obtained. Real happiness lives in patience, having comprehended that if
very little is accomplished towards perfection, so a man's existence is
a very little moment in the vast expanse of the universal life, and
having also comprehended that it is the struggle which is vital, and
that the end of the struggle is only another name for death.

* * * * *

"Well," I hear you exclaiming, "if this is all we can look forward to,
if this is all that real, practicable happiness amounts to, is life
worth living?" That is a question which each person has to answer for
himself. If he answers it in the negative, no argument, no persuasion,
no sentimentalisation of the facts of life, will make him alter his
opinion. Most people, however, answer it in the affirmative. Despite all
the drawbacks, despite all the endless disappointments, they decide that
life is worth living. There are two species of phenomena which bring
them to this view. The first may be called the golden moments of life,
which seem somehow in their transient brevity to atone for the dull
exasperation of interminable mediocre hours: moments of triumph in the
struggle, moments of fierce exultant resolve; moments of joy in
nature--moments which defy oblivion in the memory, and which, being
priceless, cannot be too dearly bought.

The second species of compensatory phenomena are all the agreeable
experiences connected with human friendship; the general feeling, under
diverse forms, that one is not alone in the world. It is for the
multiplication and intensification of these phenomena that Christmas,
the Feast of St. Friend, exists. And, on the last day of the year, on
the eve of a renewed effort, our thoughts may profitably be centered
upon a plan of campaign whose execution shall result in a less imperfect