PART III.

How far our Happiness depends on Ourselves.

I. _Our Occupations, those of Necessity and those of Choice._

In one of his novels, Emile Zola describes a conversation between the

workwomen of a Parisian laundry. The subject was, what each would do

if she had ten thousand francs a year. They were all of one mind. They

would do just nothing at all!

This washerwoman’s ideal of happiness has also commended itself to

various philosophic minds. “I have often said,” writes Pascal, “that

all misfortunes befall men because they do not know enough to stay

quietly in their own rooms.” What puzzled him was that men will make

the most toilsome efforts to secure a period of repose; and as soon as

they obtain it, they weary of it and demand action. He might have

learned from this the fallacy of his own definition.

The genial Herder taught that simplicity and repose are the two valves

of the shell that secretes the pearl of human felicity; but he

neglected to add that it must be the simplicity of aims combined with

a multiplicity of means; and repose enjoyed merely as a preparation

for renewed activity.

The true doctrine is that Labor, systematic, effective, congenial

Labor, is not only a necessity, it is the source of the highest

enjoyment to men. The ancients were right when they said the gods sell

all pleasures at the price of toil. “Function in healthful action” is

the definition which the modern physiologist gives of the feeling of

pleasure; and he but translates into prose the poetic expression of

the old Greek. The elements of true happiness must be sought in

activity, not in repose; and it is high time that the world and the

wiseacres found it out, and ceased singing peans to idleness and

cursing the necessity of work.

Most men and a great many women have to work for their living. They

usually accept the necessity with discontent and with envy of those

who are idle or are in other pursuits. The farmer thinks he would have

done better to have gone to the city. The lawyer regrets that he did

not study medicine. As in Dr. Johnson’s story:――

“Surely,” said Rasselas, “the wise men to whom we listen with

reverence chose that mode of life for themselves which they thought

most likely to make them happy.”

“Very few,” replied the poet, “live by choice. Every man is placed in

his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and

with which he did not always co-operate.”

In this country most men select for themselves the occupation which

they pursue for a livelihood; but I doubt whether the freedom in their

choice makes them more contented with it. The root of their discontent

lies deeper than is suggested in Dr. Johnson’s philosophic tale, and

its removal, so indispensable to personal happiness, must be sought

for elsewhere than in still wider license of choosing.

So far as either happiness or success is concerned it makes no

difference, in nine cases out of ten, what business or profession a

young man adopts, so that it is suitable to his education and social

position. The rare exceptions are where there is some strong natural

bent or aptitude; and even then the pursuit of it is more likely to

bring enjoyment than money. Men are about equally fitted by nature for

all the ordinary avocations of life, and the choice of a business is

less important than is generally believed.

That is not where the secret of success and happiness lies. It lies in

learning to practice one’s trade or profession as an art, to like it

for its own sake, to derive a considerable portion of our pleasure

from its pursuit, to have, as the French say, our heart in it, _Avoir

le cœur au métier_. But how is this possible, one will ask, with the

drudgery of the counting house, or the mill, or the harvest field, or

the Court of Quarter Sessions? It is possible with any avocation, if

one will take the trouble to think about it as one of the manifold

branches of human industry, to study its relations to other branches

and to the lives and fates of human beings, to try to improve it, and

to learn its attractions for those who do like it, and endeavor to

enter into their feelings. Every occupation has some such attractions

and some such possibilities. Those who are willing to see and seize

them are those who derive both solid enjoyment and substantial rewards

from their work.

Another secret lies in the cultivation of a sort of analogy or harmony

between our mental disposition and the occurrences and surroundings in

which our obligatory labor places us. This is quite within our own

power to effect by the voluntary control of our thoughts. Why busy our

imaginations and disturb our minds with dreaming of the pleasures of

foreign travel when we know we have to stay at home and work ten hours

a day? Far better occupy ourselves with the interests around us and

the easily attainable pleasures within our reach. Have no fear that

this course is narrowing or lowering. There are no nobler games than

those which can be played on any village lawn, and the hyssop on your

garden wall, could you read it, would teach you the laws of all

organic nature.

The considerations which should have weight in the choice of avocation

are less those of capacity or inclination, since these differ little

and can readily be cultivated, than those referred to on an earlier

page which relate to health, bodily and mental. It is not necessary to

be very clever to succeed in business; only a little more clever than

those around you. But it is necessary to have your health; for in the

struggle for bread, the weak are thrust to the wall without remorse.

No one who chooses wisely will select a business which will aggravate

an hereditary or acquired malady. It is more satisfactory to be

honor-man of a lower class, than come in at the tail-end of a higher

one.

There are also certain mental disqualifications which apply especially

to the professions. William Hazlitt objected to all professions which

depend on reputation, because this is “as often got without merit as

lost without deserving;” but this is less the case now than it was

formerly. The point is rather a mental unfitness for the work

required, a state of things which may exist with plenty of ability.

The politician with an instinctive shrinking from publicity, the

lawyer who has an aversion to argument, the physician who is unable to

show sympathy and interest where he feels none, may succeed in his

profession, but he will scarcely enjoy it.

Intense application to an occupation is a common cause of distaste for

it and unhappiness in it. Such concentration is nearly always

needless, and is often fruitless. The most brilliant fortunes have not

been the products of hard work, but of shrewd planning. The sweetness

of the chimes does not depend on the violence of the ringing, but on

the skill of the bellman. I had a friend who was brought up a broker,

but remained a philosopher. He used to say that energy in business is

the most common cause of failures. He referred, of course, to that

exclusive and persistent zeal which is pretty sure to end by

enfeebling the body and exhausting the mind.

Dissatisfaction with one’s lot sometimes arises from over

conscientiousness,――a rare disease, I confess, in business circles,

but I have met a few cases of it. “Always try to do your best,” is one

of several hundred copy-book maxims which hypocrisy pretends are

necessary to success, but which common sense and practical life

quietly ignore. Very much less than your best will often answer the

purpose, and the rope that reaches is long enough. I have witnessed

considerable distress, especially among young men, because their books

of account were not so immaculate, or their press-articles so studied,

as they might have been by greater toil; yet they were good

enough,――and good enough is good.

At the best, making one’s living is often a sad affair. Business life

is like a dinner at a crowded third-rate hotel, ――one’s clothing is so

torn in the struggle for place, and there is so much dirt to eat

before the dessert is served, that either the appetite turns to

nausea, or its satisfaction is followed by indigestion. Hence so many

able men prefer permanent positions on small salaries to embarking in

affairs on their own account. Many a lawyer will give up a large

practice to become a judge on one-third of the income. Politics in the

United States is, as a business, notoriously unsafe, but the

attraction of fixed salaries overcrowds it with aspirants. The dream

of the Socialists is for all citizens to be salaried. Individual

effort, however, alone insures general progress; not to dispense with

it, but to favor its pleasurable development, is the real social

problem.

The true aim of Occupations of Necessity is to provide us time, not

for repose and inaction, as most moralists teach, but for Occupations

of Choice. We call these our recreations, amusements, pastimes,

favorite studies, hobbies, fads, if you please. In these lie the

mainsprings of our felicity; and their character reveals pretty

clearly the measure of our capacity for happiness, and the degree of

our mastery of its theory. If we pass our leisure in cultivating

delusions and pursuing inanities, our enjoyment is that of the insane

and the idiotic, and arises not from the health, but from the disease

or debility, of our minds. Yet how many men, skillful in securing the

means of pleasure, are witless in the use of it!

“Those are the best recreations,” says old Thomas Fuller, “which,

besides refreshing, enable men to some other good ends.” His words,

though they sound well, are only half-wise. To enjoy to the utmost any

favorite pastime or study, it should be pursued for itself alone, and

with no ulterior purpose or hope in view. “’Twere to cramp its use, to

hook it to some useful end.” Pleasure is nobler than profit, enjoyment

is higher than utility, whatever political economists or pulpit

orators say to the contrary. I know some men who always explain their

relaxations as a part of their serious lives; and others who, if

detected in an act of benevolence, hasten to show that it was prompted

by their self-interest; of the two, I admire the latter more.

* * * * *

Success is another name for Perseverance. When Newton was asked how he

reached his great discovery, he replied, “By making it incessantly the

subject of my thoughts.”

* * * * *

Happiness follows success, provided the latter is rightly achieved and

received.

* * * * *

A contented spirit is merely one which pleases itself with little

effort. Contentment differs from Happiness, as repose from recreation.

* * * * *

For most, it will be easier to learn to like what they have to do,

than to find the chance of doing what they like.

* * * * *

To teach what they do not know, and to live by a trade that they do

not understand, are feats that many are surprised that they cannot

perform.

* * * * *

All paths seem rough to the bare feet of those who are used to wearing

shoes.

* * * * *

Would you have pleasant yesterdays and welcome to-morrows, let to-day

be busy and confident.

* * * * *

You may pound away with the hammer, but if you are not driving a nail,

you will break instead of building.

* * * * *

Most divers bring up mud; but few, pearls.

* * * * *

The honey which we gather ourselves tastes the sweetest.

* * * * *

The measure of value of work is the amount of play it provides for;

the measure of value of play is the amount of work there is in it.

* * * * *

Play-time should be perfecting-time; the use of leisure hours is to

get rid of the lees of life.

* * * * *

Before all days are made holidays, all men should become heroes.

II. _Money-making, its Laws and its Limits._

There are some prayers which belong to the universal Religion of

Humanity, and none more so than this, which is found in the oldest

prayer-book of the Aryan race, the Rig Veda,――“O Lord, prosper us in

the getting and the keeping!” “To make money” is certainly the “soul’s

sincere desire” of most citizens of the world at the present day, and

nowhere is it more fervently uttered than in this country.

This is no discredit. So far as we can trace the history of man from

the Old Stone Age upward, the one efficient motive to his progress has

been the acquisition and preservation of property. This has been the

immediate aim of all his arts and institutions and the chief incentive

to individual exertion. The time may come――indeed, there are signs of

its approach――when nations will consciously aim at some other than a

property career, and individuals will perceive that the purpose of

riches is something else than to offer facilities for their further

increase or for inglorious ease.

In this devotion to the accumulation of property men have not been led

astray by what Shakespeare so magnificently calls――

“The prophetic soul

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come.”

Material resources are the indispensable requisites to progress. The

miseries of poverty are manifest, and there are none greater. The

utterly poor man is condemned to servitude and suffering, the woman to

degradation. The imperative demands of the animal wants quench the

finer elements of character, and the brutal stamps out the human in

the desperate struggle for existence.

What wonder that the pauper turns in bestial fury against the rich,

who flaunt before him a superfluous luxury? But his passion springs

from his ignorance.

Wealth is no longer “spoils,” the product of robbery; rather may it be

called the reward paid by society for services rendered humanity. It

is frequently the booty won in some victory over the elements of

nature or of self, and by the practice of those maxims which make men

stronger and more useful to those around them. To the possessor it

supplies the leisure necessary to the cultivation of his nobler

faculties and to the highest of duties――self-development.

The terms “wealth” and “riches” are vague, and to understand the

relation of property to personal happiness, which is my present theme,

we must define them closer.

The time has gone by when either love is satisfied to live in “a cot

beside the hill,” or a philosopher in a tub. Both prefer to possess a

house in a city street and a cottage by the sea; which is a sign that

both the philosophy of love and the love of philosophy have improved.

The affectation of despising riches――which never was anything but an

affectation――is no longer good form, even among sages.

Let us count what riches give.

The list is short and it is pleasant reading. Riches supply us with

the food and drink we like, clothing, shelter, and surroundings to our

taste, means of warmth and light, the services and to some extent the

companionship of those we choose, and especially leisure and means to

pursue our “occupations of choice.”

