When Mr. Mallock's book with this title appeared some fifteen years
ago, the jocose answer that "it depends on the _liver_" had great
currency in the newspapers. The answer which I propose to give
to-night cannot be jocose. In the words of one of Shakespeare's
prologues,--
"I come no more to make you laugh; things now,
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,"--
must be my theme. In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner
in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly; and I know not
what such an association as yours intends, nor what you ask of those
whom you invite to address you, unless it be to lead you from the
surface-glamour of existence, and for an hour at least to make you
heedless to the buzzing and jigging and vibration of small interests
and excitements that form the tissue of our ordinary consciousness.
Without further explanation or apology, then, I ask you to join me in
turning an attention, commonly too unwilling, to the profounder
bass-note of life. Let us search the lonely depths for an hour
together, and see what answers in the last folds and recesses of things
our question may find.
{33}