HAPPINESS, don't you know, is of three kinds—and all are transitory. It never stays, but it comes and goes.
There is that happiness that comes from newly-washed feet, for instance, and a pair of clean stockings on them, particularly after one has been upon a tramp into the country. Always I have identified this kind of happiness with a Maltese cat, dipping a hungry, stealthy, sensual tongue into a bowl of fresh, thick cream.
There is that still happiness that has come to me at rare times when I have been with my one friend—and which does very well for people whose feelings are moderate. They need wish for nothing beyond it. They could not appreciate anything deeper.
And there is that kind of happiness which is of the red sunset sky. There is something terrible in the thought of this indescribable mad Happiness. What a thing it is for a human being to be happy—with the red, red Happiness of the sunset sky!
It's like a terrific storm in summer with rain and wind, beating quiet water into wild waves, bending great trees to the ground,—convulsing the green earth with delicious pain.
It's like something of Schubert's played on the violin that stirs you within to exquisite torture.
It's like the human voice divine singing a Scotch ballad in a manner to drag your soul from your body.
But there are no words to tell it. It is something infinitely above and beyond words. It is the kind of Happiness the Devil will bring to me when he comes,—to me, to me! Oh, why does he not come now when I am in the midst of my youth! Why is he so long in coming?
Often you hear a dozen stories of how the Devil was most ready and willing to take all from some one and give him his measure of Happiness. And sometimes the person was innately virtuous and so could not take the Happiness when it was offered. But Happiness is its own justification, and it should be eagerly grasped when it comes.
A world filled with fools will never learn this.
And so here I stand in the midst of Nothingness waiting and longing for the Devil, and he doesn't come. I feel a choking, strangling, frenzied feeling of waiting—oh, why doesn't my Happiness come! I have waited so long—so long.
There are persons who say to me that I ought not to think of the Devil, that I ought not to think of Happiness—Happiness for me would be sure to mean something wicked (as if Happiness could ever be wicked!); that I ought to think of being good. I ought to think of God. These are persons who help to fill the world with fools. At any rate their words are unable to affect me. I can not distinguish between right and wrong in this scheme of things. It is one of the lines of reasoning in which I have gotten to the edge, the end. I have gotten to the point to which all logic finally leads. I can only say, What is wrong? What is right? What is good? What is evil? The words are merely words, with word-meanings.
Truth is Love, and Love is the only Truth, and Love is the one thing out of all that is real.
The Devil is really the only one to whom we may turn, and he exacts payment in full for every favor.
But surely he will come one day with Happiness for me.
Yet, oh, how can I wait!
To be a woman, young and all alone, is hard—hard!—is to want things, is to carry a heavy, heavy weight.
Oh, damn! damn! damn! Damn every living thing, the world!—the universe be damned!
Oh, I am weary, weary! Can't you see that I am weary and pity me in my own damnation?