sage's misfortune may often resemble the one that befalls other men;
but his happiness has nothing in common with that which he who is
not wise terms happiness. In happiness there are far more regions
unknown than there are in misfortune. The voice of misfortune is
ever the same; happiness becomes the more silent as it penetrates
deeper.

When we put our misfortunes into one scale of the balance, each of
us lays, in the other, all that he deems to be happiness. The savage
flings feathers, and powder, and alcohol into the scale; civilised
men some gold, a few days of delirium; but the sage will deposit
therein countless things our eyes cannot see--all his soul, it may
be, and even the misfortune that he will have purified.

52. There is nothing in all the world more just than happiness,
nothing that will more faithfully adopt the form of our soul, or so
carefully fill the space that our wisdom clings open. Yet is it most
silent of all that there is in the world. The Angel of Sorrow can
speak every language--there is not a word but she knows; but the
lips of the Angel of Happiness are sealed, save when she tells of
the savage's joys. It is hundreds of centuries past that misfortune
was cradled, but happiness seems even now to have scarcely emerged
from its infancy. There are some men have learned to be happy; why
are there none whose great gladness has urged them to lift up their
voice in the name of the silent Archangel who has flooded their soul
with light? Are we not almost teaching happiness if we do only speak
of it; invoking it, if we let no day pass without pronouncing its
name? And is it not the first duty of those who are happy to tell of
their gladness to others? All men can learn to be happy; and the
teaching of it is easy. If you live among those who daily call