THE STORM BREAKS "Do you know, you are a very odd person, Miss Jess," John said presently, with a little laugh.

"I don't think you can have a happy mind." She looked up.

"A happy mind ?" she said.

"Who _can_ have a happy mind?
Nobody who feels.

Supposing," she went on after a pause--"supposing one puts oneself and one's own little interests and joys and sorrows quite away, how is it possible to be happy, when one feels the breath of human misery beating on one's face, and sees the tide of sorrow and suffering creeping up to one's feet?
You may be on a rock yourself and out of the path of it, till the spring floods or the hurricane wave come to sweep you away, or you may be afloat upon it: whichever it is, it is quite impossible, if you have any heart, to be indifferent." "Then only the indifferent are happy ?" "Yes, the indifferent and the selfish; but, after all, it is the same thing: indifference is the perfection of selfishness." "I am afraid that there must be lots of selfishness in the world, for certainly there is plenty of happiness, all evil things notwithstanding.
I should have said that happiness springs from goodness and a sound digestion." Jess shook her head as she answered, "I may be wrong, but I don't see how anybody who feels can be quite happy in a world of sickness, suffering, slaughter, and death.