These are the immediate benefits we derive from riches, and

practically there are none others. Political economists have therefore

called these “real” or “effective” riches, to distinguish them from

“potential” or “productive” riches, by which latter they mean property

or capital invested with the object of supplying “effective” riches,

without personal effort on the part of the owner.

In looking over the list of “effective” riches, one sees that they are

all very desirable, and perhaps, I may as well say, essential to

personal happiness. I am sure nine-tenths of the civilized world will

agree with me. About that, the discussion will be short; but about how

to obtain them, that inquiry is not to be disposed of so quickly.

We are now talking business. Let us be practical. _Les affaires avant

tout._ Just how much a year do I need to be rich? Here I make an

extraordinary discovery, comparable only to that of the Fortunate

Isles, where apple trees bore fruits of gold; or the valley of Sinbad

the Sailor, where the common pebbles were rubies and diamonds. On

turning to that list of “effective” riches, I perceive that very

little of it has to do with _things_, and very much of it with _me_.

It is based on what _I_ like, prefer, choose. If, like the Emperor

Nero, I cannot be satisfied with less than peacocks’ brains and

nightingales’ tongues for dinner, I must have the revenues of an

empire; but if I am content with bread and beans, with a shanty to

keep out the wind and a slop-shop suit for warmth, then a few

fifty-cent fees a day――I happen to be a doctor――will make me rich as a

Rothschild.

Marvelous discovery! beatific vision! only, at the moment of utmost

complacency, calm reflection, like a chill wind, “disencharms the late

enchantment.” My tastes are not my own. They belong to my parents and

my race. I cannot help it that I was born with a thin skin, which

requires fine silk next it to be comfortable; with a queasy stomach,

that demands delicate dishes; with a thirst for remote and useless

learning, which must have expensive books. So from this time forth I

flout at and deride that solemn prig of antiquity, whose name I am

glad to have forgotten, who taught that there are two ways of getting

rich, each equally satisfactory, but one much easier than the

other――the one to diminish our wants, the other to increase our

incomes. I have no better opinion of his teaching than had Malvolio of

the doctrine of Pythagoras, that “the soul of his grandam might haply

inhabit a partridge;” and, really, which of the two the antiquated

mentor thought the easier I cannot imagine. To me, it has been the

latter.

Money, therefore, we must have.

Her physician said of Cleopatra that she had “pursued conclusions

infinite, of easy ways to die.” The expression might be used of many a

modern schemer with reference to getting wealth. But alas! I am

afraid, of the thousands of schemes, that of the dry, unimaginative,

political economists is the only one worth mentioning; and that is

summed up in the hateful word――Economize! or, as they put it in their

stiff dialect,――“Diminish the consumption of your 'effective’ riches,

in order that you may add the surplus to your 'productive’ riches, or

invested capital.”

Some of them are even meddlesome enough to lay down exact rules as to

how much one should put aside from an annual income and securely

invest, in order to meet the demands of what they call “an enlightened

prudence.” This, they say, should be one-fourth of such income, and

they add that if this with its increment is continued for about

five-and-twenty years, the return from your “productive” riches will

then be sufficient to supply you with the amount of “effective” riches

to which you have been accustomed, without further labor on your part;

and you can quietly sit in the chimney corner and live in bliss all

the rest of your days, like the prince in the fairy story. This is a

page, therefore, good for young married people to read who are

starting out in life and have their fortunes to make, and want to

“retire” at their silver wedding.

Such slow work will not suit the energetic young man whose

determination is to get rich quick and have a good time while he is

about it. He has no occasion to go back to antiquity for his two ways

of succeeding, and he proposes to use them both as strings to his bow,

so that by one or the other he will drive his arrow into the bull’s

eye of fortune’s target. Speculation! Advertising! These are the words

of power with which he will enslave the spirits which guard the hidden

pots of gold. He is well aware that a bit of red flannel is bait

enough for many fishes, and that in angling false flies catch more

trout than real ones. The value of knowledge to him is measured by the

ability it gives to detect the ignorance of others and to take

advantage of it. His plans, like those of Cardinal de Retz, are so

laid that, though they fail, they will bring in some return. He will

manage to secure a commission even on the expenditures he makes for

his pleasures. Such a character, and there are many such in our

country, often enough succeeds in his ambitions.

I was in active business for twenty years, and I made the discovery

that the excellent precepts which all are taught in infancy and

continue to praise in after years undergo certain modifications when

it comes to practical life “in the street.” Once I amused myself by

writing them out as I found them really observed, and I am inclined to

insert a few specimens, which I will call

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

Not how business should be done, but how others do business, is

the proper study.

The brighter your virtues shine, the more fish will be

attracted within reach of your gig.

Always praise veracity and honesty; they are useful qualities

in others.

The louder you condemn dissimulation, the less you will be

suspected of it.

Be virtuous; nothing so enables you to appear superior to those

around you.

If you are stingy, do not pretend to be generous; the effort

will betray you.

When people express surprise at your meanness, it shows that

you must have established a reputation for liberality.

Punctuality is excellent; but the man who comes last to an

engagement is the only one who is not kept waiting.

The value of time is its value to yourself.

The simplest device to capture other people’s money is to let

them think that they can capture yours.

Truth is bright and strong; too bright for most eyes, and too

strong to be administered without dilution.

The man who attends the funeral of his own reputation often has

a jolly wake.

Marry for love, work for your living; marry for money, work for

your liberty.

But enough of these. It will ever hold true that competitive business

breeds deception and selfish greed. The business man who pretends

otherwise is either a hypocrite or of dull moral sense.

In this race for riches, whether along the peaceful avenue of economy

or jostling in the streets of speculation, where comes in the Pursuit

of Happiness? Riches, as I have shown, are and can be nothing more

than means to this end, and those who, through avarice, greed, or

rapacity, make them the end and aim of their aspirations, trade gold

for dross. Scarcely less is the error of those who are ever postponing

the hour of enjoyment until a certain sum is reached, and their

fortune can be rounded off with additional thousands. It is a general

tendency in human nature to live in the past or the future, although

the present alone is man’s. What to him is _now_, and _here_, is all

that he can ever possess or enjoy; and if you ask him, he will grant

it; but he is driven ever by what seems an irrational and demonic

power to seek his joy in what is somewhere else, far off, out of

reach, impossible of attainment, beyond his capacities.

The illusive pictures drawn by memory, by hope, and by imagination

have their proper place in the palace of Human Happiness; but the

majority fix their gaze steadily on these alone, and wander through

halls and chambers filled with rich stuffs and costly ware, through

corridors looking out on entrancing views and courts opening to the

starry heavens, their eyes fixed vacantly on the far distance, and

noting nothing of the beauties by which they are surrounded. To waken

them by some whisper of what they are missing, and to persuade them to

turn their eyes on what is around them, will be my purpose in the

chapters immediately to follow.

* * * * *

Bishop Berkeley declared that he was the richest man in England,

because he had trained himself to the habit of mind of regarding

everything which gave him pleasure as his own. In our days, most

philosophers of that school reside in penitentiaries.

* * * * *

The disappointments of the _nouveau riche_ are, that what he would

like to buy is not on sale, and what he expected to get for nothing,

he finds can only be had by paying for it.

* * * * *

That you are rich, is nothing to me; but only whether you are willing

to spend your money.

* * * * *

Many strive harder to appear happy than to be so. Ostentation is

wealth shamming happiness. Envy is the fool who does not see through

the sham.

* * * * *

The rich have less advantage over the poor than the latter suppose.

* * * * *

Not the inventory of your property, but that of your unsatisfied

wants, measures your fortune; not your annual income, but your annual

deficit or surplus, makes you rich or poor.

* * * * *

After all, the worst of poverty is that it leaves us so little money

to give away.

* * * * *

In Grecian legend, the apple of discord was made of gold.

* * * * *

If you teach your son to love money well, you will have such success

that he will soon love it better than he does you.

* * * * *

A miser has merry mourners.

* * * * *

Youth saves for age, age for its heirs, and these for nobody.

* * * * *

Do not starve your horse to save your hay.

* * * * *

When you deliver a eulogy on a plutocrat, you had better dwell on his

millions than on his methods of getting them.

III. _The Pleasures we may Derive from our Senses._

The odious doctrine of the ascetics has been that whatever is

agreeable to man is offensive to God; and that to cultivate the

pleasurable sensations is to prepare one’s self for perdition.

Far more sane than they was that Mohammedan teacher quoted by Gibbon,

who, when asked to describe the true believers, replied,――“_They_ are

the elect of God, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their

own natural faculties.”

As mistaken as the ascetics, are those wooden-souled disciplinarians

who maintain that we should not look for recreation in our daily work,

but put off the thoughts of it to holidays and vacations. These are

but one degree better than those hypocrites who will tell you that

benevolence should have no place in business, and who will offer you a

round sum for a public charity, while they squeeze the salaries of

their shop-girls down to the lowest quarter-of-a-dollar.

Down with such imposters! Each hour of our lives is the best hour for

enjoying ourselves and for providing others the means of enjoyment;

and there is no better way to accomplish both these objects than that

suggested by the pious Arab,――“The improvement of our own natural

faculties.”

These have been divided by experts in such matters into three

classes,――the Sensations, the Emotions, and the Intellect. I shall

consider the training of each with reference to the special pleasures

it can furnish. All are equally worth cultivating. The delights of one

are not lower than those of another, if accepted in the proper spirit.

He who has right self-culture will derive gratification from them all;

and will not be, like the French peasant in Halevy’s story, unable to

understand how heaven could be attractive unless his native village

were transported there.

Some general rules must be respected if the exercise of any of our

faculties is to yield the maximum of pleasure. These rules are derived

from the physiology of the nervous system; for it cannot be doubted

that this underlies, if it is not identical with, every feeling and

function of the mind.

I hasten to say this, lest the reader should suppose they are derived

from moral philosophy, or based on duty or virtue. I am well aware

they could expect a scant hearing were this the case. Men dislike as

much to be urged to their good, as to be forbidden what is hurtful.

Nor are they difficult to understand; but this helps little; it is

easy enough to learn and to teach wisdom; to apply it to our own

conduct is what is hard.

The first rule is that of Moderation. Restrain the indulgence in any

one pleasure. Immoderation is sure to be followed by exhaustion of the

nerve-fibres and subsequent painful reaction. We should not think

highly of a gardener who when he picks his flowers pulls his plants up

by the roots. Yet this is the fashion in which many men treat their

own faculties.

The second rule is that of Variety. Multiply the sources and kinds of

pleasure. Increase the susceptibility of all your faculties to its

sweet appeals. Seek it in all directions immediately around you. But

do not confound the love of variety with instability and freakishness;

nor imitate those prodigals who throw the bottle away after the first

sip of its contents:――

“Ces buveurs de bière,

Qui jette la bouteille après la première verre.”

There are other rules; but to recite them would make this page as dull

as a sermon, and it would have as little effect. These two are the

chief, and they supplement each other; for he who indulges moderately

in all his pleasures will have the capacity to indulge in many, and

will preserve those features which are the most desirable in

all,――fineness of Quality and persistence of Duration. He will deal

with his faculties as a good government with its subjects,――whose aim

is not to make a few extremely happy, but to provide for all a fair

share of enjoyment, without making any miserable.

The most general sense we possess is that which is called the

“muscular” sense. This it is which yields the pleasurable feeling in

exercise, in athletic sports, in rowing, riding, dancing, and what old

Thomas Fuller called “the descants on the plain air of walking.”

Through it we gain the sensation of buoyancy and elasticity, we “feel

good,” our personality is sharpened, and our appreciation of life and

what it has to offer is heightened. It is the synonym of healthful

activity, and thus becomes the most advantageous preparation for all

species of enjoyment.

