the duty of happiness and the happiness of duty

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Irish Jesuit Province The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty Author(s): Celia O'Coyne Source: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 41, No. 481 (Jul., 1913), pp. 393-397 Published by: Irish Jesuit Province Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20503424 . Accessed: 16/06/2014 17:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.77.128 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:13:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty

Irish Jesuit Province

The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of DutyAuthor(s): Celia O'CoyneSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 41, No. 481 (Jul., 1913), pp. 393-397Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20503424 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 17:13

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.128 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:13:17 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty

393 J

THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS AND THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY

By CELIA O'CO YNE

I HAVE been reading a volume of short sketches, entitled The Pleasures of Life, by the late Lord Avebury (then Sir John Lubbock). The preface tells us that most of them

were originally delivered as lectures, and were afterwards printed with omissions, alterations, and additions in the hope, the writer

says, " that the thoughts and quotations in which I have myself found most comfort may perhaps be of use to others also." The first chapter is called " The Duty of Happiness," the second " The Happiness of Duty," and the following very beautiful

quotation is on the front page :

Some murmur when their skv is clear, And wholly bright to view,

If one small speck of dark appear In their great heaven of blue;

And some with thankful love are fill'd If but one streak of light,

One ray of God's good mercy gild The darkness of their night.

In palaces are hearts that ask, In discontent and pride,

Why life is such a dreary task, And all good things denied;

And hearts in poorest huts admire How love has in their aid

(Love that not ever seems to tire) Such rich provision made.

Somewhat similar sentiments are thus expressed in prose in the first chapter :

" Everyone must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a

sunny day, shedding brightness on all around, and most of us -can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison."

A reference is made to a poem by Matthew Arnold called

"Self-Dependence," but the writer of The Pleasures of Life does not entirely agree with the sentiments to which it gives expression, for he says

" If we separate ourselves so much from the interests of

those around us that we do not sympathise with them in their

sufferin-gs, we shut ourselves out from sharing their happiness and lose far more than we gain. If we a-void sympathy and

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Page 3: The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty

394 THE IRISH MONTHLY

wrap ourselves round in a cold chaim-armour of selfishness, we exclude ourselves from many of the greatest and purest joys of life. To render ourselves insensiblle to paihn we must forfeit also the possibility of happiness."

So that in self-dependence, as in most other things, extremes are to be avoided.

In connexion with the duty of happiness, and the happiness of duty, I wonder if it would be out of place to refer to an article called "Disagreeable People," which appeared in a magazine some years since. The writer begins with the admission: "I confess to a liking for disagreeable people; An acquired taste, no doubt, for they are not nice."

Much interest, not unmixed with pity, is expressed in them as a class, and some very bright things said about them. "But stronger than the interest or pity they inspire is the amusement that disagreeable people afford me. They fly into passions, and a man in a passion is always funny."

Then we come to something about disagreeable women: "A disagreeable woman is like a vacuum. There is no

place for her in nature. She is a parody upon herself. If there is a touch of beauty about her she gives those she meets the sort of shock one would feel on taking what appears to be wine, and is in reality vinegar. But fortunately she very seldom is beautiful in the true sense of the word. Nature does not lend itself to shams. It is pitilessly exacting. Sweetness of face

must result from sweetness of disposition. The face is not a mask, but a mirror. It reveals everything with terrible in genuousness. You cannot stamp the marks, the lines, the flowing curves of the agreeable on your face, unless you have the quality in your breast."

Here is a helpfulthought which I extract from another magazine article called " The Task of Happiness," written not so long ago:

" The happiest people I know are those who have had some big sorrow in their lives-a sorrow which would have over

whelmed many, but over which they have risen triumphant." For my own part I have often thought that it is easier to

rise triumphantly, so to speak, over big trials than over trifling annoyances. But we can cultivate the habit of ignoring the latter, that is, of course, if we cannot remedy them.

Tennyson says: I held it true with him who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping stones,

0f their dead selves to higher things.

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Page 4: The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty

DUTY OF HAPPINESS AND HAPPINESS OF DUTY 395

Longfellow expresses somewhat the same idea in different words.

Nor deem the irrevocable past As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

If rising on its wrecks at last To something nobler we attain.

