must, when he looks at the
map of Europe and Asia, feel himself to be a miserable creature. The
reason that everybody in America is happy and good is to be explained
by the fact that America has an area equal to that of the entire
moon. The American citizen who has backed the wrong horse, missed
his train and lost his bag, remembers this and feels bucked up again.

According to this argument, fishes should be the happiest of mortals,
the sea consisting--at least, so says my atlas: I have not measured
it myself--of a hundred and forty-four millions of square miles.
But, maybe, the sea is also divided in ways we wot not of. Possibly
the sardine who lives near the Brittainy coast is sad and
discontented because the Norwegian sardine is the proud inhabitant of
a larger sea. Perhaps that is why he has left the Brittainy coast.
Ashamed of being a Brittainy sardine, he has emigrated to Norway, has
become a naturalized Norwegian sardine, and is himself again.

The happy Londoner on foggy days can warm himself with the reflection
that the sun never sets on the British Empire. He does not often see