guest, that will smile if its host be smiling, or weep if his eyes
be wet. It has been charged with no mission to bring happiness to
us; it is we who should comfort the hour that has sought refuge
within our soul. And he is wise who always finds words of peace that
he can whisper low to his guest on the threshold. We should let no
opportunity for happiness escape us, and the simplest causes of
happiness should be ever stored in our soul. It is well, at first,
to know happiness as men conceive it, so that, later, we may have
good reason for preferring the happiness of our choice. For, herein,
it is not unlike what we are told of love. To know what real love
should be we must have loved profoundly, and that first love must
have fled. It is well to know moments of material happiness, since
they teach us where to look for loftier joys; and all that we gain,
perhaps, from listening to the hours that babble aloud in their
wantonness is that we are slowly learning the language of the hours
whose voice is hushed. And of these there are many; they come in
battalions, so close on the heels of each other that treachery and
flight cannot be; wherefore it is on them alone that the sage should
depend. For he will be happy whose eyes have learned to detect the
hidden smile and mysterious jewels of the myriad, nameless hours;
and where are these jewels to be found, if not in ourselves?

90. But there is a kind of ignoble discretion that has least in
common, of all things, with the wisdom we speak of here; for we had
far better spend our energy round even fruitless happiness, than
slumber by the fireside awaiting joys that never may come. Only the
joys that have been offered to all, and none have accepted, will
knock at his door who refuses himself to stir forth. Nor is the
other man wise who holds the reins too tight on his feelings, and
halts them when reason commands, or experience whispers. The friend