being not bad. Being not bad is a glittering
generality. It is like being not extravagant or economical.

Most people who have ever tried to attain in a respectable degree to a
pale little neuter virtue like economy, and who have reflected upon
their experiences, have come to conclusions that may not be very far
from the point in a fine art like getting one's self to be good or
getting other people to be good.

To concentrate on being economical by going grimly down the street,
looking at the shop windows, looking hard at miles of things one will
not buy, cannot be said to be a practicable method of attaining economy.

The real artist, in getting himself to be good, proceeds to upon the
opposite principle. Even if the good thing he tries for is merely a
negative good thing like economy, he instinctively seeks out some
positive way of getting it.

A man who is cultivating the art of getting himself to be economical, or
of getting his wife to be economical, does not make a start by sitting
down with a pencil and making out a list, by concentrating his mind on
rows of things that he and his family must get along without. He knows a
better way. He goes downtown with his entire family, takes them into a
big shop and sits down with them and listens to a Steinway Grand he
cannot get. As he listens to it long enough, he thinks he will get it.

Then a subtle, spiritual change passes over him and over his family
while they listen. He would not have said before he started that sitting
down and thinking of things he could get along without--making lists in
his mind of things that he must not have--could ever be in this world a
happy, even an almost thrilling experience. But as a matter of fact, as
he sits by the piano and listens, he finds himself counting off
economies like strings of pearls, and he greets each new self-sacrifice
he can think of with a cheer. While the Steinway Grand fills the room
with melody all around him, there he actually is sitting, and having the
time of his life dreaming of the things he can get along without!

When he goes home, he goes home thinking. And the family all go home
thinking.

Then economy sets in. The reason most people make a failure of their
economy is that they are not artistic with it, they do not enjoy it.
They do not pick out anything to enjoy their economy with.

With some people an automobile would work better than a Steinway Grand
and there are as many ways, of course, of pr