The Hidden Happiness (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... the stir, rather than the trained forces that are effective. How quiet is elder humanity; all the clangor comes from the young. The flags, the flowers, the bright fires of welcome--these are gone; and in their place only the prose of presence, the silence of departure. Birds sing the dawn of day, not its noon. Curiosity sated, possibilities known, what a tame affair existence becomes. We watch with close interest some newly launched ship as it puts forth on life's voyage, observing its lines, admiring its speed, noting every point; yet soon cease to distinguish it amid the mass of seagoing vessels, and finally lose sight of it altogether among the dingy craft of sordid commerce. Of little importance are the world and its factors, business and its activities, society and its questions compared to the soul and its experiences; being indeed but the aggregate aspect of the latter, to which they must look for measure, justification, and substance. Man in relation is ever less than man per se; his relativities are subordinate to his absolute self. Superficial are matters of mere expediency or policy alongside of the problems of existence itself; and neither their consideration nor their administration can ever rank in importance with the humanities and the arts. The efficient, prosperous new world shows shallow beside the artloving, life-saddened old. Within is the world; the mind is a microcosm; we carry the universe in our hat. Each is the cestui que trust of a vast trusteeship, the beneficiary of its every benefit, the spirit that makes and unmakes values--affirms or condemns, creates or destroys. How difficult to obtain for the human soul the consideration paid to its mere manifestations. To action thought seems so insignificant; yet...