"Yes, the indifferent and the selfish; but, after all, it is the same
thing: indifference is the perfection of selfishness."

"I am afraid that there must be lots of selfishness in the world, for
certainly there is plenty of happiness, all evil things notwithstanding.
I should have said that happiness springs from goodness and a sound
digestion."

Jess shook her head as she answered, "I may be wrong, but I don't
see how anybody who feels can be quite happy in a world of sickness,
suffering, slaughter, and death. I saw a Kafir woman die yesterday, and
her children crying over her. She was a poor creature and had a rough
lot, but she loved her life, and her children loved her. Who can be
happy and thank God for His creation when he has just seen such a thing?
But there, Captain Niel, my ideas are very crude, and I dare say very
wrong, and everybody has thought them before: at any rate, I am not
going to inflict them on you. What is the use of it?" and she went
on with a laugh: "what is the use of anything? The same old thoughts
passing through the same human minds from year to year and century to
century, just as the same clouds float across the same blue sky. The
clouds are born in the sky, and the thoughts are born in the brain, and
they both end in tears and re-arise in blind, bewildering mist, and this
is the beginning and end of thoughts and clouds. They arise out of the
blue; they overshadow and break into storms and tears, then they are
drawn up into the blue again, and the story begins afresh."

"So you don't think that one can be happy in this world?" he asked.

"I did not say that--I never said that. I do think that happiness is