A belief in the doctrine-of compensation is a great aid to happiness. Another great aid to happiness in a simple way is: the consciousness of being suitably dressed. I have often thought, too, that things which seem most disagreeable are not nearly so difficult when one gets close to them, which reminds me that I think it must be very easy to die, more especially when death comes at the end of a long life. One does not often read or hear anything to this effect, but the writer of " The Task of Happiness," from which I have already quoted, says:

"We are apt to magnify the terror and the sadness of death, and to forget that an event which happens to everyone on God's earth cannot be out of proportion with the rest of His wonderful plan for the happiness of all."

Longfellow says

O what a glory doth this world put on, For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks On duties well performed and days well spent. For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings,

He shall so hear the solemn hymn that death Has lifted up for all, that he shall go To his long resting-place without a tear.

Father Russell, the late editor of the IRISH MONTHLY, has

transla'ted a little book from the French, called The Art of Being Happy, and here is how it begins

"What must we do to be happy ? The thing is not hardt Much knowledge is not necessary for this, nor much talent, but only a real good will to do one's duty. Happiness, as far as it can exist here below, consists in peace, in the joy of a good conscience."

One sometimes hears the expression " happy childhood," but I think each period of life should be just as happy, even extreme old age. The writer of The Pleasures of Life remarks

that in his opinion it is rather a mistake to speak of happy child

hood, for he says that children are often over anxious and acutely sensitive. Discussion about the happiest period of life is some

thing like asking which is the most pleasing season of the year,

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Page 5: The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty

396 THE IRISH MONTHLY

for is not one time of the year just as pleasant in its way as another? Of course, for people who live in the country, close to natuare, so to speak, the months from March to September are undoubtedly more agreeable. However, here is a little ,extract from Father Russell's translation which should prove helpful:

" When we go out in winter, in very severe weather, if we are afraid of every step, and creep along shivering, we suffer far -more than if we bravely set out on our way, heedless of the

winds that blow or of the falling snow." I have often thought, too, that it is much easier to endure

temporary discomfort, wind or snow, for instance, than to listen to anyone grumbling about it. But one is apt to get somewhat shy of one's own thoughts. In connexion with which I have often found myself in agreement with a character in an old fashioned work of fiction, where she is made to say that when ever she told her secret thoughts to anyone, she had some reason afterwards to be sorry for it. To go a little further, I have often found that whenever one tells what one intends doing, some -thing happens to prevent it. Talking over what one intends

doing has a tendency, I think, to weaken one's purpose. There -fore it is wise, I think, not to say much about one's thoughts and intentions. I presume we can cultivate a happy medium in reserve as in self-dependence.

If we adopt the habit of not referring in our conversation to any trials we may have experienced, or any mistakes we may have made, we shall find it one of the greatest possible aids to happiness. Talking over one's troubles has a tendency, I should say, to fix them in one's mind. Not, of course, that we should forget our mistakes, for if we do we are extremely likely to commit the same errors again. Nor should we in our con versation indulge in gloomy forebodings for the future. In a

magazine article on home decoration I found the following quotation recommended for printing on a scroll, to be hung in a bedroom. I do not know to whom we are indebted for the very beautiful sentiment which it expresses:

Sleep sweet within this quiet room, O whosoe'er thou art,

And let no mournful yesterdays Disturb thy quiet heart;

Nor let to-morrow scare thy rest With dream of coming ill,

Thy Maker is thy changeless friend, His love surrounds thee still.

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Page 6: The Duty of Happiness and the Happiness of Duty

MY CRUCIFIX 397

In the course of some desultory reading I came across the

following. There was no name attached, but it was headed, Secret of a Happy Life"

" One secret of a sweet and happy life is learning to live by

the day. It is the long stretches that tire us. Bat really there are no long stretches. Life does not come on us all at one time; it comes only a day at a time. Even to-morrow is never ours till it becomes to-day, and we have nothing whatever to do with it but to pass down to it a fair and a good inheritance in to-day's work well done, and to-day's life well lived. It is a blessed secret, this living by the day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely till the sun goes down."

But, of course, intelligent retrospect and forethought are extremely useful.

Perhaps the most conclusive thing to say about happiness is that it comes from within, not from without, and is dependent

more upon a certain poise of mind than upon external circumstances.

CELIA O'COYNE.

MY CRUCIFIX

ARE these the hands, so ghastly white, That first in prayer were folded tight And shook with cold one Christmas night

In Bethlehem ?

Are these the feet, the sacred feet, That were to Magdalen so sweet, And hallowed each and every street

In Galilee ?

And this the Heart, all fraught with love, The Heart that left a home above To lie oppressed in the shadows of

Gethsemane?

THOMAS A. DONAGHUE, S.J.

VOL. XLL-NO. 481 - 28

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