By physiologists, this muscular sense is not included in the list of

“special” senses, because it cannot be localized in any one set of

nerves. It is nearest allied to the special sense of Touch, which is

centred in certain “tactile corpuscles,” distributed irregularly

beneath the skin, principally on the finger-tips. They are extremely

useful, but not prominently serviceable in the production of

pleasurable sensations. The stroking of soft and warm substances, such

as velvet and fur, excites agreeable impressions, but they are not

very keen. Irritations to the skin are a source of acute annoyance,

but their removal affords merely a negatively acceptable condition.

When we consider how slightly most sensations of touch excite

subjective states of mind, it is remarkable that in response to one

stimulant they are among the most powerful known in nature. This

stimulus is that of another personality. The most positive feelings of

both aversion and attraction are those excited by physical contact of

the naked flesh. This is why it has been accepted in so many countries

as a sign and proof of amity. The savage Africans touch noses and the

civilized European shakes hands or kisses the hand or the cheek. Such

actions are barren conventionalities, unaccompanied by either pleasure

or pain; but they are indeed unfortunate who cannot recall any moment

of heart’s utmost joy and triumph when “the spirits rushed together at

the touching of the lips.” Such moments are sacred, priceless gifts of

the gods, not to be had for gold nor secured by taking thought, so

their consideration has no place in this book.

In spite of the active business done at the perfumery counters, the

pleasures of the sense of Smell do not seem to come in for a large

share of admiration in the modern world. It was different in the days

of old. They were considered the most delightful of all, even to

Divinity itself. Among the earliest rites of religion was that of

burning aromatic incense to the gods; and in the books of Moses good

works are described as affording “a sweet savor of satisfaction” to

the Almighty. One of the Fathers of the Church speaks of a holy prayer

as “the perfume of a just soul” rising to Heaven; and when a good man

passed away he was said to die “in the odor of sanctity.” Such solemn

authorities should justify the cultivation of the pleasures of this

sense. They could be supported by abundant quotations from those

philosophers, the poets, who have much to say about “the spicy gales

of Araby the blest,” and other such odoriferous associations.

Some odors are as intoxicating as wine, and others cling to the memory

like the impressions of childhood. Yet it is rare for the insane to

have delusions of the olfactory sense; and I have found few persons

who dream of odors. Some writers who claim to be scientific have set

up “a gamut of scents,” and others pretend such a harmonic scale can

be made the basis of a sort of music of perfumes. This is riding

theory beyond sight of practice; but who does not inhale with

conscious joy the balsamic fragrance of the pines, the salt and

stimulating whiffs from old ocean, or the laden redolence from gardens

of roses?

Many writers attribute the pleasure which tobacco gives to its

influence on the sense of smell; but this, I am sure, will not explain

the intense satisfaction which it yields to men in all climes,

consuming it in so many varied ways. I know nothing in physiology more

surprising or more puzzling than the eager demand for this plant,

which sprang up throughout the world after its discovery in America. I

have been a smoker from boyhood, and am just as unable to analyze the

pleasure it gives me as to explain it in others.

That prince of epicures, Brillat-Savarin, spent some time in the

United States, and in his delightful volume on the _Physiology of the

Taste_ has a chapter on “cookery in America,”――which is filled with

nothing but asterisks and interrogation points!

A hundred years have passed since he was among us, and we have

reformed our cuisine indifferently, though not altogether. We have

been too much hampered by fatuous bigots preaching that we should eat

to live, and not live to eat; whereas we should most certainly live to

eat during two or three hours out of every twenty-four; and so doing

we shall be passing them more creditably than do most men, or probably

ourselves, the remainder of the day. The game of “beggar your

neighbor” has advocates enough and fervent disciples, so I shall have

something to say about eating for the fun of it and as a fine art.

All nations of culture have connected a certain solemn joy with the

act of taking food. To “break bread” with one is the expression of the

sweet sentiment of hospitality, and for the lovers to share the same

loaf before the High Priest was the simple and beautiful marriage-rite

among the ancient Romans. The “love feasts” of the early Christians

were the repetitions of the only ceremony which their Founder

prescribed; and science traces to appropriate nutrition the growth of

both physical and mental abilities. The devout Novalis called

meal-times the “flower-seasons of the day,” and claimed that all

spiritual joys can be expressed through the service of the table. Can

there be anything in it unworthy or debasing?

In the light of such declaration should we look on our food-taking,

and not merely as feeding and filling. Were the kitchen more of a

studio in American homes, we should see a higher style of art in the

drawing-rooms. The worst preparation for a day’s work is a poor

breakfast, and its shabbiest reward is a bad dinner. If our daughters

studied more diligently what the Italians call the _melodia_ _del

gusto_, their married lives would be attuned to a more harmonious

accord.

Consider the appointments and symmetry of a well-served dinner in that

high style of art which the French have brought to perfection. The

mere sight of the table awakens our esthetic feelings, disperses the

cares that have infested the day, and softens the asperities which its

rude conflicts have developed. The snowy cloth with its embroidered

centre-piece, bearing a vase of roses or restful green; the gay

triumphs of the potter’s skill, flanked by polished metal and

diaphanous crystal, whose varied forms hint of the manifold gifts of

the grape; the chairs, so disposed as to suggest how we should live

our whole lives――ever near to others, but not jostling them. Then how

rhythmical the progress of the repast! the cold, salt shellfish,

followed by the hot and spicy soup, harmonized by the neutral flavor

of the fish, its creamy sauce relieved by the bare suspicion of the

clean acid of the lemon; and so on through the courses, until the

aromatic coffee and the tiny glass of liqueur, redolent of wild herbs

or of Alpine flowers, remove both thoughts of food and sense of

satiety.

The sequence of such a repast is not a conventionality. Medical men as

well as epicures know that it is based on physiology. Once, with a

friend of like inquiring mind, I ordered a dinner at a restaurant of

renown, exactly reversing the usual sequence, beginning with

Chartreuse, coffee, and ice-cream, ending with soup, oysters, and

hock. The experiment convinced us that the received is the right

sequence, and we made no second attempt to put the wrong end foremost.

Many will cry that such a dinner as I describe is one for the

millionaire and not for the million. They are in error. In France I

have repeatedly partaken of such in families of very humble means.

They are, in fact, economical. At an ordinary American dinner I have

seen seven vegetables and two meats served at once. Half the number

would have set forth a much better repast, if served in the French

manner. Moreover, an elaborate dinner is not desirable daily; but to

have one, say weekly, is as improving as going to the opera, or

listening to a great poet read his own verses.

An essential precept of gastronomic culture is to cultivate a taste

for all customary dishes. Every locality has its own. Snails and

mussels and cockscombs are favorite dishes in Paris, but I have found

few Americans enlightened enough to be willing to like them. A broad

taste adds to one’s own pleasure and that of others. How disappointing

the guest who refuses dish after dish planned with an eye to his

pleasure!

Do not be ashamed of the enjoyments of life which are derived from

judicious eating and drinking. There are no more accurate standards of

a family than its table-manners, table-service, table-talk. Culture is

reflected in them as in a mirror. Care not if the bigots and Pharisees

call you a wine-bibber and a glutton. You will not be the first to

whom they have applied those epithets, and you need not be ashamed of

your company. In the city of Paris, where the art of cookery has its

home and the Prohibition party no adherents, dyspepsia is scarcely

heard of, and the arrests for drunkenness during the entire year of

1890 were――how many, think you?――just thirty-eight!

If I have dwelt with some emphasis on the pleasures of taste, it is

because they are little understood in this country and there is a

prevalent tendency to decry them. Those which are derived from the

sense of Hearing will need no defense. Many of them are matters of

constant and intelligent cultivation. We are said not to be a musical

nation, but certainly both vocal and instrumental artists are not

rare, and those from other countries find among us their most

profitable harvest-fields. The intensity and the value of the

enjoyment derived from music depend on individual peculiarities which

are little modified by cultivation. Of all the exalted pleasures it is

the one least communicable and least connected with other faculties.

One of the finest pianists in the United States is a negro idiot, and

intellectually an appreciative musical audience need not be above him.

But I have been told that I have no right to speak about this art. Six

generations of Quaker ancestors, who would not permit an instrument of

music in the house, have nearly extinguished the musical sense in me.

The music of nature is free to all and intelligible to all. No

instruction is demanded to listen with rapture to the blithesome carol

of the meadow-lark or the cheery notes of the wood-thrush, joyous

denizens of our American fields. The many voices of the wind, now

whispering secrets to the pines, now whistling impudently outside our

windows, now strident and threatening through the bare branches of

winter, bring us messages suited to all moods, and play melodies on

our hearts as though their strings were stretched on an Æolian harp.

On a sensitive mind the power of these sounds of the wind is

altogether peculiar, and appears to be owing to the fact that the

agency which produces them is hidden, veiled, and invisible. I would

liken it to the effect of distant church bells, heard through the

stillness of some Sabbath morn, soft, rhythmical, earnest, inviting us

to sweet societies and unseen shrines.

We appreciate too little the delight we almost unconsciously derive

from the sense of hearing through the power it gives us to have

unrestricted social intercourse in conversation, and to listen to

oratory, instruction, and public entertainments. When we observe how

even slight deafness circumscribes the life and reduces the number of

its sources of enjoyment, we first understand the extent of the

gratifications we owe to the faculty of audition, and how important to

our happiness are its enjoyment and cultivation.

But how vast is the capacity of man for happiness! How many sources of

joy would remain to one deprived of every sense but that of Sight! All

his life would not suffice to explore the boundless fields of

enjoyment which it alone throws open to him. He has but to cast his

eyes around him to revel in the ever-changing garb of earth, in the

sky with its majestic clouds sailing across the measureless blue

depths, in the splendors of sunrise and sunset, in the transient glory

of the rainbow, and in the immortal light of the stars. Stretched on

the strand, he may mark the far-off, many-hued, sparkling brine, or

elsewhere see great mountains lift their summits to eternal snow and

watch them bathed in the rosy glamour of the afterglow, seemingly

suspended in mid-air, when night obscures their base.

The beauties of form, line, color, and proportion are open to him, and

the treasures of joy which the noble arts of painting, sculpture,

architecture, drawing, and engraving have been laboring for thousands

of years to enrich the world with in their fullness belong to him. The

delicate suggestions of light-and-shade and the inexhaustible

fertility of the colorist supply him with storehouses from which he

can fill countless hours of gratification. Those elements in our

nature which respond to the amusing, the pleasing, the picturesque,

and the sublime are almost equally appealed to through the sense of

sight; and were we to devote ourselves to answering their fascinating

invitations, little leisure should we have left for occupation with

any other sense. Nor among these have I enumerated those crowning

delights to many minds, the faculty of acquainting themselves with the

thoughts of others through reading, and giving perhaps equal pleasure

to others by writing, both of which are chiefly conditioned on the

sense of sight.

What I have written is but an outline, a scatter of unfinished

suggestions, of the numerous enjoyments which we can obtain by the

proper cultivation of our senses. Their training, and the rational

development of all their functions, are just as essential to our

higher life as the cultivation of those which are sometimes, though

falsely, called our nobler faculties. There is no aristocracy in the

kingdom of nature, and the lowest of our powers, if appropriately

directed and educated, is as worthy to occupy the throne as any which

in popular repute is deemed the highest.

* * * * *

Sensation is the sense of existence.

* * * * *

There is no “order of excellence” in the faculties of man. One is as

excellent as another. The only difference is in the scope of their

activities. We should give play to all according to their strength.

This is the profound lesson of Walt Whitman’s writings.

* * * * *

Sensation, Emotion, Intellect, all three, enter into every action. We

should conduct our lives as one plays a game of three-handed euchre,

where the two players who are behind constantly enter into

combinations against the one who is ahead.

