end of harmony, of truth, of beauty,
of affection, of simplicity.
Multitudes of men have made fortunes, but have murdered their capacity
for enjoyment in the process. How often we hear the remark, "He has
the money, but can not enjoy it."
A man can have no greater delusion than that he can spend the best
years of his life coining all of his energies into dollars, neglecting
his home, sacrificing friendships, self-improvement, and everything
else that is really worth while, for money, and yet find happiness at
the end!
The happiness habit is just as necessary to our best welfare as the
work habit, or the honesty or square-dealing habit.
No one can do his best, his highest thing, who is not perfectly normal,
and happiness is a fundamental necessity of our being. It is an
indication of health, of sanity, of harmony. The opposite is a symptom
of disease, of abnormality.
There are plenty of evidences in the human economy that we were
intended for happiness, that it is our normal condition; that
suffering, unhappiness, discontent, are absolutely foreign and abnormal
to our natures.
There is no doubt that our life was intended to be one grand, sweet
song. We are built upon the plan of harmony, and every form of discord
is abnormal.
There is something wrong when any human being in this world, tuned to
infinite harmonies and beauties that are unspeakable, is unhappy and
discontented.
CHAPTER LI
PUT BEAUTY INTO YOUR LIFE
When the barbarians overran Greece, desecrated her temples, and
destroyed her beautiful works of art, even their savageness was
somewhat tamed by the sense of beauty which prevailed everywhere. They
broke her beautiful statues, it is true; but the spirit of beauty
refused to die, and it transformed the savage heart and awakened even
in the barbarian a new power. From the apparent death of Grecian art
Roman art was born. "Cyclops forging iron for Vulcan could not stand
against Pericles forging thought for Greece." The barbarian's club
which destroyed the Grecian statues was no match for the chisel of
Phidias and Praxiteles.
"What is the best education?" some one asked Plato many centuries ago.
"It is," he replied, "that which gives to the body and to the soul all
the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable."
The life that would be complete; that would be sweet and sane, as well
as strong, must be ornamented, softened, and enriched by a love of the
beautif
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