innocently, more so probably than an audience at a Wagner concert.
Many persons with refined minds are apt to depreciate happiness,
especially if it is of "a low type." Broadly speaking, it is the one
thing worth having, and low or high, if it does no mischief, is better
than the most spiritual misery.

Metaphysics and theology, including all speculations on the why and the
wherefore, optimism, pessimism, freedom, necessity, causality, and so
forth, are not only for the most part loss of time, but frequently
ruinous. It is no answer to say that these things force themselves
upon us, and that to every question we are bound to give or try to give
an answer. It is true, although strange, that there are multitudes of
burning questions which we must do our best to ignore, to forget their
existence; and it is not more strange, after all, than many other facts
in this wonderfully mysterious and defective existence of ours. One
fourth of life is intelligible, the other three-fourths is
unintelligible darkness; and our earliest duty is to cultivate the
habit of not looking round the corner.

"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry
heart; for God hath already accepted thy works. Let thy garments be
always white, and let not thy head lack ointment. Live joyfully with
the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which
He hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that
is thy portion in life."

R. S.


This is the night when I must die,