* * * * *

Quaff pleasure in sips, not gulps; let it fall like the manna in the

wilderness, a sufficiency daily, not a quantity at once.

* * * * *

Healthy mirth has no reaction. Laughter is lightsome.

* * * * *

Good fare, good manners, good company,――these are the three graces

which should preside over the dinner table. Then will the meal

include, in the words of Sydney Smith, “Everything of sensual and

intellectual gratification which a great nation can glory in

producing.”

* * * * *

Table-talk,――the best of talk. Even Kant thought it not beneath him to

give rules for it: first, of the weather and the roads; next, the

current events of the day; then history, art, and philosophy. So did

Marsilius Ficinus: first, of divine things; then anecdotes; finally,

of art and music.

* * * * *

The unthinking are prone to confine the meaning of Pleasure to

Sensation. The coarsest philosophy of life is the most popular,

because it is most easily understood, and because it appeals to the

universal, which are the merely animal, traits of human nature.

IV. _The Pleasures we may Derive from our Emotions._

The emotions are sensations translated into Memory and commented on by

the Imagination, with the usual distortion and falsification of the

original, characteristic of all translators and commentators.

The primary emotions of Hope and Fear are the recollections of

pleasure or pain projected into the future; the disappointment of hope

or the realization of fear brings sorrow, regret, or remorse, feelings

which are concerned with the past alone.

These reflections suggest how much our happiness has to do with Time.

If each could estimate for himself the relative value of the past, the

present, and the future, the pursuit of happiness would be a science

with results as certain as geometry. As it is, most men pass their

days, not in enjoying life, but in getting ready to enjoy it, or in

regretting they did not enjoy it; and those who think they are wiser,

and who boast that they cultivate the present alone, usually sow it

with the seed of thistles and tares to pester their later lives.

The folly of philosophies――and, I may add, religions――has been their

effort to divest man of these natural emotions.

“Expect nothing, and you will not be disappointed,” is the cheerful

advice of the pessimist and the Buddhist; “Fear nothing, for you are

in the hands of God,” says the Christian fatalist. “Regrets are vain,”

cries the opportunist; “live in the present, and let the dead past

bury its dead.”

In practical affairs, the best philosophy is common sense, which is

nothing else than the abstract and epitome of the experience of all

mankind through all time; and this arbiter condemns all three of the

above maxims as the words of folly and not of wisdom. Hope, fear, and

regret are equally necessary to the safe conduct of life with a view

to securing the greatest enjoyment from it, and the only point left to

consider is the relative extent in which each should be indulged.

About this I shall offer a few suggestions.

The skillful architect of his own career will not draw a plan which is

either too broad or too high for his means to construct. His hopes

will be neither too exalted nor too extended. To be as happy as

possible, we must never expect to be extremely happy. Complete

happiness is an ideal condition, and we are never farther from the

ideal than when we think we have it in our grasp. Nor will his plans

be elaborate. The larger the foundation, the more time and money it

takes to build the house. The chief enjoyment in life should be drawn

from a few, easily accessible sources; though this should not lead us

to neglect others that come in our way. One should not refuse a

bequest because he has a profitable business. Few understand the

limits of their own capacity for happiness. They do not know, as the

saying is, when they are well off, and, like a restless inventor,

spoil the machine by constantly seeking to improve it. They should

ponder on an epitaph on a tombstone in a London churchyard:――“I was

well; I would be better; I am here.”

Our hopes should not belong to the class called by physicians

“incompatibles;” that is, when the realization of one will certainly

or probably prevent that of the other. Few errors are more common than

this, and few are productive of greater disappointment. Reasonable

reflection and ordinary self-knowledge will generally suffice to

prevent it. If I set out in life to make a million dollars I cannot

expect also to become a distinguished Sanscrit scholar.

The fruition of our hopes should not be placed in a distant future.

Life is uncertain, but that is the least objection. What is certain

is, that we ourselves shall not be the same next year or next week

that we are to-day. Our tastes and moods will change, and it is quite

likely that we shall care nothing for the fruit of the plants we are

now so diligently cultivating.

This consideration leads up to the last and probably the most useful

of all the suggestions on this subject which I shall offer, that is,

that in planning for the future, it will, as a rule, repay us best to

devote our most earnest and constant attention to the avoidance of

pain or misfortune rather than to the preparation of projects of

pleasure. We know what we are about when we set to work to forestall a

danger or to prevent a disaster; we are by no means so sure as to what

course of action will yield us pleasure. The best laid schemes “gang

aft a-gley.”

Hope and Fear are both deceivers; but we like the company of Hope even

when we know she lies; and dislike that of Fear the more, the closer

we believe she tells the truth. Many temperaments are tortured more by

the dread of misfortune than by misfortune, and are constantly

sacrificing the happiness of the present for fear they may not enjoy

the future. To such as these would apply the pregnant maxim of Lord

Bacon,――“The only thing to be feared is fear.”

When in reason and in due proportion to its object, the emotion is

salutary and protective. To know what to fear, to take precautions and

thus to avoid dangers, are the very conditions of existence. Cowardice

is contemptible, but foolhardiness is senseless.

In modern life the most common forms of fear are worry and anxiety. To

a certain extent these also are wholesome; there may be good ground

for them, and so long as they act as stimulants to healthful activity,

they are not to be shirked; but when they lead to morbid states of

mind and body, they should be met with appropriate remedies.

The first of these is a deliberate and calm study of the situation and

the real causes for fear, if there are any. Spectres lose their

terrors by daylight, and most fears are vastly diminished by

reflection. What if the worst does come? The worst is never as bad as

we imagine it will be. We may also call to mind how useless are many

of our anxieties. Why worry about disasters which we cannot prevent?

Still less should we worry about those which we can prevent.

When reason and thought will not dispel our fears, we must fight the

devil with fire, and conquer one emotion with another. The opponent of

Fear is not so much Hope as Courage. Courage recognizes the danger and

meets it with a serene front. Confidence in one’s powers, the thought

of the prize to be won, the love of glory and reputation, a knowledge

of the means at our disposal, and a faith in fortune are the

considerations which strengthen courage, and if they are marshaled in

battle array and led by Enthusiasm, the fears which hovered over our

path will be routed like flocks of evil-boding birds.

An easier though less noble escape from fear is Apathy. In different

forms it appears as resignation to the will of God, or the inevitable,

indifference to results, and philosophic or religious fatalism. An

Arab proverb says there are two days on which it is needless to fear

death,――the day on which it is decreed we shall not die, and the day

on which it is decreed we shall die; and if death need not be feared,

what else should be? Modern science is inclined to the doctrine that

men’s doings are ruled by absolute necessity, and that free will is a

delusion. For one, I do not accept the doctrine; but he that does

should be released from fear if his logic has any validity.

As the future is clouded with fear and its congeners, so the past is

embittered with regret, if not with its gloomier fellows, the pains of

contrition and the agonies of remorse. Of all mental misery I have

ever witnessed, that of remorse for irreparable injuries done to

others was by far the acutest. No one who intimately sees such a

spectacle but will learn a lesson which will be a warning for a

lifetime. Suicide or insanity is its usual result. But for the lighter

forms of regret, reflection on their uselessness, willingness to make

reparation, intelligent study of the mistakes of the past as lessons

for the future, are remedies which we can always apply with benefit.

The keen regret which we feel at our own blunders and shortcomings

produces almost a distaste for life. But we may recall the homely

business proverb, that he who never makes mistakes never makes

anything; and it is something of a satisfaction to think that we did

not display the full measure of our capacities in a transaction, but

could do it much better had we to do it over again.

The emotions which I have been considering are passive in their

nature, and their presence does not markedly influence our external

lives. This is not the case with the emotion of Anger, the

manifestations of which are primarily external. This is why it is so

extremely detrimental to family and social happiness. A person who is

choleric, of a bad temper, or an irritable disposition, is heavily

handicapped for both the pursuit of happiness and the race for

success. I think I have seen more fine prospects ruined by this than

by any other single trait; and on the ruins promptly sprang up the

weeds of dejection, misanthropy, and moroseness. No other weakness so

frequently poisons the joys of married life as a “tempery”

disposition. Its control is always difficult, never impossible. The

simple precept is, to remain entirely silent and motionless for at

least a minute after every flash of anger or sense of irritability.

Lord Herbert of Cherbury tells of a splenetic friend of his, whose

face would flush almost purple at such moments, but who never broke

his self-imposed silence, and therefore never spoke a word which he

had to regret. A determined intention to control oneself, and steady

practice, will always give such self-mastery.

Anger, when it passes into the chronic form of Hatred, seeks its

satisfaction in Revenge. It is rather surprising to find such a calm

author as Professor Bain including revenge among the essentials of

happiness. In moments of anger the thirst for vengeance is keen, and

its gratification pleasant for the time; but from my own experience

and that of others whom I have asked, the vengeance which finally

appeases long hatred falls far short of affording the gratification we

expected, and is even associated with some dissatisfaction with self.

The game has not been worth the candle. The satisfaction is greater

when our enemy brings ruin on himself through the traits and acts we

abhor in him. We can then indulge in an unselfish joy in the

spectacle, as did the Israelites when the pride of the Pharaohs

was humbled by the consequences of their own arrogance and

stiff-neckedness.

The Imagination belongs to the emotional rather than the intellectual

faculties, as it has small regard for truth and casts on all things

the glamour of that light “which never was on sea or land.” Its

judicious cultivation adds to the higher enjoyments of life by lifting

the events and thoughts of our daily rounds into the mystic realm of

the ideal. It is cultivated by the perusal of works of poetry and

fiction, and by yielding to the sweet influences of music, song, and

the arts of pleasure. In the young it generally needs to be, not so

much curbed, as directed in the right road, and in the old to be

stimulated. The neglect of it so common in middle life is an unwise

preparation for those years which at the best can expect but scant

pleasure in watching the mirage of ideal anticipation.

Under the Esthetic Emotions we may class all those which arise from

the occupation with what is interesting or beautiful in nature or art.

They are perennial fonts of enjoyment to those who will cultivate them

in the right spirit――which is, to study them exclusively for the

pleasure they yield, and without ulterior aim of utility or didactic

purpose. True art acknowledges no allegiance either to utilitarianism

or morality――though it is never useless or immoral. Its right aim is

to excite within us the consciousness of ourselves by stirring our

imagination and feelings into agreeable activity. The emotions which

it inspires in the individual rise in value in proportion as they are

communicable to others, and thereby develop their contrast to the

pleasures of the senses, which are and always remain personal. On the

other hand, they differ from those of the intellect by their aim being

directed to exciting the faculties which are human. Their limits are

defined by these, while the intellect soars far beyond. In the

esthetic arts, Man is everything; all refers to him; in science he is

nothing, or, at most, a drop in the shoreless ocean of the Universe.

What justice can I render within the limit of a few sentences to the

pleasurable emotions excited by the contemplation of Nature? Volumes

have been written about and have not exhausted the catalogue of joys

offered by the solitary walk through forest and mead, surrounded by

that mysterious world in blade and leaf, in bird and insect, in brook

and bower, so tantalizingly open and yet so impenetrably closed to our

vision. We need no laborious learning, and require no Alps, or ocean,

or mighty cataracts, to surcharge our souls with that strange calm and

silent joy which Mother Nature ever has ready to pour into the wounds

of her returned and wounded sons. A stroll at sunset, through the

cow-pasture, by the stream, is all we need, if only our minds are open

to the voices and the pictures spread before us. Need I mention the

pleasures of gardening, or the charms of the training and

companionship of those humbler animals, our pets and favorites, to

whose sincerity and affection we so often turn with relief from

association with our own species?

