ng and disgustful coarseness of Boccaccio or Rabelais. It is an
interesting reflection, if it be true, that English literature is _par
excellence_ the literature of Happiness.

"He who puts forth one depressing thought," says Lady Rachel Howard,
"aids Satan in his work of torment. He who puts forth one cheering
thought aids God in His work of beneficence." I have acted in the faith
that life is essentially good, that the universe presents to the natural
intuition of man a bright and glorious expression of Divine happiness,
that to be fruitful, as George Sand has it, life must be felt as a
blessing. One of the characters in a novel by Dostoeevsky says, "Men are
made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to
say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.' All the righteous, all
the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy."

Happiness, in its truest and only lasting sense, is the condition of a
soul at unity with itself and in harmony with existence. To bring the
sick and the sad and the unhappy at least some way on the road to this
blissful state, is the purpose of my book; and it leaves me on its
travel round the world with the wish that to whatever bedside of
sickness, suffering, and lethargy it may come, it may bring with it the
magic and contagious joy of those rare and gracious people whose
longed-for visits to an invalid are like draughts of rejoicing health. I
hope that my fine covers may soon be worn to the comfort of an old
garment, that my new pages may be quickly shabbied to the endearment of
a familiar face, and that the book will live at bedsides deepening and
sweetening the reader's affection for its faded leaves till it come to
seem an old, faithful, and never-failing friend, one who is never at
fault and never a deserter, and without whom life would lose one of its
fondest companionships.

CONTENTS

ALLSTON, WASHINGTON:
The Lost Ornament 191

ANONYMOUS:
The Gentle Reader 14
King David and the Gardener 198
Sabbath Bells 275
From the Greek Anthology 313
Letter from an Indian Gentleman to an
English Friend 324
A Babu Letter 327
Mary Powell 341
A Tur'ble Chap