With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." [2]

As a nation we are prone to melancholy. It has been said of our countrymen
that they take even their pleasures sadly. But this, if it be true at all,
will, I hope, prove a transitory characteristic. "Merry England" was the
old saying, let us hope it may become true again. We must look to the East
for real melancholy. What can be sadder than the lines with which Omar
Khayyam opens his quatrains: [3]

"We sojourn here for one short day or two,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe;
And then, leaving life's problems all unsolved
And harassed by regrets, we have to go;"

or the Devas' song to Prince Siddartha, in Edwin Arnold's beautiful
version:

"We are the voices of the wandering wind,
Which moan for rest, and rest can never find.
Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life--
A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife."

If indeed this be true, if mortal life be so sad and full of suffering, no
wonder that Nirvana--the cessation of sorrow--should be welcomed even at
the sacrifice of consciousness.

But ought we not to place before ourselves a very different ideal--a
healthier, manlier, and nobler hope?