Nor shall I go at any length into the obvious pleasure afforded by

even a slight acquaintance with painting, sculpture, architecture,

photographic reproductions, engraving, those avocations distinctively

called by some writers the “arts of pleasure.” The very purpose of

their creation was to increase the happiness of life, and those who

are content to live without understanding and to some extent

appreciating what they contribute to human enjoyment, may as well lay

down this book at this point, for its whole purpose is alien to them.

In some quarters there is a prejudice against these arts; in many more

a suspicion that they are frivolous or enervating. Far from it.

Goethe, who beyond any other man of this century studied the

strengthening of his faculties, recommended that each day we should

for at least a few minutes give our minds to the contemplation of some

fine work of art or beautiful natural object, were it but a careful

engraving, the reproduction of some masterpiece, a pot of natural

flowers, or a sunset from our windows. He had found this in his own

experience both strengthening and comforting, and none is so indigent

or so occupied that it is beyond his reach.

In museums and picture galleries, in the theatre and the opera, in

illustrated books and collections of photographs, we have abundant

resources to gratify our desire for observing art; and if we wish to

share the delights of practicing it, there are the numerous “minor

arts,” admirably set forth for self-instruction in excellent

manuals,――free-hand drawing, water-colors, china painting,

embroidery――who can remember all of them?

The finest fruit of the culture of the esthetic emotions, culled from

their sunniest sides and served as “human nature’s daily food,” is

what we call “good taste.” What an admirable faculty! It is the best

of good sense, and walks hand in hand with good manners and good

morals. It prunes away exaggerations and affectations, it erases

superlatives, it modifies antipathies, and lessens prejudices. The

modest home lighted by its fairy lamp shines with a radiance that the

luxury of the vulgar plutocrat can never approach. The damsel whose

simple garb has been hung by its unfaltering hands will please, when

the elaborate toilettes of fashion leave the heart untouched. How much

to be envied is the natural possessor of this charming quality! More

profitable than envying would be the effort to cultivate it, through

the study of the rules of art, the observations of the best models of

harmony, and the willingness to accept the opinions of others on

subjects where they are acknowledged authorities and to search the

reasons on which they are grounded.

The pleasure which we derive from the emotion which is called

“Plot-interest” is peculiar and popular. We see it in the avidity with

which we follow the adventures of imaginary characters in a novel or

drama. It evokes the liveliest sympathy and excitement. Tears follow

laughter in quick succession, and with as little real cause. We yield

ourselves willingly to the situation, and in the fancied sorrows of

the heroine forget our own, which are real.

Akin to those of plot-interest are the Emotions of Pursuit, which

impart such zest to hunting, fishing, and allied sports. We care

little for the quarry; a “paper chase” is almost as exciting as a lion

hunt; but it is the sense of the self-conscious and strenuous exertion

of our faculties which gives us the enjoyment. This explanation may

not be obvious in the case of the enthusiastic angler, who sits by a

dull canal under an umbrella all the afternoon, satisfied with a few

gudgeons; but this enthusiasm makes up for the lack of positive

exertion.

More obscure is the intense and absorbing pleasure which most derive

from the Emotions of Risk, which are excited by games, especially

those of chance, or where skill is so equally balanced that chance

comes in for a large share of the result. This is pre-eminently the

emotion which most men cultivate in their hours of recreation.

Billiards, chess, pool, cards, backgammon, horse-racing, athletic

games, and personal contests, where the opponents are as equally

matched as practicable, make up to most minds the definition of

Enjoyment. The various games of cards offer the most favorable types

of games, as when played fairly and well they have a large and

constant element of chance. They have been in ill odor, as being the

most convenient means for gambling. But to the one who really enjoys

the emotions of risk, the stakes are subordinate. Any one who

appreciates the charms of a rubber of whist, or the agreeable exercise

of a game of billiards, will not want the additional and often

unpleasant addition of a stake, and those who fail to appreciate, or

neglect to cultivate, these emotions as a source of pleasure in life,

deprive themselves of that which would cheer many a sad hour by

innocent and healthful employment.

When I glance back at what I have written, I see I have done little

more than catalogue, and that incompletely, the sources of enjoyment

offered by the Emotions. But if this superficial survey developed such

possibilities, how much of the pure gold of joy awaits the careful

prospector who will follow the veins and sift the sands of the region

thus thrown open to his energies?

* * * * *

There is this peculiarity in both works of art and scenes of natural

beauty, that they impress us most vividly in periods of deepest

dejection or highest elation, and are thus incomparable aids in

restoring mental equilibrium.

* * * * *

The painful, the hideous, and the shocking are legitimate inspirations

of art, as well as the beautiful and agreeable. The latter intimate

the direction we should go, the former the dangers we may have to

encounter and the existence of suffering which calls for our sympathy.

* * * * *

Fear and Folly are the couple whose offspring is Distress.

* * * * *

The emotion that does not incite to action, enfeebles.

* * * * *

Activity does not mean excitement. Healthful action is uniform. The

wheel of most rapid revolution is the most regular in its motion.

* * * * *

Nature soothes because she knows nothing of our conflicts. Like

Spinoza’s God, she loves no one and hates no one.

* * * * *

Not nature, but nature’s infinite analogies, are what quicken the

heart and supply it with endless interpretations of its own

experiences.

* * * * *

The sombre, the desolate, and the vast in nature appeal most strongly

to the educated spirit, because they typify what is measureless, and

therefore mournful, in its aspirations.

V. _The Pleasures we may Derive from the Intellect._

When I speak about billiards and fishing and opera-going as pleasures,

I am sure everybody understands me. But now that I have to refer to

the enjoyment derived from study and thinking and scientific research,

I fear the majority will prepare to stifle their yawns or skip the

chapter.

Yet I have heard of, and even known, men who turned to such

occupations for their highest felicity, and counted such joys above

gold or lust or glory or love,――because enemies might rob them of

these, but never of the treasures of the understanding. The one aim of

their lives was the Search for Truth; and to them all truths seemed

equally great, equally worthy devotion. One spent years in the study

of polyps and fungi, and by them learned to explain the laws which

have developed man and mind; another neglected his profession in order

to investigate the anatomy of a worm, and made a discovery which

restored thousands of his fellow-beings from wretched invalidism to

happy health.

Such exceptional beings are not to be set up as the pole stars for all

mariners over life’s ocean. A man cannot be happy beyond the tastes

and faculties which he has; and it is as absurd to expect all to enjoy

equally the pleasures of the intellect as it would be to look for all

to be pleased with the flavor of the same dish. Every man, however,

who is not idiotic or insane possesses an intellect, and can derive a

great deal of pleasure from its cultivation; and it is always to some

degree in his power to cultivate it in the right manner.

If he only knew the many advantages of these pleasures he would not

fail to give them his attention. Almost alone of enjoyments they leave

behind them no sense of exhaustion, no painful reaction or regrets.

They are as varied as our moods, suited as well to assuage our sadness

as to prolong our cheerful moments. At no period of the year are they

out of season, age does not wither them, nor does “custom stale their

infinite variety.” They are social or solitary as we choose to make

them, and they know no sense of satiety, as with them the appetite

grows by what it feeds on. They flatter our self-complacency by

showing us that we are growing wiser, and they stir within us sympathy

and appreciation for others. They are always at hand, for the

appreciative student carries between the covers of his Shakespeare

more pleasure than the millionaire can stow in his yacht. Finally, and

as the clinching argument in their favor, they are economical, doubly

economical, for they cost little or nothing, and they save us many a

broad piece which we should have had to spend for pleasures gratifying

the senses the same length of time; economical also of our lives, for

the student class are those who have the greatest longevity.

Especially would I urge women to pursue intellectual pleasures rather

than those of the emotions, to which they are now largely confined.

Some of the most promising marriages fail through lack of intellectual

sympathy in the wife. How sad it is to read these words of John Stuart

Mill in his essay on the liberty of women,――“Young men of the greatest

promise generally cease to improve as soon as they marry;” a result

which he attributes directly to the absence of sympathy in their wives

for that which constitutes the highest culture, and often a direct

opposition to it. His opinion is valid everywhere, though it should be

true nowhere. For the sake of her husband and her children, she should

resolutely turn to the cultivation of her mind as one of the firmest

holds on their affections.

One of the simplest forms of intellectual pleasure is that which is

derived from riddles, puzzles, conundrums, and rebuses. Children and

primitive nations are especially captivated by these agreeable

stimulants to their ingenuity. In French country towns they are highly

popular, and many of the cafés have _cercles_ who meet nightly to

solve the enigmas proposed in the weekly papers and forward the

solutions to the editor. Those which are successful receive a small

prize or an honorable mention. The placid bourgeois appear to derive

extraordinary enjoyment from this pastime.

Most people understand “cultivating the intellect” to mean reading.

Sometimes it has this result, but generally it is too desultory,

miscellaneous, and aimless. Were it directed to a more definite

purpose it could be made to yield more profit and more enjoyment. I do

not mean to the purpose of instruction, as probably the reader has

been in haste to suppose, but so as to endow the mind with a wider

range of interests and thus with more sources of pleasure.

Read what interests you and interest yourself in what you read――that

is the best rule. I have a small opinion of lists of the “hundred best

books,” or courses of reading cut and dried for you by large

societies. They may instruct, as do lessons appointed by a master; but

I am speaking of reading for pleasure; and really that is the only

kind worth mentioning. I have always liked reading, but I never could

bear to lay out a course for myself, still less follow any proposed by

another.

My own very satisfactory plan has been like that of the prospector for

minerals. He wanders aimlessly over the mountains till he finds the

sign of ore; then he ceases his roving and traces out the vein with

zeal and patience. You read an article in a magazine; on one point

mentioned you would like further information. Do not pass it by and

forget it, but go to the encyclopedia or the library and follow it up;

it will lead you to two or three volumes, not to be read, but to be

consulted; these will start several allied points of interest; look

them up in the same manner; and before you know it you will be

burrowing for hours among books with the greatest delight.

By adopting this plan you not only pursue the bent of your own

inclination and follow your own fancies, but without knowing it you

are obeying some of the most scholastic rules for reading laid down by

the learned.

One of these is to “distribute the attention;” by which they mean to

learn to pass easily from one subject to another. Do not become so

absorbed in one line that others have no charm for you. This is a

common error with students of specialties. The great Darwin regretted

that toward the close of his life his unremitted attention to science

had destroyed his power of appreciating poetry and the drama. Yet

neither should one hurry from book to book, or from topic to topic.

Each should be pursued up to the point of commencing fatigue; then the

volume should be laid down, and an effort made to recall the main

facts we have read, and arrange them in order in the mind. What looks

like desultory reading will not remain desultory long if pursued in

accordance with these suggestions.

As to what kind of books to read, the brief answer is, all kinds.

Variety is the guiding principle. Do not read in ruts. Some say we

should always have some main theme to which others should be

subordinate. The advice is good for those who have by nature some such

leading interest; only for them it is unnecessary; and for those who

have not, I believe it is useless, for such an interest can rarely be

created by the will. I doubt if one can say off-hand,――“From this out,

my chief interest shall be in the history of Ancient Egypt,” or

something of that kind. Disraeli once remarked that biography has a

greater interest than history, because it is life without theory; and

French writers are better than English, because they have fewer

ridiculous ideas of life. Some such plea could be entered for every

department of literature, and each would be just. Unquestionably, the

tendency at present is to read too exclusively works of the

imagination, novels, romances, dramas, and the like; the pleasure they

yield is ephemeral and is apt to disqualify for that which is more

persistent though less intense, derived from works based on objective

realities.

