Ten things are necessary for happiness in this life, the first being a
good digestion, and the other nine,--money; so at least it is said by
our modern philosophers. Yet the author of "A Gentle Life" speaks more
truly in saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of
superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support of
life.
He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness, not from
ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him. The man who has
mastered the secret will not wait for ideal surroundings; he will not
wait until next year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he can
travel abroad, until he can afford to surround himself with works of the
great masters; but he will make the most out of life to-day, where he
is.
"Why thus longing, thus forever sighing,
For the far-off, unattained and dim,
While the beautiful, all round thee lying,
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?
"Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own;
He who, secure within himself, can say:
'To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day!'"
Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will
never find it.
It is after business hours, not in them, that men break down. Men must,
like Philip Armour, turn the key on business when they leave it, and at
once unlock the doors of some wholesome recreation. Dr. Lyman Beecher
used to divert himself with a violin. He had a regular system of what he
called "unwinding," thus relieving the great strain put upon him.
"A man," says Dr. Johnson, "should spend part of his time with the
laughers."
Humor was Lincoln's life-preserver, as it has been of thousands of
others. "If it were not for this," he used to say, "I should die." His
jests and quaint stories lighted the gloom of dark hours of national
peril.
"Next to virtue," said Agnes Strickland, "the fun in this world is what
we can least spare."
"When the harness is off," said Judge Haliburton, "a critter likes to
kick up his heels."
"I have fun from morning till night," said the editor Charles A. Dana to
a friend who was growing prematurely old. "Do you read novels, and play
billiards, and walk a great deal?"
Gladstone early formed a habit of looking on the bright side of things,
and never lost a moment's sleep by worrying about public business.
There are many out-of-door sports, and the very presence of nature is to
many a great joy. How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented,
all nature smiles with us,--the air seems more balmy, the sky more
clear, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage,
the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly, and the sun,
moon, and stars all appear more beautiful. "It is a grand thing to
live,--to open the eyes in the morning and look out upon the world, to
drink in the pure air and enjoy the sweet sunshine, to feel the pulse
bound, and the being thrill with the consciousness of strength and power
in every nerve; it is a good thing simply to be alive, and it is a good
world we live in, in spite of the abuse we are fond of giving it."
"I love to hear the bee sing amid the blossoms sunny;
To me his drowsy melody is sweeter than his honey:
For, while the shades are shifting
Along the path to noon,
My happy brain goes drifting
To dreamland on his tune.
"I love to hear the wind blow amid the blushing petals,
And when a fragile flower falls, to watch it as it settles;
And view each leaflet falling
Upon the emerald turf,
With idle mind recalling
The bubbles on the surf.
"I love to lie upon the grass, and let my glances wander
Earthward and skyward there; while peacefully I ponder
How much of purest pleasure
Earth holds for his delight
Who takes life's cup to measure
Naught but its blessings bright."