The Bed-Book of Happiness | Page 3

in painting to every
memory, in music to every heart!--this is the task of execution."
Even the compiler knows something of this passion of the artist,
experiences some at least of the convulsions of this headlong life,
makes acquaintance certainly with this task of execution. To conceive
such a volume as a Bed-Book of Happiness is one matter, to make it in
very fact a Bed-Book of Happiness is another and a much harder matter.

For, to begin with, one's judgment is not nearly so free and one's field
of selection not nearly so wide as the anthologist's whose book is for all
sorts and conditions of men, who may be as merry as he wishes on one
page, as solemn as he chooses on the next, and as pathetic or
sentimental as he likes on the page beyond. One has had to reject, for
instance, humour that is too boisterous or noisy, wit that is too stinging
and acrimonious, anecdotes that are touched with cruelty, essays that,
otherwise cheerful, deviate into the shadows of a too sombre reflection.
One has sought to compile a book of cheerfulness that is kind and of
happiness that is quiet and composed. One has had always in mind the
invalid just able to bear the effort of listening to a melodious voice. To
amuse, to distract, to divert, and above all to charm--to bring a smile to
the mind rather than laughter to the lips--has been the guiding principle
of this book, and the task has not been easy. It is really extraordinary,
to give but one instance of my difficulties, how frequently the most
amusing work of comic writers is ruined by some chuckling jests about
coffins, undertakers, or graves. If any reader in full health miss from
this throng of glad faces, this muster of elated hearts, the most amusing
and delightful of his familiar friends, let him ask himself, before he
pass judgment on the anthologist, before he mistake a deliberate
omission for a careless forgetfulness, whether those good friends of his,
amiable and welcome enough at the dinner-table, are the companions
he would choose for his most wearisome hours or for the bedside of his
sick child. And if in these pages another should find that which neither
amuses nor diverts his mind, that which seems to him to miss the magic
and to lack the charm of happiness, let him pass on, with as much
charity as he can spare for the anthologist, remembering the proverb of
Terence and counting himself an infinitely happier man for this clear
proof of his superior judgment.
I wished to include in this book, from the literature of other countries,
such gentle, whimsical humour as one finds in the letters of FitzGerald
or the Essays of Lamb. But, with all my searching I could find nothing
of that kind, and judges whom I can trust assure me that no other
literature has the exquisite note of happiness which sounds through
English letters so quietly, so cheerfully, and so contentedly. Therefore
my Bed-Book is almost entirely an English Bed-Book, for I liked not
the biting acid of Voltaire's epigrams any more than the rollicking and

disgustful coarseness of Boccaccio or Rabelais. It is an interesting
reflection, if it be true, that English literature is par excellence the
literature of Happiness.
"He who puts forth one depressing thought," says Lady Rachel Howard,
"aids Satan in his work of torment. He who puts forth one cheering
thought aids God in His work of beneficence." I have acted in the faith
that life is essentially good, that the universe presents to the natural
intuition of man a bright and glorious expression of Divine happiness,
that to be fruitful, as George Sand has it, life must be felt as a blessing.
One of the characters in a novel by Dostöevsky says, "Men are made
for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say
to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.' All the righteous, all the
saints, all the holy martyrs were happy."
Happiness, in its truest and only lasting sense, is the condition of a soul
at unity with itself and in harmony with existence. To bring the sick
and the sad and the unhappy at least some way on the road to this
blissful state, is the purpose of my book; and it leaves me on its travel
round the world with the wish that to whatever bedside of sickness,
suffering, and lethargy it may come, it may bring with it the magic and
contagious joy of those rare and gracious people whose longed-for
visits to an invalid are like draughts of rejoicing health. I hope that my
fine covers may soon be worn to the comfort of an old garment,