A Jolly by Josh | Page 4

has sometimes let his affairs be managed on this plan,
but that need not enter into this case; for you and I are both of us
intelligent beings, observers after a fashion, and we intend to plan
things out a bit and see what we can do with them, and perhaps see
what stuff this luck that people talk about is made of.
Let us see where we now stand. We have found that it is the attitude
toward your income, and the scale of living your income permits, that
must be regulated; that your desires, if all were granted, will soon grow
to a point far out of reach of your purse, no matter how rich you get;
and, therefore, that the intellectual problem is before us of picking out a
scale of living somewhere well within your present income and
endeavoring to attain an attitude of mind toward living on that scale
which will make you happy rather than discontented.
I know that you are thinking that I have forgotten the personal equation,
that I am arguing as if all people were of the same temperament,
forgetting that under given conditions one person would be happy and
another would not, and that you, with your varied interests and
contented disposition, would always find things to make you happy,
even if you had to give up many of the luxuries which you now enjoy.
This is true, but you must please note that I have not intimated that you
couldn't; and, in fact, the point of what I say rests on the assumption
that you could. Moreover, in regard to other people, you will notice that
this letter is not addressed to them; and, if any of them should happen
to see it, they can put on the garment if it fits, or they can leave it
alone,--it is all one to me.
But how can we bring this about? how tell what things you have been
used to keep and what to give up? how keen a desire it is well to quell,

and which ones? To reach this point, it is necessary to digress again in
order to find the element of the magic touchstone which will tell us
whether the thing we are looking at is made of gold or some baser
metal.
You must first have a look at our objective points, and try to analyze
these a little bit. Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. These are
somewhat intermingled, as we consider liberty an essence of happiness.
We also want health, and all that conduces thereto, particularly
cleanliness and exercise. We want a fair amount of amusement and a
good amount of work. We want the sense of being useful and the sense
of being respected. This people will accord us if we are striving to
accomplish some of the innumerable things which people want to have
done. There is, of course, a higher field for man's energy,--that of
striving for things which mankind ought to want for and doesn't; the
position of the martyr or reformer, who works for the welfare of the
people and receives ill-treatment for it, like Christ. But, while we all of
us hope we would not be found wanting, were the demand made, we
cannot help joining with Kipling in the wish "which I 'ope it won't
'appen to me."
Accordingly, while I am not blind to disagreeable but necessary
possibilities, you will see that, if I digress to satisfy each one of them, I
shall never reach the point, which no doubt in your mind by this time is
the end; and so you must not pick flaws if I make statements which
cover the probable, but not all the possible, contingencies.
We have found, then, that we want employment which will somehow
add to the welfare of the human race; and is not this well worth doing?
If you make something of that nature your object, and keep it fully
before your mind, how much better off you will be than if you have
continually in mind your own amusement, your own comfort! If you
have your amusement as your life object, you will soon become a bored
man, whom nothing will amuse. If you have comfort, you will be the
discontented man who is never comfortable; for you soon fix in your
mind the ideal combination of temperature, garment, palate, belly, and
entertainment, and, seldom being able to get them all at once, you will

seldom quite reach your ideal.
You might remark that I have made the statement that employment in
something useful is the element of happiness; but I have not proved it
by reasoning, nor have I led up to it by any line of argument. Let it rest
at that. I shall let