For one branch of literature I must, however, put in a special claim,

as it has been such a pleasure to me ever since I learned to read, and

that is Poetry. I have heard it sometimes said that this is a taste of

youth, and dies a natural death with advancing years. My own

experience is quite the contrary. The delight we derive from accurate

rhythm, melodious words, fine thoughts, and the depicting of deep

emotions, ought to increase as our experience of the world and wider

learning make us more familiar with them. This has been the result in

my own case and in that of others whom I know or have heard of; for

instance, Sir Henry Holland, writing his biography when about eighty

years of age, lays stress on the enjoyment the study of the poets

continued to afford him; and my mother, at eighty, derived much

pleasure in committing to memory and repeating new poems. There is a

sense of completeness, of perfection, which is given a fine thought by

appropriate expression in rhythmical language, which prose can never

equal, and which, through the potent magic of Form, lifts the mind out

of the material into the ideal world, and grants us a momentary

glimpse of the Infinite.

If we do not recall to mind and think over what we read we lose most

of the pleasure and all the profit of the action. This was what the

English philosopher Hobbes meant when he said,――“If I had read as many

books as some men, I should be as ignorant as they.” To read without

reflecting is like buying grain for food and never grinding it.

Through reflection on the images, incidents, and forms of expression

with which reading has stored the memory, the highest enjoyment from

the process is secured. The mind, like the body, is maintained in a

state of pleasurable activity, not by what it swallows, but by what it

digests and assimilates. Many people, however, are like dear Charles

Lamb, who artlessly confessed,――“I cannot sit and think――books think

for me;” and if they think for all to such good purpose as they did

for him, no one could complain.

In fact, reflection, meditation, though its pleasures have been

chanted by poets and sages for thousands of years, is probably that

form of intellectual activity which is least admired and least desired

of any. It is not the same as “studying out a subject,” or exerting

the creative faculty, as an inventor when he is devising a machine;

but the leisurely calling up from our memory of its various contents.

They may be from reading or from conversation or from our experience

of life. We may present these to ourselves as the pictures of a

gallery or as the scenes of a drama or as a series of connected

events; and we may endeavor to discern what relations they bore to

each other, or speculate on what would have been the results had they

occurred differently, or not at all. We may renew half-forgotten

pleasures, or smile at useless pains, or recall long since vanished

woes. Lessons for our guidance or knowledge of ourselves may

unexpectedly come to us as the results of such self-communing; or we

may cast our eyes to the future, and enjoy in prolonged anticipation

those pleasures which may never come, or, if they come, can last but a

moment. This is the nature of that reflection which, if we learn it

and cultivate it, will enable us to pass many a pleasant hour, when

otherwise we should be cut off from all sources of amusement, as in

some dreary waiting for a train or enforced and lonely vigil.

As solitude is thus relieved by exercise of our minds, society by the

same may have many an added charm. What a fund of rational enjoyment

is offered by reading circles, debating societies, literary coteries,

and associations for the purpose of studying Shakespeare or Browning

or Ibsen, or whatever other literary star may be in the ascendant!

There are some pretentious persons who profess to be above such

gatherings. They can well be dispensed with in them. The tendency to

be guarded against in order to make such schemes prosperous is that of

improving the mind. This should be entirely incidental and secondary.

When one joins a dining club, he expects a dinner which he likes, not

a special diet prescribed by his medical adviser; and so it should be

with literary clubs. Let the improvement take care of itself. It will

do so.

Alongside of reading and reflection we must place writing. Many will

need no explanation why this should be classed among the pleasures of

life; while to others it is always a distasteful drudgery. They escape

it whenever possible, and reduce it to its lowest terms, which means

letter-writing――and in their case always the writing of very middling

letters. A letter, indeed, is a great tell-tale, and tells the more

the less it says. A score of years in editorial work, during which the

competency of numerous writers had to be gauged by some quick

standard, taught me that the letter of transmittal is generally enough

to decide on the merits of the manuscript offered. To him who can

appreciate its revelations there is no more infallible test of general

culture than an ordinary letter.

Correspondence by some is classed among the lost arts. As an art, we

can let it go; but as one of the most agreeable of pleasures, it will

ever remain. Nature, not art, is what gives it its charm. The free

expressions of personal feelings, thoughts, and observations, the

intimacy and confidence which we can never find in books or magazines,

the household words and pet phrases which grow up between

correspondents, the tacit assumptions of common tastes and knowledge,

these are what endow correspondence with its boundless charms for

those who cultivate it.

Some writers have extolled the pleasure to be derived from keeping a

diary. They claim it gives one much delight to turn back to an

accurate record of what he did or heard or saw at a given period of

his past life. They add that it is also a judicious habit for our own

well-being, teaching us what errors we have made, what false opinions

harbored, what aims pursued fruitlessly, and the like. I believe what

these writers say, and commend their advice to those for whom it is

suited. As for myself, I never could follow it. The diaries which I

have occasionally begun, I have usually ended by throwing into the

fire. It seems to me a man must either progress very little, be

supernaturally wise to begin with, or have incredible self-complacency,

to read with satisfaction a diary of his own five years old which

contains anything but the most naked facts. Amiel’s diary is one of the

most attractive published of recent years; but it certainly could have

been no pleasure to his sensitive mind to have renewed its sorrows by

perusing its morbid reflections.

I have left to the last the consideration of the highest of all

intellectual joys,――the Pursuit of Truth. This should be the aim of

every thought, and the sole, conscious occupation of our

understandings. As our senses are satisfied only with pleasure, in

like manner our reason finds no rest until it attains to what is true.

That man is useless on the face of the earth, and wastes his life, who

devotes his time to anything else than the pursuit of happiness or the

search for truth.

They are not antagonistic. They are compatible one with the other;

perhaps they are identical, when both are clearly seen and correctly

understood. That great teacher who rejected the narrow prescriptions

of asceticism, and came eating meat and drinking wine, also taught

that the one comforter, the Paraclete, which should in future ages

complete the happiness of man, is “the Spirit of Truth.”

There need be no discussion as to what Truth is, nor need we, like

jesting Pilate, make the inquiry and “stop not to hear reply.” The

answer is as clear as it is brief. Truth is that which will bear

constant and free examination. Renewed observation, verification,

re-examination, investigation――whatever is true will bear all these

without diminution of its lustre; and any statement which men advance

as true, but are unwilling to submit to these tests, they know is more

or less of a lie.

The highest and clearest truths are to be found in the physical and

natural sciences. The latter especially offer unending pleasant vistas

to those who can interest themselves in them. The passion of

collecting in natural history is a rich source of enjoyment,

inexpensive, always open, exhaustless in extent. Whether it be

minerals, plants, insects, coins, weapons, or what not, their

accumulation occupies vacant hours and they furnish abundant materials

for thought, reading, study, and conversation. The man who has a

cabinet stocked by his own efforts is one who never complains of

ennui. The day for him is never too long.

As for the devotees of Science, there is no need for me to inform them

of the pleasure they derive from its pursuit. They are too well

acquainted with its joys, transcending any which wealth or popular

renown can offer, to care to read their eulogy. But this intense

devotion must be born with one or date from some early association,

and can rarely be acquired in mature years, so that it need not be

dwelt upon here.

* * * * *

“Life according to reason,”――this was Aristotle’s definition of

happiness.

* * * * *

The intellect is cold because it is unsympathetic. We must cultivate

with it the imagination, which by vividly portraying pain, develops

sympathy.

* * * * *

Do you wish to improve your mind? Then read carefully what you do not

understand, and listen dispassionately to what you do not agree with.

* * * * *

Error is more agreeable than truth, because the latter points out our

limitations and the former conceals them.

* * * * *

An error actively advocated is healthier than a truth lazily accepted.

Thought becomes fecund only in action.

* * * * *

A mistake is sooner corrected than a falsehood, because it is nobody’s

interest to maintain it.

* * * * *

Novel-reading is the fashionable narcotic; opium, chloral, and

hasheesh together count fewer victims.

* * * * *

All that is, is a prophecy of what will be; hence, to a philosopher,

the chief interest in things is their symbolical value.

* * * * *

_Vivre caché, c’est vivre heureux._ This was Descartes’ motto. It

should be translated: “To be able to retire with pleasure to your own

thoughts, is to be happy.”

* * * * *

What is the pleasure of being famous? That of being talked of by those

you do not know, who do not know you, and in whom you take no interest.

VI. _The Satisfaction of the Religious Sentiment._

After all, the only standard of value which we need apply to anything

is the amount and quality of Happiness it yields. This alone can

concern Man anywhere and at any time. His religions should be measured

by no other mete-yard. All were created by man, for the happiness of

man; though all claim another, a superhuman, origin, and pretend to

bear the sign-manual of the Divine.

They are right, and what seems a paradox is a sober fact. As much the

productions of human hands and brains as are the robes and paintings

in which they are bedecked, they have something in them which no

externals can represent, and which lifts them above their material

drapery. Human beyond all else that man has devised, for that very

reason they are superhuman.

The strange law of Evolution is, that nothing in nature reaches its

perfection but by becoming something else. The species in attaining

its utmost development is transformed into another species. Man would

not be the noblest product of the earth did he not feel himself too

noble for it; did not the presage and aura of a higher destiny forever

float around his thoughts, making themselves felt at the moments of

the utmost tension of his faculties; as when behind the parapet of

Chillon one rises on extreme tip-toe, and catches a glimpse of the

glittering lake and massive Alps beyond.

The vital principle, the motive power, which has created and

maintained all religions is the Ideal of Humanity. Each age has had

its own, each individual has his own, no two the same. Creeds and

churches do but formulate and endeavor to materialize the average

conceptions of a period or a class; but their labor is vain. Rejecting

the old, putting on the new, the race marches forward to loftier

ideals, the milestones of its progress being the wrecks of temples and

the ruins of churches. Religions rise and fall and disappear; but

Religion grows forever, because it is the inseparable associate, aye,

the very expression, of that mysterious impulse on which man’s future

development depends, and which makes him part and parcel of the

infinite Energy in which he lives and moves and has his being.

Time and Truth will reconcile all religions; but the time will be long

and the truth will be slow to make its way. The schools of dogmatic

doctrine claim to have embalmed in a creed and confined in a code the

whole truth necessary for the happiness of man; not perceiving that

they are like children to whom a magician hands a box in which he

seems to have shut a pigeon; they open it cautiously, to discover that

it is empty, and he points to the bird soaring up to the sky. Only

they take good care not to open the box. Their schools and teachers

resemble those feeble-minded folk who imagine they increase in

knowledge by constantly talking to themselves.

Always boasting of their devotion to truth, they steadily repudiate

it. That alone is true which will bear repeated, free, and unbiased

investigation; but dogmatists cry,――“Never discuss your faith; never

doubt your creed; for he that doubteth is damned.” What progress they

make is not from within, but is forced on them from without by the

free spirit of inquiry; and what they thus unwillingly accept, they

audaciously claim as the product of their own efforts. Everywhere the

spirit of ecclesiasticism is the secret or open foe of strict and

complete veracity; and yet no permanent alleviation of the sufferings

of mankind can come except from veracity. And from this it will come.

No matter what the weather is, this seed is sure to grow.

What unspeakable unhappiness religions have brought on the race!

Altars dripping with the blood of human victims, mothers casting their

babes into the fires of Moloch, teachers crucified by the rabble whom

they sought to instruct, millions perishing between the Crescent and

the Cross, hideous chambers of the Inquisition, Bruno burning alive in

Catholic Rome, and Legate in Protestant London,――a thousand such

historic events would give no notion of the miseries which religions

have inflicted on mankind, and continue to inflict.

Worse than these have been their blighting breath on individual minds,

darkening them with terrors of the supernatural, with racking doubts,

despair, and madness; destroying the natural and beautiful growths of

the affections; frowning on the attractions of the arts of beauty;

crushing the desire of knowledge and the love of investigation; urging

men in the ignoble egotism of self-salvation to sacrifice their own

happiness and that of those nearest and dearest to them. These

influences still exist; they are ever in the spirit of clericalism and

dogmatism, and are restrained from plunging mankind again into the

dark ages only by that higher and real religion which acknowledges

neither form nor creed nor dogma, but only the might and right of

Truth and Love.

