Happy

Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The world is so full of a number of things”

For when you’re happy and want a line that says so.

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Robert Louis Stevenson“Happy Thought”, A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), no. XXIVRead the original text ↗

In plain words

Two lines, and both are cheerful. The world holds so many things that the speaker is sure we ought all to be as happy as kings. Nothing is achieved or fixed in the poem; the happiness comes from how much there is to be found.

Worth knowing

That is the entire poem, not an excerpt. It comes from a book of verses for children by the author of Treasure Island, and the speaker’s “I’m sure” has a child’s certainty about it.

Know someone who feels this way — .

Another feeling

If something of your own is sitting heavy — /talk is a quieter room.

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The quote is checked against the original text. The plain-words note is an AI-assisted draft. How AI is used