Dickens does not attempt the impossible literary feat of showing us one person who is happy all the time, but he does what is more obvious, he makes us see a great many people who have snatches of good cheer in the midst of their humdrum lives.  He lets us see another obvious fact, that happiness is more a matter of temperament than of circumstance.  It is not given as a reward of merit or as a mark of distinguished consideration.  There is one perennial fountain of pleasure.  Any one can have a good time who can enjoy himself.  Dickens was not above celebrating the kind of happiness which comes to the natural man and the natural boy through what we call the “creature comforts.”  He could sympathize with the unadulterated self-satisfaction of little Jack Horner when

  “He put in his thumb
  And pulled out a plum,
  And said, ‘What a great boy am I!’”

The finding of the plum was not a matter of world-wide importance, but it was a great pleasure for Jack Horner, and he did not care who knew it.

What joy Mr. Micawber gets out of his own eloquence!  We cannot begrudge him this unearned increment.  We sympathize, as, “much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded up his letter and handed it with a bow to my aunt as something she might like to keep.”

And R. Wilfer, despite his meagre salary, and despite Mrs. Wilfer, enjoys himself whenever he gets a chance.  When he goes to Greenwich with Bella he finds everything as it should be.  “Everything was delightful.  The Park was delightful; the punch was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful; the wine was delightful.”  If that was not happiness, what was it?

Said R. Wilfer:  “Supposing a man to go through life, we won’t say with a companion, but we will say with a tune.  Very good.  Supposing the tune allotted to him was the ‘Dead March’ in ‘Saul.’  Well.  It would be a very suitable tune for particular occasions—­none more so—­but it would be difficult to keep time with it in the ordinary run of domestic transactions.”

It is a matter of common observation that those who have allotted to them the most solemn music do not always keep time with it.  In the “ordinary run of domestic transactions” they find many little alleviations.  In the aggregate these amount to a considerable blessing.  The world may be rough, and many of its ways may be cruel, but for all that it is a joyful sensation to be alive, and the more alive we are, the better we like it.  All of which is very obvious, and it is what we want somebody to point out for us again and again.

THE SPOILED CHILDREN OF CIVILIZATION

To spoil a child is no easy task, for Nature is all the time working in behalf of the childish virtues and veracities, and is gently correcting the abnormalities of education.  Still it can be done.  The secret of it is never to let the child alone, and to insist on doing for him all that he would otherwise do for himself—­and more.