I give fair warning that this is likely to be a “sentimental” chapter. Those who object to the same, and complain that these “Thoughts” are “not practical,” had better pass it over at once; since it treats of things essentially unpractical, impossible to be weighed and measured, handled and analysed, yet as real in themselves as the air we breathe and the sunshine we delight in—things wholly intangible, yet the very essence and necessity of our lives.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another? Various last-century poets have indulged in “Odes” to it, and good Mrs. Barbauld wrote a “Search” after it—a most correct, elegantly phrased, and genteel little drama, which, the dramatis personœ being all females, and not a bit of love in the whole, is, I believe, still acted in old-fashioned boarding-schools, with great éclat. The plot, if I remember right, consists of an elderly lady's leading four or five younger ones on the immemorial search, through a good many very long speeches; but whether they ever found happiness, or what it was like when found, I really have not the least recollection.

Let us hope that excellent Mrs. Barbauld is one of the very few who dare venture upon even the primary question—What is Happiness? Perhaps, poor dear woman! she is better able to answer it now.

I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in this world happiness is quite indefinable.