IN SEARCH OF JOY.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 33, 23 February 1937, Page 4

IN SEARCH OF JOY.

An iuteresting comparison of man's capacity for happiness with tliat o£ animals is contained in Marjorie Greenbie's book ''The Quest of Contentment." Joy, she insists, is the normal condition of organic life. She quotes Fabre, who hears in "Ihe violin of the locust, the bagpipe of the tree-frog, the cymbals of tho cacan, only a means of expreasing the joy of life, the unrversal joy which every animal species celebxatea in its own way." This joy is the normal condition of man no less than of the grasshopper, and the baby feels it and shouts its delight even before he can talk. But it is choked in the sehoolroom and blinded by - the teaehings of the good at adolescence, and for the primal aetiyities and scenes which feed it there are substituted subways and motor cars^ high buildings and paved streets, the candy countor and ice-cream parlour, the cigarette and the coektail. These inventions have their own charms, wries Mrs. Greenbie, and civilized conditions protect mankind from some pains and dangers and encourage gome xefinements of sensation. But it is fatally easy to lose through them a simple intensity and contentment of health and wellbeing . . . And with all the joys and exeitementg of urban and domestic . existenee, we have never been able to invent a substitute for the waTm, i solf-sufficient, unquesUoiung happiness that comes with being a healthy ' iier.snn a«:iivt'Jy engngfl in piiniii.isc activity out-of-.doom,