load.  For of this we may be sure, that however harshly we may despise what we call superstition, or however firmly we may wave away what we hold to have been all a beautiful mistake, there is some fruitful power that dwells and lingers in places upon which the hearts of men have so concentred their swift and poignant emotions—­for all, at least, to whom the soul is more than the body, and whose thoughts are not bounded and confined by the mere material shapes among which, in the days of our earthly limitations, we move uneasily to and fro.

EPILOGUE

A blunt and candid critic, commenting on Keats’ famous axiom, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,” said:  “Then what is the use of having two words for the same thing?” And it is true that words cease to have any real meaning when they are so loosely applied.  The same mistake is often made about happiness.  It is supposed to be, not a quality, but a condition, or rather an equipoise of qualities and conditions.  It is spoken of and thought of as if it were a sort of blend of virtue and health and amusement and sunshiny weather, and no doubt it is often found in combination with these things.  But it is a separate quality, for all that, and not merely a result of faculties and circumstances.  It is strangely and wilfully independent of its surroundings, and it is not inconsistent with the gravest discomfort of body and even affliction of mind.  A ruinous combination of distressing circumstances does not by any means inevitably produce unhappiness.  The martyr who sings at the stake among the flames is presumably happy.  It may be said that he balances one consideration against another, and decides that his condition is, on the whole, enviable and delightful; but I do not believe that it is a mental process at all, and if the martyr is happy, he is so inevitably and instinctively.  Some would urge that happiness is only an effect, like colour.  There is no colour in the dark, but as soon as light is admitted, a thing that we call green, such as a leaf or a wall-paper, has the power of selecting and reflecting the green rays, and rejecting all rays that are not green.  But the leaf or the paper is not in itself green; it has only a power of seizing upon and displaying greenness.  So some would urge that temperaments are not inherently happy, but have the power or the instinct for extracting the happy elements out of life, and rejecting or nullifying the unhappy elements.  But this I believe to be a mistake; the happy temperament is not necessarily made unhappy by being plunged in misfortune, while the unhappy temperament has the power of secreting unhappiness out of the most agreeable combination of circumstances.  Every one must surely recollect occasions in their own lives when, by all the rules of the game, they ought to have been unhappy, while as a matter of fact they were entirely tranquil and contented.  I have been happy in a dentist’s