Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Happiness
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it, but likely enough it is gone the moment we say to ourselves, “Here it is!” like the chest of gold that treasure-seekers find.
Hawthorne.—American Note-Books, Nov., 1852.
There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow,—the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.
Hawthorne.—American Note-Books, July, 1843.