And so do I remember my one friend, the anemone lady—and think often about her with passionate love.
[January 21.]
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.