from idle Suffering into actual Endeavouring, must first be put
an end to. The most, in our time, have to go content with a simple,
incomplete enough Suppression of this controversy; to a few some
Solution of it is indispensable. In every new era, too, such Solution
comes-out in different terms; and ever the Solution of the last era
has become obsolete, and is found unserviceable. For it is man's
nature to change his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help
it though he would. The authentic _Church-Catechism_ of our present
century has not yet fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own
private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's
Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because
there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot
quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and
Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in
jointstock company, to make one Shoeblack HAPPY? They cannot
accomplish it, above an hour or two; for the Shoeblack also has a Soul
quite other than his Stomach; and would require, if you consider it,
for his permanent satisfaction and saturation, simply this allotment,
no more, and no less: _God's infinite Universe altogether to himself_,
therein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose.
Oceans of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus: speak not of
them; to the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your
ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better
vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets
to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares
himself the most maltreated of men.--Always there is a black spot in
our sunshine: it is even as I said, the _Shadow of Ourselves_.

'But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain
valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort
of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and
of indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our
deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint; only such _overplus_
as there may be do we account Happiness; any _deficit_ again is
Misery. Now consider that we have the valuation of our own deserts
ourselves, and what a fund of Self-conceit there is in each of us,--do
you wonder that the balance should so often dip the wrong way, and
many a Blockhead cry: See there, what a payment; w