Excerpt from Heaven, Home and Happiness This book shows that a house is not necessarily a home, a fact many forget. Here are a man and wife; they agree in nothing else, but they agree they will have a home. Architects make the plan, and mechanics execute it; the house to cost one hundred thousand dollars. It is done. The carpets are spread, lights are hoisted, curtains hung, cards of invitation sent out. The horses in gold-plated harness prance at the gate; guests come in and take their places; the musical instruments sound; the dancers go up and down; and, with one grand whirl, the wealth and the fashion and the mirth of the great town wheel amidst the pictured walls. Ha! This is happiness. Float it on the smoking viands; sound it in the music; whirl it' in the dance; cast it on the snow of sculpture; sound it up the brilliant stairway; flasl: it in the chandeliers! Happiness, indeed! Let us build on the centre of the parlor floor a throne to Happiness; let all the guests, when they come in, bring their flowers and pearls and diamonds, and throw them on this pyramid, and let it be a throne; and then let Happiness, the queen, mount the throne, and we will stand around and, all chalices lifted, we will say: Drink, 0 Queen! Live forever! But the guests depart, the flutes are breathless, the last clash of the im patient hoofs is heard in the distance, and the twain of the household come hack to see the Queen of Happiness on the throne amid the parlor floor. But, alas! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.