who will declare it impossible, and they will continue to be unhappy;
there will be many others who will concede the possibility of it, but will
not have the determination and persistence to effect it; but there will
always be some who will say, "Happiness is possible!" who will set
out to get it, and who will get it, as they will deserve to. Some men
are born happy, some seem to have happiness thrust upon them,
but some achieve happiness. It will not be the same kind of happiness
that we had as children, before the shocks of life awoke us. It will be
a happiness that meets and rises above pain. Life will always have its
tragedies, sickness and separation, pain and sudden death. They are
the common inheritance of mankind. But it is not these things in
themselves that make life unendurable, it is the way we take them,
our fear of them, our worry over them, our longings and rebelliousness,
our magnifying and brooding over and shrinking from them; when we resolve
to lift our heads and assert our power, we shall find life tragic,
yes, but endurable, and full of a deep joy. The little worries and
disappointments will cease to trouble us. And the same attitude that
enables us to rise above them will, when more staunchly held, lift
us over the great sorrows also, and keep alive in us an under glow
of joy. An under glow of joy-that is what can be found in life in any
but its highly abnormal phases, by conforming to its conditions and
taking it for what it is, stuff which, we have to shape into service
to the ideal. It should be recognized as the final word of personal
morality that a man must train himself to a happiness that is independent
of circumstances. We need no mystical painting out of the shadows,
no blindness to facts, only a will to serve the right, a readiness
to accept the imperfect, and eyes to see the beauty that surrounds
us. "If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness,
If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face,
If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies,