Observe a child; any one will do. You will see that not a day passes in which he does not find something to make him happy, though he may be in tears the next moment. Then look at a man; any one of us will do. You will notice that weeks and months can pass in which each day is greeted with nothing more than resignation and endured with polite indifference. Indeed, most men are as miserable as sinners, though too bored to sin—perhaps their sin is their indifference. They smile so seldom that when they do, we barely recognize their face, so distorted is it from the fixed mask we take for granted. And even then, a man cannot smile like a child, for a child smiles with his eyes, whereas a man smiles with his lips alone. It is not a smile, but a grin; something to do with humor, but little to do with happiness. Yet, there comes a point when a man becomes old, and then he will smile again.
It would seem that happiness has something to do with simplicity—the ability to extract pleasure from the simplest things, such as a peach stone.
It is obvious that happiness is nothing to do with success. Sir Henry Stewart was certainly successful. Twenty years ago, he came from London to our village, bought a couple of old cottages and combined them into one as a weekend refuge. He was a barrister, and the village followed his brilliant career with something almost amounting to paternal pride.
I remember about ten years ago when he was made a King's Counsel. Amos and I went to congratulate him as he got off the London train. We grinned with pleasure; he merely looked as miserable as if he'd received a penal sentence. It was the same when he was knighted; he never smiled, nor did he bother to celebrate. He took his success as a child takes medicine. Not one of his achievements brought even a ghost of a smile to his tired eyes.
Soon after he had retired to potter about his garden, I asked him what it was like to achieve all one's ambitions. He looked down at his roses, continued watering them, and said, "The only value in achieving one's ambition is that you then realize they are not worth achieving." Then he quickly moved the conversation to the weather. That was two years ago.
I recalled this incident yesterday when I was passing his house. I had drawn up my cart just outside his garden wall to let a bus pass. As I sat there filling my pipe, I suddenly heard a shout of sheer joy from the other side of the wall.
I peered over. There stood Sir Henry doing nothing less than a tribal war dance of sheer, unashamed ecstasy. Even when he saw my bewildered face staring over the wall, he was not put out or embarrassed, but shouted for me to climb over.
"Come and see, Jan. Look! I have done it at last! I have done it at last!"
He was holding a small box of earth in his hand. I observed three tiny shoots coming out of it.
"And there were only three!" he said, his eyes laughing to heaven.
"Three what?" I asked.
"Peach stones," he replied. "I've always wanted to make peach stones grow, ever since I was a child. I used to take them home after a party or a banquet, plant them, and then forget where I planted them. But now at last I have done it, and what's more, I had only three stones, and there you are—one, two, three shoots."
And Sir Henry ran off, calling for his wife to come and see his achievement—his achievement of simplicity.