White Hope and Whitebait.

The White Hope is Happiness. Happiness is greater than gold, but as hard to hold as a fist-full of whitebait. But there is a catch in everything, as the mouse muttered when the trap went snap. On the contrary, Care is a clinger when once it grips the gaskets. The way to confound Care is to refuse to care; to give it a jolt of joy-germs, a lugfull of laughing gas, a wad of “whoopee” in the topee, and the hooray rather than the X-ray.

Let every moment be the maddest, merriest moment, and let's make History with hysterics.

But there are pessimists who persist that History postulates the proposition that Happiness is not its blood-brother, and that Progress has progressed in bumps rather than jumps. But what do we care:—

We don't go so much on history,
Which is dark and dank and twistery.
Sleeping dogs can sleep—for us.
Why do people make a fuss
Over kings who passed the buck,
Long before we joined the ruck?
From the way their records go,
They were not so nice to know.
His-tory is all about
People going up the spout,
Knights and kings, and folk like that,
Giving other folk a bat
When they looked the other way—
Battings happened every day.
We don't like such history's tone,
And prefer to make our own.