Page:Books and men.djvu/200

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190
BOOKS AND MEN.

to class herself among the fortunate, she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken tranquillity had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain." "What should a man do but be merry?" says Hamlet drearily; and, with this reckless mirth pervading even our novels, we bid fair in time to become as jocund as he.