A Private History of Happiness Read Online Free Page A

what was perhaps the softest bed in the Roman Empire. This contented self even replied to the moralist that for all the moral imperatives of duty, “a warm bed is comfortable and pleasant.”
    Soon enough, of course, he countered with arguments and logic. Across much of Europe and northern Africa and out to the East he ruled his empire, even though there were continuous revolts. Not many people have been more powerful in the history of the world than Marcus Aurelius. But the reason we still care about his words is that he knew about simple pleasures, too.
    The disproportion between the description of the warm bed and the vast military empire outside is touching. It reveals something important about the true sources of happiness, before the stoic emperor is obliged to move on.

Winter Dawn in the Cathedral Close
    Anna Seward, writer, composing a poem
    LICHFIELD, STAFFORDSHIRE • DECEMBER 19, 1782
    I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light,
Winter’s pale dawn; and as warm fires illume,
And cheerful tapers shine around the room,
Thro’ misty windows bend my musing sight
Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white,
With shutters clos’d, peer faintly thro’ the gloom,
That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume,
Rising from their dark pile, an added height
By indistinctness given. Then to decree
The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold
To Friendship, or the Muse, or seek with glee
Wisdom’s rich page: O, hours! more worth than gold,
By whose blest use we lengthen life, and free
From drear decays of age, outlive the old!

    Anna Seward was the daughter of an eminent clergyman. He became senior canon of Lichfield Cathedral in the English Midlands in 1750, when she was eight years old. They were given the Bishop’s Palace in the cathedral close, since the bishop did not want it, and the senior canon was next in rank. These poetic lines were written in the bedroom where Anna Seward had begun most days since that time, thirty-two years before. Even now, as a middle-aged woman, the associations and memories were strong. She had never married, despite some romances. She had, though, become a well-respected poet and friend of such famous writers as Samuel Johnson.
    She awoke on that December morning just before dawn. Christmas was not far away. She felt anew the sensation of another day unfolding. “I love to rise” describes this moment, and also many others that she remembered with pleasure. The fire was warming in the grate, now as always. The candles were lit around the room, and it seems asif both she and these “tapers” shared in the “cheerful” feeling. The windowpanes were “misty” with cold. Then she peered outside.
    The outlines of the buildings in the close, “mansions white,” were just emerging from the dark. Further off, the three spires of the cathedral were starting to materialize, more impressive for their “indistinctness” than when clear daylight revealed their proportions. Of course, she knew every detail of this scene. Yet the mystery never passed. This was a moment when the close hovered between absence and presence, shadow and solidity. This was a moment she loved, so full of possibilities each dawn.
    Like other poets of her time, Anna Seward was inclined to draw general lessons and give advice. It was particularly tempting for a woman who was developing a literary reputation to prove that she was as serious a writer as the men. This poem is a sonnet, one of the most difficult forms of Western poetry. It divides in the middle of the ninth line, and the latter part is certainly moral and religious.
    But the beginning is different.
    There was no greater happiness for Anna Seward than this moment of opposites—warmth and cold, inside and outside, waking and dreaming. This December morning, the world once again kept its covenant with her, as it does for all people on good days.

Time Together with an Ancient Book
    Willem de Clercq, student, writing in his journal
    AMSTERDAM •