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قراءة كتاب The Bed-Book of Happiness Being a colligation or assemblage of cheerful writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sl

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‏اللغة: English
The Bed-Book of Happiness
Being a colligation or assemblage of cheerful writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sl

The Bed-Book of Happiness Being a colligation or assemblage of cheerful writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sl

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bed-Book of Happiness, by Harold Begbie

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Bed-Book of Happiness

Author: Harold Begbie

Release Date: September 14, 2004 [EBook #13457]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BED-BOOK OF HAPPINESS ***

Produced by Paul Murray, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

"A GATHERING OF HAPPINESS, A CONCENTRATION AND COMBINATION OF PLEASANT DETAILS, A THRONG OF GLAD FACES, A MUSTER OF ELATED HEARTS."

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

THE BED-BOOK OF HAPPINESS

Being a Colligation or Assemblage of Cheerful Writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sleepless, an excuse to the tired, by

HAROLD BEGBIE

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

PRINTED IN 1914 BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

to

SIR JESSE BOOT

  If, in my pages, those who suffer find
  Such cheer as warms your heart and lights your mind,
  Glad shall I be, but gladder, prouder too,
  If this my book become a friend like you
.

RONDEL

_BESIDE YOUR BED I COME TO STAY WITH MAGIC MORE THAN HUMAN SKILL, MY PAGES RUN TO DO YOUR WILL, MY COVERS KEEP YOUR CARES AWAY.
THE NURSE ARRIVES WITH LADEN TRAY, THE DOCTOR CANCELS DRAUGHT AND PILL; BESIDE YOUR BED I COME TO STAY WITH MAGIC MORE THAN HUMAN SKILL.
AND YOU THRO' FAERY LANDS WILL STRAY, AT LAUGHTER'S FOUNTAIN DRINK YOUR FILL, FOR THO' YOUR BODY CRY "I'M ILL!" YOUR MIND WILL DANCE FROM NIGHT TO DAY. BESIDE YOUR BED I COME TO STAY WITH MAGIC MORE THAN HUMAN SKILL_.

THE RENDERING OF THANKS

To Mr. Austin Dobson and his publishers, Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner & Co., Ltd.

To Mr. R.A. Streatfeild, Mr. Henry Festing Jones, and Mr. A.C. Fifield, the publisher, for permission to make use of "The Note Books of Samuel Butler."

To Mr. W. Aldis Wright and Messrs. Macmillan for my quotations from "The
Letters of Edward FitzGerald."

To Mr. E.I. Carlyle, author of "The Life of William Cobbett."

To Sir Herbert Stephen and Messrs. Bowes & Bowes of Cambridge for permission to include verses from the "Lapsus Calami" of J.K. Stephen.

To Mrs. Hole, Mr. G.A.B. Dewar, and Messrs. George Allen & Co., for my quotations from Mr. Dewar's "The Letters of Samuel Reynolds Hole."

To Messrs. Chatto & Windus for my extracts from the Works of Mark Twain.

To Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons for permission to make a quotation from "Mrs.
Brookfield and her Circle."

To Messrs. Constable & Co. for my raid on the "Letters of T.E. Brown."

To Messrs. George Bell & Son for the verses taken from C.S. Calverley's
"Fly Leaves."

To Mr. E.V. Lucas, prince of anthologists, for the liberal use I have made of his "Life of Charles Lamb."

To Mr. G.K. Chesterton, and his publishers, Messrs. Methuen, Mr.
Duckworth, Mr. J.M. Dent, and Mr. John Lane.

To Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. (the owners of the copyright) for permission to include letters of Thackeray to Mrs. Brookfield.

To Messrs. Gibbings & Co. for my extracts from the admirable translation of Sainte-Beuve.

And to all authors, living and dead, who have assembled in this place to entertain the sick and the weary.

H.B.

FOREWORD

"It is worth," said Dr. Johnson, "a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things."

It is worth more than all money to have the capacity, the power, the will to see the bright side of things, to possess the assurance that there is a veritable and persisting bright side of things, when the mind is gloomed by physical weakness and the heart is conscious only of languor and distress. At such a dull time even a long-established habit may desert us; with our faculties clouded and obscured we are tempted to doubt the entire philosophy of our former life; we sink down into the sheets of discomfort, and roll our heads restlessly on the pillow of discontent; we almost extract a morbid satisfaction from the fuliginous surrenderings of pessimism. Mrs. Gummidge at our bedside might be as unwelcome as Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, or Zophar the Naamathite; but there is a Widow in the soul of all men as mournful and lugubrious as the tearful sister of Mr. Peggotty, and in our weakness it is often this dismal self-comforter we are disposed to summon to our aid. "My soul is weary of my life," cried Job; "I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul."

Now, there is not a wise doctor in the world, nor any man who truly knows himself, but will acknowledge and confess the enormous importance to physical recovery of mental well-being. The thing has become platitudinous, but remains as difficult as ever. If Christian Science on its physiological side had been an easy matter it would long ago have converted the world. The trouble is that obvious things are not always easy. It is obvious to the victim of alcoholic or nicotine poisoning that he would be infinitely better in health could he abjure alcohol or tobacco; he does not need to be philosophised or theologised into this conviction; he knows it better than his teachers. His necessity is a superadded force to the will within his soul which has lost the power of action. And so with the will of the sick person, who knows very well that if he could rid himself of dejection and heaviness his health would come back to him on swallows' wings. Obvious, palpable, more certain than to-morrow's sun; but how difficult, how hard, nay, sometimes how impossible! An honest man like Father Tyrrell confesses that in certain bouts with the flesh faith may desert us, even the religious faith of a life-time may fall in ruins round our naked soul.

I was once speaking on this subject to Sir Jesse Boot, telling him how hard I had found it to amuse and distract the mind of one of my children in the extreme weakness which fell upon her after an operation. I told him that I had searched my book-shelves for stories, histories, anthologies, and journeyings; that I had carried to the bedside piles of books which I thought the most suitable; and that I had read from these books day after day, succeeding for some few minutes at a time to interest the sick child, but ending almost in every case with failure and defeat. I found that humour could bore, that narrative could irritate, that essays could worry and perplex, that poetry could depress, and that wit could tease with its cleverness. Moreover, I found that one could not go straight to any anthology

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