Horse-sense and Happiness.

This instance of horse-sense, thoughtful reader, finds its foal-mate in Happiness, for Happiness is a lady who will not bear contemplation; as soon as you become conscious of her presence she dissolves partnership; but when, for some reason or reasons unknown, the personal ego seems to rest quiescent on a sward of kapok and mentality is divorced from mundanity; when the soul slips its collar and goes forth to lap the nectar from the petals of poesy, and the earth stands still; when time and terrestial tempestuousness,

“What is happiness, Daddy?“

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“The goose that lays the golden dregs.”

meat and money, and the goose that lays the golden dregs figure not on the menu—it is only then that you will woo the winsome wench called Happiness. Search not in the tabernacles of the Talkies, pursue her not through the purloins of the pep-palaces, speak not to her spirituously for she “oils” not neither does she spin; instead, she sets up house in the heart, she domesticises the dome, seasons the soul, and wots not of the bank balance. She would as lief share a flat as a “sprat,” provided the “flatee” or “spratee” receive her “in sufficio” and on the square. Happiness is anyone's “help” but no one's drudge. When, dear reader, at the end of a perfect daze, you feel that the shining hours have passed as evenly as an egg on an escalator, you can stake your happiness that Happiness has happed. Speaking sonorously—

Of all the girls whom I love best
The girls whom I would fain caress,
Of Wealth or Power, to share my nest,
I'd choose the wench named Happiness.
She's ever glad to do a “turn,“
But once her pleading you suppress,
Or bluntly her advances “spurn,“
Well—that's the end of Happiness.
She'll call at any vagrant hour,
And if you leave the door ajar,
She'll enter your domestic bower,
And take you simply as you are.
Of all the girls I've ever known,
The one whom I would fain caress,
And ask to share my lot alone—
Her maiden name is Happiness.

Some say that Happiness has packed her port’ and taken a week's wages in lieu. If such is true, perhaps it is that we have failed to woo; perhaps she has been gassed by gasolene; perchance she prefers lace and lavender and sits with the old folks at home. Who knows?

Happiness, kind reader, is not always the spouse of Success. Success is often too busy playing sales on the cash register; Success sometimes wears a pint hat on a quart head, thus restricting the flow of imagination to the brain; success is too often the union of L.S.D. with E.G.O., resulting in N.I.L. The union of “dough” and delight is successful only if the ceremony is conducted by the Reverend Hugh Manity.

It is bad business to confuse Success with Excess.