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 Dostoeevsky 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.
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