In this cult of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker the Rubaiyat
stands first in our time; but it does not stand alone.
Many of the most brilliant intellects of our time have urged
us to the same self-conscious snatching at a rare delight.
Walter Pater said that we were all under sentence of death,
and the only course was to enjoy exquisite moments simply
for those moments' sake. The same lesson was taught by the
very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde.
It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is
not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people.
Great joy does, not gather the rosebuds while it may;
its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw.
Great joy has in it the sense of immortality; the very splendour
of youth is the sense that it has all space to stretch its legs in.
In all great comic literature, in "Tristram Shandy"
or "Pickwick", there is this sense of space and incorruptibility;
we feel the characters are deathless people in an endless tale.

It is true enough, of course, that a pungent happiness comes chiefly
in certain passing moments; but it is not true that we should think
of them as passing, or enjoy them simply "for those moments' sake."
To do this is to rationalize the happiness, and therefore to destroy it.
Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized.
Suppose a man experiences a really splendid moment of pleasure.
I do not mean something connected with a bit of enamel, I mean
something with a violent happiness in it--an almost painful happiness.
A man may have, for instance, a moment of ecstasy in first love,
or a moment of victory in battle. The lover enjoys the moment,
but precisely not for the moment's sake. He enjoys it for the
woman's sake, or his own sake. The warrior enjoys the moment, but not