Year: 1875

little children who if they cannot have the
things they wish for, take others, and cry
'Lets PlaYP' and convert their chairs into
big coaches and their sofas into railway cars,
and enjoy their journey hugely. The moral
of her verses is that we might be as happy as
they if we would only be happy their way,
and that in the end there is little odds 'twixt
not having and having.


A school has always existed which has
claimed that the true science of philosophy is
that Of dreaming happily. But the phiIoso-
ply of "H. H.' is more practical than this.
We cannot keep our eyes closed always.
They will come unbuttoned sometimes, as
the children say. Each days waking brings
its worry, and our only consolation is often
times the infantile device of make believe.
That Spanish hidalgo who put on spectacles
when he ate his cherries, that they might
look twice as l..rge, had not forgotten the
wisdom of his youth. The fox of the
fable was our true philosopher. We
should all be happier if we could per-
suade ourselves of the acidity of the un-
attainable grapes, and be content with the
low-hanging clusters less fair to the eye. L.
is Knebel who tells us to take our seats con-
tentedly at liie's banquet and call for nothing
that is not in the bill. True there is diff
srence in the naenu at the head and at the
foot of the table, but we can take pattern by
the wise little children and play that our tin
cups are golden goblets and our poor crusts
the fat of the land. We are all at the feet.of
the strong god Circumstance, but he
has kindly thrown illusions in our way, and
we may avail ourselves of them. "You are
young YETI says the Princess in Lothair,
"and you may look forward to ten years OF
illusions, that is of happiness. Fortunate
young man." Let our aim be to make the
ten years threescore and ten. We are in
debted to England's Virgin Queen for the
aphorism that they pass best over the world
who trip over it lightly-for it is bog; five
stop we sink; and some newspaper philoso-
pher has put the same thought into the flip
pant phrase of our time, ''If the stream Of
your life freezes over, put on skates"


Charles Lamb it was who hated people
that meet time halfway. That brave and
cheerful man doubtless hated as well those
who meet trouble halfway, who even seek it
through obscure and circuitous paths, or take
short cuts acrosslots to intercept it, who, as
Thomas Fuller somewhere expresses it, like
Juno sit cross-legged to hinder the birth of
their own felicity. A celebrated English ply
sician once gave this prescription for prolong-
ing life, 'Don't worry" and an English wit
has said that troubles are like babies, and on
ly grow the bigger by nursing. Some people
are continually echoing the complaint of the
Preacher, "All is vanity and vexation OF
spirit" They are always seeking for the
crumpled rose-leaf in the couch, for the bean
under the seven feather-beds. How much
better to take up the children's game, and
"play'' at least at happiness!


There is danger of course that the creed of
optimism may lead to selfish Incidence, to
disregard of work and opportunities but it is
only the common danger of excess in the en-
joyment of all good things. Few of us have
leisure TO fall into that error. Our greatest
men have ever been the most cheerful. They
could not afford to be sad, and have learned
In the school of experience the truth of the
French proverb that pain surmounted is the
salt of pleasure. Another Frenchman has
taught them that he who lives without
folly is not so wise as he thinks, and they have
realized that the problem before them was.
In the words of the college song "to fiud the
maximum of mirth, the minimum of pain"
Chateaubriand proved himself true philos
opher, when, ceasing to hear people talk of
him any longer, he adopted the comforting
belief that he was deaf. That man men
toned by Coleridge, who always raised his
hat when he spoke of himself, was probably
deceived as to his true value, but he must
have been cheerful person; and that other,
spoken of by Tugueneff, who had the air of
statue raised to himself by national SUBJ
scription, certainly possessed the virtue of
content. Old John Heywood's rhythmical
creed, formulated three centuries ago, "a
fig for care and fig for woe! If I can't pay,
why I can owe, and death makes equal the
high and low," was probably not satisfactory
to his creditors, but must have smoothed his
path through lie wonderfully.


But to play the children's game well one
must certainly have confidence in those about
him. We cannot go through this world hap
PLY without faith in the present, without
hope for the future, or without charity for
those with whom we come in contact.
He who wishes to be happy as the children
are must himself become as little child,
must possess the apostolic virtues of faith,
hope and charity. The child's wisdom is
also the highest Christian wisdom, and
to profit by'it we must act in the spirit of
Emerson's lofty maxim, "Judge every man
by his best moment.'


Certainly so long as we can transform our
broken crockery into silver plate, as the child
does, and so long as our minds serve us the
same purpose as the magic tapestry of the
Arabian Nights, conveying us whittier we
wish, we can easily accept and practise the
child's simple philosophy, "Let's play"