I would ask what teachings do religions――and I have those in mind

which are prevalent in civilized countries to-day――impart, which in

any way compensate for the enormous unhappiness and intellectual

degradation thus caused?

Most sects calling themselves Christian will at once reply that the

happiness they promise is not of this world but of the next, and that

he who looks for enjoyment here will forfeit it hereafter. Yet when

the evidence for this daring statement is asked for, not an iota can

be offered on which there is unanimous concurrence among the sects

themselves.

What they do offer, and what gives them their real control over men’s

minds, may be summed up as follows: A belief in the Divine government

of the world and the paternal care of God over each believer in Him;

greater cheerfulness in the acceptance of the misfortunes of life as

the wise and ultimately beneficent decisions of His will; an

expectation of a life after death; the hope that sins will be

forgiven; and the improvement in morals which follows these

convictions.

These are undoubtedly valuable aids to human happiness. The question

is, what part of them belong to Religion and what to religions; in

other words, will not the religious sentiment itself, freed from the

shackles of dogmatic belief, yield to man all the happiness offered by

sectarian doctrines, relieved of the misery to which they condemn him?

When I think of the mental agony caused in millions of lives by the

pictures of hell, of eternal damnation, of the last judgment, and of a

cruel and merciless God, which most Christian teachers hold before

their congregations, I long for the time predicted by that apostle of

the new life, Giordano Bruno,――“When the gods shall lie in Orcus, and

the dread of everlasting punishment shall vanish from the world.”

Reason has no conflict with religion. Science is based on the

assumption that the order of the Universe is one of intelligence, and

of an intelligence identical with ours. All force is directed by

reasoning energy, which means that it is purposive. Why seek further?

Call it Energy or Force or God, the thought is the same.

Whether that share which we possess in the energy of the All remains

in personality after physical death, what dogma can prove? what

science deny? Enough that in the beautiful words of the burial service

of the Protestant Episcopal Church, we are justified in retaining “a

reasonable and holy hope” that the victory of the grave is not

eternal. Should it be so, what is the dread of it but a delusion of

the imagination, which pictures non-existence as felt in

non-existence?

The sense of sin, the story of the fall and its expiation by a divine

sacrifice; is it not strange that no one word that this was His

mission escaped the lips of Him who is said to have been the willing

victim? The notion of sin as taught in dogmatic belief has no

existence in the unwarped mind nor in scientific psychology. Men are

involved in a chain of cause and effect from which they have little

chance of escape; and even human justice revolts at administering

punishment for involuntary acts. _Tout comprendre, c’est tout

pardonner_; that infinite Mind, which sees before and after, asks the

blood of no victim to understand and to pardon the blind gropings of

the wretched children of men.

What abuse has been made of the doctrine of Faith! Its upas-shade has

harbored the grossest growths of superstition. Faith is either

laziness or cowardice. We accept the opinions of others to save

ourselves the trouble of forming our own, or to escape the pains of

doubt. But doubt is painful only to him who accepts on authority, not

to him who honestly seeks, truth through the efforts of his own

powers.

But piety, morality, how can these be secured without dogmatic

religions? This is the answer so often hurled as final in their

defense. The history of sectarianism shows anything but a clean bill

of morality, as I have already hinted; if there is any one

corner-stone to the edifice of ethics, it is the honest pursuit of

verifiable truth, and that no dogmatic religion dares to advocate.

History shows that every great reformer of the morals of his day has

been called a schismatic by the Churches.

The arch error is, however, not in these directions, but in the

universal assumption that the moral life, that piety, is the chief end

of man and an object in itself. Nothing of the kind. The moral law

neither exhausts nor completes the nature of man. It is but one strand

in the many-fibred thread of his existence; and to suspend his whole

life and destiny from this will always, as it always has in the past,

lead to the fall and the destruction of his noblest aspirations.

Piety, a devout morality, the culture of the religious sentiment,

these are only some and far from all of the means and steps to the

highest culture of the individual life.

They are not individual in the sense that their culture can be

successfully conducted in solitude or by mystical meditation. True

religion never isolates, but unites. Not the happiness of himself in

another world, but the happiness of others in this, is the aim of the

true believer. From theirs, he derives his own. The “Communion of

Saints,” the “Congregation of the Righteous,” the “Society of

Friends,”――these are the expressions which indicate the direction of

the religious sentiment in unimpeded activity. In such “solemn troops

and sweet societies,” it yields that joy to man which his nature is

capable of receiving only in its highest moments of exaltation, and

which it would be sad to think he could ever be deprived of.

But this we need not fear. A religion that is not afraid of free

investigation, but courts it; one that dismisses the supernatural

because it recognizes that no law can be higher than that of nature;

whose maxim is the utmost veracity in thought and action at all costs;

whose aim is to produce as much visible happiness and to prevent as

much misery as possible; which binds men together through united

sympathies for these aims; which constantly prompts to healthful and

fruitful activity; which is truly an inspiration, and sanctifies by

its presence the equally true inspirations of the highest art and the

purest science; and whose clearly recognized purpose is to promote the

ideal perfection of humanity as represented in the individual

man;――this is the Religion of the Future, and one that the future will

not allow to perish.

* * * * *

The aim of science is the Real; of art, the Ideal; of action,

Happiness. It is for religion to unite this trinity into a unity in

each individual life.

* * * * *

Man’s highest efforts in art or thought or life are in themselves

religious, because they represent elements in the better future life

of the race. This is what Michael Angelo meant when he said, “Who

strives after perfection in Art, strives after something Divine.”

* * * * *

The divine is not the superhuman, but the ideally human. The infinite

must become incarnate to be intelligible. It is so in all great

religious acts and works.

* * * * *

The ideally true is the potentially true.

* * * * *

Physical science is opposed to both religion and metaphysics, and yet

is forever attracted toward them; because, struggle as it may, in them

alone can it find its own completion.

* * * * *

The religious sect that condemns reason, condemns itself; and the

latter sentence is the only one which will be executed.

* * * * *

The poetry of science will be the inspiration of the religion of the

future.

* * * * *

Were there a religion other than human, it could not appeal to

humanity.

* * * * *

The human cannot get along without the divine in some form. The least

religious men, such as gamblers, are the most superstitious. As

Novalis says, “Where the gods are not, ghosts take their place.”

* * * * *

The aim of classic religions was the salvation of the State; of

Christianity, the salvation of certain individuals, the Elect; of the

religion of the future, the salvation of the whole race of man.

* * * * *

A religious doctrine should compel belief, like a theorem in geometry.

Most doctrines are accepted because their believers know too much to

disturb their tranquillity by examining them, or too little to

comprehend them.

* * * * *

As in dreams the impressions of childhood continue to recur, so in

modern religions conceptions belonging to the childhood of the race

are still urged upon us.

* * * * *

The dogmatists prefer to frame rules, rather than give reasons;

because the latter will be judged on their merits, while the former

are accepted on authority.

* * * * *

Half-true is harder to refute than wholly false. The defenders shield

themselves behind the part that is true. Not the mud at the bottom,

but the stain in the water, clouds the stream. This is why numerous

sects continue to survive, perpetuating many errors by means of a few

truths.

* * * * *

There is something comical in a man making a business of religion,

levying a charge on this world for his services to the next. The

Quakers must have had a vein of humor in their opposition to all sorts

of paid priests.

* * * * *

The priests of the Church of the Future will be the spiritual leaders

of their generation, those educators, poets, scientists, physicians,

journalists, and others, who practice their avocations with a view to

the interests of others as well as their own.

* * * * *

Eating your dinner is as sacred as saying your prayers, and making

your living is as noble as dying for your faith.

* * * * *

I heard Walt Whitman once say that life without immortality would be

like a railroad train made up entirely of engines. The forces of

individuality seemed to him too mighty, to conceive as possible their

limitation to this world.

* * * * *

The spirit of Christ’s teachings is too democratic to be in hearty

sympathy with either science, philosophy, art, or the pursuit of

pleasure.

* * * * *

Piety is sometimes merely the last passion; sometimes merely the last

fashion.

* * * * *

The devout are the disappointed.

* * * * *

Prayer refreshes and relieves the mind by strengthening the

confidence, by diverting the thoughts, and by admonishing the soul of

higher themes. The Jew prays to Jehovah, most Christians to the Virgin

or the Saints, the Buddhist to himself; all are consoled and

benefitted; equally so is he who meditates on the laws, the life, the

love, and the power, manifested in the universe of matter and mind

around him.

VII. _The Cultivation of Our Individuality._

When you tell a person that he resembles so-and-so, he is always

surprised. He does not see the slightest similarity. Were he to meet

his double in the street, he would pass him without recognition. It

would be the same with his mental counterpart; in fact, most men are

so slightly acquainted with themselves, and are so lost in the crowd,

that they no longer know the way home. They are merely composite

photographs of the people they have met. Unconscious actors, they

speak the words and imitate the feelings of those around them until

they lose the cue of their own proper parts.

This deplorable lack of Individuality is the fruitful cause of many a

failure and much unhappiness. It arises from a lack of self-knowledge,

self-confidence, and self-respect, and is constantly leading men

astray in their plans of life.

The complaint is often made that men deceive each other; but they

deceive themselves far more. They imagine they have talents which they

do not possess, and overlook those which are their own; they attempt

what is beyond their powers, and allow those they have to rust through

want of use. They believe that is their own which they have but

borrowed, and go forth to till imaginary fields, leaving their own

garden-plots lie fallow.

How much better to live one’s own life, to be oneself, to cultivate

what abilities we have rather than to waste time on those we have not,

to learn the limits of our own capacities and insure success by

working within them! The advice of the sages of all times has been to

swear by the words of no teacher, to call no man Master, to think our

own thoughts, to be true to ourselves, to make our own felicity, and

not to run about the world trying to share that of others by aping

their sentiments and actions.

The greatest teachers have not desired disciples, but friends. They

have never exerted authority, and where they could not persuade or

convince, they have sought no proselytes. To them the independance of

the individual mind has been of more importance than the dissemination

of any article of faith or element of instruction. Spinoza, Herder,

Wilhelm von Humboldt, our own Emerson, have all in spirit joined with

Goethe in singing that the secret of the highest happiness of man

rests in the preservation of his own free personality:――

Höchstes Glück der Erdenkinder

Sei nur die Persönlichkeit.

Peer in this august company, deeper than any in his devotion, speaking

at every hazard, I name my late friend, Walt Whitman, the “singer of

one’s self,” “chanter of Personality,” “self-balanced for all

contingencies,” holding creeds and schools in abeyance, ceasing not

till death.

The man of independent mind and strong personality is never trivial or

vulgar, no matter what his education or social position. The artist

who plays solo commands our attention. The plant which is indigenous

is alone strong and hardy; exotics are starvelings. Individuality is

contagious, and it is bracing and stimulating to meet such a

character. His presence is a benefit to a whole company, and a company

of such is worth a regiment of nonentities. The richest agricultural

community I ever saw was in France, where every peasant cultivated his

own little field; and the poorest was in our own country, where every

man was trying to feed his cattle on somebody else’s range.

The latter theory, however, is that which is popular to-day. Dreamers

are constantly devising schemes by which the idle and incompetent may

live off the proceeds of the diligent; labor unions deprive their

members of the liberty of speech and the liberty of work; socialism

would reduce all to a common level; syndicates and trusts break down

individual enterprise; sectarian colleges limit their calls to

professors who will echo their tenets; and thus in all directions the

free growth of the individual is hemmed in by the hedges of prejudice,

tradition, creed, and false theory.

