“Oh, Doctor John⁠—I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?⁠—no preventive?”

“Happiness is the cure⁠—a cheerful mind the preventive⁠—cultivate both.”

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.

“Cultivate happiness!” I said briefly to the doctor: “do you cultivate happiness? How do you manage?”