of no small degree of art is required.
Like poetry and painting, the art of living comes chiefly by nature; but
all can cultivate and develop it. It can be fostered by parents and
teachers, and perfected by self-culture. Without intelligence, it cannot
exist.

Happiness is not, like a large and beautiful gem, so uncommon and rare,
that all search for it is vain, all efforts to obtain it hopeless; but
it consists of a series of smaller and commoner gems, grouped and set
together, forming a pleasing and graceful whole. Happiness consists in
the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of
life, which, in the eager search for some great and exciting joy, we are
apt to overlook. It finds delight in the performance of common duties,
faithfully and honourably fulfilled.

The art of living is abundantly exemplified in actual life. Take two men
of equal means,--one of whom knows the art of living, and the other not.
The one has the seeing-eye and the intelligent mind. Nature is ever new
to him, and full of beauty. He can live in the present, rehearse the
past, or anticipate the glory of the future. With him, life has a deep
meaning, and requires the performance of duties which are satisfactory
to his conscience, and are therefore pleasurable. He improves himself,
acts upon his age, helps to elevate the depressed classes, and is active
in every good work. His hand is never tired, his mind is never weary. He
goes through life joyfully, helping others to its enjoyment.
Intelligence, ever expanding, gives him every day fresh insight into men
and things. He lays down his life full of honour and blessing, and his
greatest monument is the good deeds he has done, and the beneficent
example he has set before his fellow-creatures.

The other has comparatively little pleasure in life. He has scarcely
reached manhood, ere he has exhausted its enjoyments. Money has done
everything that it could for him. Yet he feels life to be vacant and
cheerless. Travelling does him no good; for, for him history has no
meaning. He is only alive to the impositions of innkeepers and couriers,
and the disagreeableness of travelling for days amidst great mountains,
among peasants and sheep, cramped up in a carriage. Picture galleries he
feels to be a bore, and he looks into them because other people do.
These "pleasures" soon tire him, and he becomes _blase_. When he grows
old, and has run the round of fashionable dissipations, and there