A Promise Is Binding In

It Was A Sunday Afternoon, Wet And Cheerless; And A Duller Spectacle This Earth Of Ours Has Not To Show Than A Rainy Sunday In London.

Here Was The Secret Of Happiness, About Which Philosophers Had Disputed For So Many Ages, At Once Discovered; Happiness Might Now Be Bought For A Penny, And Carried In The Waistcoat-pocket; Portable Ecstasies Might Be Had Corked Up In A Pint-bottle; And Peace Of Mind Could Be Sent Down By The Mail.

Enough If Every Age Produce Two Or Three Critics Of This Esoteric Class, With Here And There A Reader To Understand Them.

Grief! Thou Art Classed Amongst The Depressing Passions. And True It Is That Thou Humblest To The Dust, But Also Thou Exaltest To The Clouds. Thou Shakest Us With Ague, But Also Thou Steadiest Like Frost. Thou Sickenest The Heart, But Also Thou Healest Its Infirmities.

Far Better, And More Cheerfully, I Could Dispense With Some Part Of The Downright Necessaries Of Life, Than With Certain Circumstances Of Elegance And Propriety In The Daily Habits Of Using Them.