Many people scarcely know what Individuality is. They think it means

to wear a straw hat in winter, or in some other way to make oneself

conspicuous. This is precisely what it does not mean. The man who is

himself is always simple and natural; he buys his hat at the hatter’s

and allows the tailor to make his clothes. To act otherwise is

affectation and singularity, not individuality. Simplicity is a

charming characteristic of the strongest minds. It is recorded of Sir

Isaac Newton that he was not distinguished from other men by any

peculiarity, either natural or affected; upon which Dr. Johnson makes

the excellent remark,――“Newton stood alone merely because he had left

the rest of mankind behind him, not because he deviated from the

beaten path.” Those who met Robert Browning for the first time were

agreeably surprised to find the great poet was in ordinary society

simply a gentleman. All forms of affectation are confessions that we

are not what we pretend to be, and are inconsistent with true

individuality.

Nor is it obstinacy and self-assertiveness, as others suppose. The man

who aims to be himself will wish others to remain themselves, and will

be the last to obtrude his personality in a disagreeable way upon

them. Obedience, voluntary subjection to the will of others, is part

of his self-training. He who cannot obey, cannot command. Nor is he

one who lives for himself, is solitary or selfish. The characters who

in history shine with the most marked individuality have been those

who moved most actively among their fellow men.

True individuality is that confidence in self which arises from a

knowledge of one’s own powers, their extent and their limitations.

This knowledge can be obtained only by experience, by testing the

powers, and by gauging their strength in the contest of life.

From how many vexations does a correct estimate of our capacities free

us? Envy, disappointed ambition, premature exhaustion, disgust of the

world, these arise from inadequate notions of our own abilities. On

the other hand, that life has always a large share of happiness which

is spent in the prosecution of some object to which our faculties are

equal, and which therefore we prosecute with success.

In judging of our own powers we are just as likely to under- as to

over-estimate them, and the results are equally painful.

How acute are the sufferings of a diffident, shy, self-distrustful,

over-sensitive disposition! Such a temperament is a sad make-weight in

the struggle of life. More men fail through ignorance of their

strength than through knowledge of their weakness. They are like a

farmer, who gathers scanty harvests all his life from fields covering

rich deposits of ore, which, did he but work them, would enrich him.

The fear of falling often hinders from climbing.

Let such remember that few score success, but after failures. Few

experiences are indeed more painful than to devote ourselves earnestly

to an undertaking and discover that it is beyond our powers; but the

failure teaches us the extent of our strength and increases it for the

next effort. We can never learn our own abilities but by trying for

what is beyond them; like the athlete, who lifts heavier and heavier

weights until he reaches those which he cannot move. Practice and

persistence are strong cards. “Time and I,” said Philip II, “against

any other two.”

Much of our sensitiveness, did we but know it, springs from concealed

vanity. We covertly fear that if we display our powers it will give

others the opportunity to take their measure; and this we mistrust

will not prove favorable to us. But there is a consolation in view. We

may call to mind that as the best of authors do not escape censure, so

the poorest do not lack admirers.

The over-estimation of one’s faculties leads to vanity and

self-conceit, traits not generally painful to the individual, and not

so injurious as excessive diffidence. It does a youth no harm to

believe that he was born to perform great deeds. It is easier to cut

back rank shoots than to fertilize sterile roots. He who is confident

that he can leap beyond the mark, will be pretty certain to reach it.

Attrition with the world usually reduces vanity to its proper limits.

Disappointed ambition is bitter, but some bitters are excellent

tonics.

That individuality is genuine which is confidence in self, based on

knowledge of self.

Nowhere does it show its worth more than when it comes into contact

with Opinion――that Queen of the World, as it has been called. How many

are its abject slaves, ordering their lives and measuring their

tastes, not by what they think right or desirable, but by what society

and the world around them dictate. Pitiable creatures! the only solid

ground of happiness is not what others think of you, but what you

think of yourself; not what they believe you to be, but what you know

you are.

On most subjects a sensible man will be extremely tolerant. He has

differed too often from himself in the course of his life to be

positive with others. He also knows that opinions may differ, yet not

be contradictory. Most questions have not only two sides, but many

sides; they are polygonal, and, like a table of that shape, can

accommodate many without elbowing. The value of anybody’s opinion on

any subject is much less than is popularly supposed. The fact, and not

the opinion based on it, is alone of supreme importance. For that

reason, what are called “fixed principles” and “settled convictions”

are signs of mental debility or indolence. I think it is Ruskin who

says that he would be ashamed of himself if he entertained the same

opinions on any subject which he did twenty years ago. It would be a

sign of ossification of the intelligence.

The characteristic of true individuality is a readiness to adopt the

views of others on proper evidence, and not obstinacy, as many think.

A certain flexibility of opinion strengthens personality; as the free

swaying to and fro of the branches of a tree toughens the fibres of

its trunk.

Obstinate asseveration is usually a sign of ignorance or falsehood.

The man who swears he is telling you the truth is generally lying.

When you see men in violent discussion about subjects of which they

cannot know much, such as religion or politics, take a seat and laugh.

They are the fools in the Comedy of Life, and the spectacle is

humorous.

It is proverbial that argument never convinces, but leaves each side

more strongly confirmed in its opinions. Not thus do the shrewd makers

of converts go about their work. They well know that the timely hint,

the insidious suggestion, the light touch, leaves the permanent

impression; like the brands of animals, which to be lasting must

scorch only the superficial layers of the skin, and if burnt deeper,

are obliterated by the healing of the wound.

That form of opinion which is called Advice has much to do with our

felicity. If a man fails, the usual explanation is that he refused to

take advice. Advice which is the expression of the general results of

human action――such as is supplied in such abundance in this volume――is

worthy of consideration; but that which is offered to meet particular

cases is generally worth about what it costs to give,――nothing. Advice

is never as wise as it seems. Usually it is claimed to be the fruit of

experience; but we may know the world ever so well to-day, and

to-morrow our knowledge will be out of date. Good advice usually loses

good opportunity. Even if by rejecting it we fail, the loss may not be

real. Sometimes the money we lose turns out to be that which was best

invested.

One of the choicest fruits of the culture of individuality is Decision

of Character. Nothing more constantly contributes to the happiness of

life. This has been so well shown by John Foster in his essay on the

subject that I shall do better by the reader to persuade him to peruse

it, than to enlarge on the subject here. The state of indecision,

vacillation, and uncertainty, in which many persons pass a good share

of their waking hours, is reason enough for the unhappiness of which

they complain. The habit of decision can be readily acquired by making

it a rule to decide promptly on small matters, and not allowing them

again to occupy the attention.

I do not esteem highly the spirit of that Arab proverb which

says,――“What you wish to conceal from your enemy, tell not to your

friend;” but there is a certain reserve which every person of strong

character instinctively observes toward even his intimates. It is not

secretiveness, and still less taciturnity or dissimulation. Rather it

is the sense of the sacredness of personality, and is the nucleus of

that lofty sense of Self-reverence, which is the worthiest feeling one

can entertain toward himself. There are certain recesses of the soul,

certain feelings, which belong imperiously to the Ego, such as are so

powerfully limned in Charlotte Bronte’s poem beginning,――

“When thou sleepest lulled in night,

Art thou lost in vacancy?”

which cannot be disclosed to others, though they may be divined by

them.

Such reticence in no wise interferes with Sincerity of character. This

is beyond all else the trait of the person of marked individuality. He

alone can be sincere; not that other, who borrows his opinions from

those around him, and is a mere dealer in other men’s goods, and hence

has none of his own to offer as security for what he says.

The casuists love to argue that veracity is a relative quality; that

half a lie often conveys a more correct impression than the whole

truth; that to show the seamy as well as the shiny side of great

characters is an injury to the community; that courtesy obliges us to

chicane with facts; that limping morality itself is much assisted by

the friendly hand of mendacity. These questions may be left to the

conscience of each to work out for himself; but about one kind of

veracity there should be no quibbling, and that is, veracity to

oneself. Deceive others if you will; but never try to persuade

yourself that you are what you are not, or have what you have not. How

can you expect to succeed in making yourself happy, if you studiously

attempt to remain ignorant of the nature, capacities, and qualities

which you aim to please?

Finally, the foundation of Individuality must be broad, if the edifice

is to be solid. One must constantly have in view the symmetrical

development of all the powers and faculties. He must seek

many-sidedness in his knowledge and in his sympathies. All the

facettes of his nature must be polished through use. Narrow views,

petty interests, routine, paucity of affections, these must be avoided

would he so develop his nature as to derive from it the utmost

enjoyment in life.

* * * * *

The mission of the species is the perfecting of the individual.

* * * * *

For all our power in the present, we are indebted to the past; for

future power――or weakness,――we shall owe the present.

* * * * *

The man of strong personality is not apt to perceive how much he

differs from others, because he is quick to recognize the personality

in them. This trait always impressed me in Walt Whitman. He seemed to

take for granted that everybody had as much personality as himself.

They had,――to him.

* * * * *

To Walt Whitman, Self was sacred,――and little else. He was intoxicated

with individuality.

* * * * *

Distrust the current estimates of great men. They alone are not tried

by their peers.

* * * * *

If you climb a height, you will be easier seen, but will look smaller.

* * * * *

It is difficult to say which is the weaker: He who cultivates

self-admiration, or he whose chief aim is to elicit the admiration of

others. When Cromwell entered London as Lord Protector, a flatterer

called his attention to the crowds assembled to welcome him. “They

would come just the same to see me hanged,” was his reply.

* * * * *

Self-complacency is a successful counterfeit of happiness. Were it the

genuine article, then the madman who believes himself Deity is the

happiest of mortals. But if he is cured?

* * * * *

Singularity is not an effort to be oneself, but to be what others are

not.

* * * * *

Some people cannot be blamed for affectation, for they have nothing of

their own to show.

* * * * *

Some men, by pretending to be other than what they believe they are,

show themselves in their true character.

* * * * *

Common minds like commonplaces. When the audience applauds, you have

probably said nothing worth hearing.

* * * * *

It requires more courage to differ from public opinion in matters of

thought than in action.

* * * * *

A man is apt to attribute his failure to having accepted advice; his

friends, to his having rejected it.

* * * * *

Those listen most respectfully to advice who have resolved not to take

it.

* * * * *

We are apt to discover the best reasons for our actions after

committing them.

* * * * *

Most men do not base their opinions on reasoning; but their reasoning

on their opinions.

* * * * *

Never revolt against the laws you make for yourself.

* * * * *

Our worst disappointments are when we disappoint ourselves. This is

the feeling of Chagrin, the painful, inward acknowledgment that we

“have made fools of ourselves.” Few reflections are more bitter, or

less easily escaped.

* * * * *

Our wisest warnings are often most applicable to ourselves. Steele,

deviled by duns, wrote of the disgrace of contracting debts which one

cannot pay; and Bacon scribbled wise saws about domestic economy at

one end of the room, while his steward was robbing him at the other.

* * * * *

Individuality is anarchic and subversive; it accepts no institution

because it is old and reverend; it brings a jewel which fits into no

ready-made setting; it cries with Walt Whitman:――

My call is the call of battle; I nourish active rebellion,

He going with me must go well-armed.

* * * * *

Individuality is the antithesis of egotism. He who is most himself

best appreciates and most respects the self of others.

* * * * *

Self-distrust is nowhere more appropriate than in discussing difficult

questions, and nowhere less displayed.

* * * * *

That we have not the ability to do, rather than that we have not the

opportunity to enjoy, is the source of most of our unhappiness.

* * * * *

The misanthropy of the young is dissatisfaction with self; that of the

old is detestation of others. Youth hopes to find life a romance,

himself as its hero; age would like it a history which posterity would

prize. When disappointed, youth is despairing; age is resentful.