The secret of one day that is really happy will serve for all days, because it will go below the incidents or chances of time and draw upon permanent and fundamental laws of conduct and character. The secret is complex like the rainbow, and I will name but one strand of the twisted light. I take it that in a happy day—and all life should be of one piece—there must be such a proportion between labor and rest or pleasure as shall leave a balance in favor of labor, so that one may have a permanent sense of achievement, without which there can be no solid sense of happiness, because it justifies human life. So deeply does it enter into life as the one thing to be gained, that failure is misery, that winning is happiness, and the heart sings. But achievement is hard to win; hence we should so order life that the balance between success and failure—the doing and the not doing—shall be such that there shall remain a clear sense of achievement,—
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
for it is when the day is over and the solemn night passes judgment that we discover if it has been happy.
