"A FIT OF HAPPINESS."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sia,—In your article entitled "A Fit of Happiness" in the Spectator of September 21st you say :—" Experience would seem to suggest that in any analysis of the mental position of those who do most keenly enjoy life determination is by no means a negligible factor." May I draw attention to the development of this thought in the present Bishop of Oxford's essay on " Accidie" (the introduction to his well-known book, "The Spirit of Discipline"), and especially to these lines which he there quotes ?— " 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, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain ;- Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or Lord, if too obdurate I, •
Choose Thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them in."
—H. L. STEVENSON, " Underwoods," No. XXII.
Your readers may rem ember the beautiful prayer to the same effect which was composed by Robert Louis Stevenson, and read aloud to his family only the evening before his death.
It is quoted in the Spectator of March 23rd, 1895, and there made the subject of an article, "Praying for Gladness," which one much wishes you could republish. May I also mention in this connection a quaintly practical little book entitled "The Way of Happiness; or, The Art of Being
Happy and Making Others so" (translated and adapted from the French by Catherine M. Welby, with a preface by W. H.
Hutton, B.D.) am, Sir, &c., E. L.
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