AUGUST 405 



socially bored, she had better learn that a very simple 

 remedy for boredom in society is to try and amuse others. 

 There is sure to be someone uglier or duller or older than 

 she is, to whom she can devote herself. One of the chief 

 uses of society is the constant self-discipline it imposes. 

 Depend upon it, as George Eliot says, we should all gain 

 unspeakably if we could learn to see some of the poetry 

 and pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the 

 experience of a human soul that looks out through dull 

 gray eyes and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary 

 tones. Such a thing is almost impossible to some girls, 

 whose great amusement in life is to chatter. This has 

 its charm to many ; but girls of this temperament should, 

 on the contrary, try to cultivate the art of listening, to draw 

 forth information from others, and to understand their atti- 

 tude without forming too hasty judgments. ' To communi- 

 cate our feelings and sentiments is natural. To take up 

 what is communicated just as it is communicated is culture.' 

 A power to sympathise with others is one to be much 

 cultivated, ever remembering it has to be paid for. 



For he who lives more lives than one, 

 More deaths than one must die. 



Happiness and cheerfulness were not at all cultivated 

 by serious-minded good people in my youth, who were 

 much affected by the teaching, even if not under the 

 influence, of the Quakers and Wesley. To be sad was 

 almost considered a virtue. The High Church movement 

 began the change, as I remember it, against the gloom of 

 the Low Church teaching. The practical sense of the 

 present day is now fighting the morbid tendencies, which 

 have taken a hold on so many, reflected from the writings 

 of Ibsen and Maeterlinck. Those not naturally of a happy 

 temperament should cultivate happiness from within, not 

 artificially assume it. 



A lecture on ' Happiness,' given by Miss Lucy Soulsby 



