This journal did provide an acknowledgement. In October 1848 a set of seven definitions was printed in a New York journal called “The Literary American”. HAPPINESS.-A butterfly, which when pursued, seems always just beyond your grasp, but if you sit down quietly may alight upon you. Small changes were made to the punctuation of the definition of “Happiness” a semi-colon was changed to a comma, and another comma was removed: 1848 September 23, Saturday Morning Visitor, A Chapter of Definitions, Quote, Column 5, City of Warsaw, Missouri. The definitions for “Time”, “Religion”, and “Hope” were omitted, but “Happiness” was included. No attribution or acknowledgement was provided. In September 1848 a newspaper in Missouri reprinted thirteen of the sixteen definitions from “The Daily Crescent”. Here are additional selected citations in chronological order. The mistaken ascription to Nathaniel Hawthorne appeared many years later and was probably based on the misreading of an ambiguous entry in a book of quotations published in 1891.
HAPPINESS.-A butterfly, which when pursued, seems always just beyond your grasp but if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you. WEALTH.-The sum which gives content, whether one dollar or a million. LOVE.-The electric spark communicating between two human galvanic batteries. Emphasis by QI: 1848 June 23, The Daily Crescent, A Chapter of Definitions, (The line above the title stated “For the Crescent” author was specified with the single letter “L.”), Quote Page … Continue reading The butterfly metaphor was presented within the definition for “Happiness”. The author was only identified by the single initial “L”. The article was labelled “For the Crescent”, so this article may have been the original publication. In June 1848 a newspaper called “The Daily Crescent” in New Orleans, Louisiana printed a set of sixteen definitions for terms such as “Love”, “Faith”, “Truth”, “Wealth”, and “Experience”. The earliest evidence known to QI was published in several periodicals beginning in 1848.
Quote Investigator: QI believes that neither of these gentlemen was responsible for this figurative language. Who do you think really originated this analogy? Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. Nathaniel Hawthorne? Henry David Thoreau? L.? Apocryphal? Anonymous?ĭear Quote Investigator: An ingenious and lovely simile about happiness is confusingly attributed to two prominent literary figures: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau.