Gwen was thoughtful for a moment. "I think many persons do deliberately choose unpleasant things for the sake of those they love. Isn't that what the joy of sacrifice means?"
"I suppose so. Perhaps I might do it for such a reason. I could, I know, but not when there seems no necessity for it."
"Aren't you ambitious enough to do it for your own sake?"
"That depends upon what you call ambition. I'd rather be happy than famous. In fact I've spent so much time in trying to find out how to be happy, that I haven't had much leisure to try to be famous."
Gwen shook her head. "There's something wrong with your philosophy. You mustn't try so hard to be happy. You should go on the principle that you will be happy if you do your duty."
"Who knows his duty? I never did have any patience with the people who say: 'Be sure you're right, then go ahead.' The going ahead is easy enough; it's the being sure you're right that bothers you, and even then I've discovered that selfish people are quite as happy, if not happier than unselfish ones."
"Dear me!" sighed Gwen, "you're a terrible iconoclast. I always have been taught just the opposite."
"Well, but look around you. Aren't the self-complacent, self-satisfied people the ones who flourish like a green bay tree? They get more out of life than the self-sacrificers who in the long run are seldom given credit for the things they do, but are often censured for not doing more."
Gwen put her hands over her ears. "Oh dear, oh dear, if you keep on I shall have no theories left. If you are thinking of the material side of life, no doubt there is some truth in what you say, but if you have spiritual aspirations you will never step up through any such beliefs. I can see the force of your argument. There are Miss Phenie and Miss Phosie Tibbett, for example. Miss Phosie is continually doing for others, and I can't remember that Miss Phenie ever did anything for Miss Phosie or anyone else, except things she is obliged to do, but I have heard her call Miss Phosie selfish because she did not do more, because she didn't do certain things that Miss Phenie would no more do than she would fly, and yet I am sure, of the two, that Miss Phosie has spiritual delights of which her sister never dreams."
"The way to the land of spiritual delight is very hard for some. I find it rather an interesting study to watch the lives of others, and try to discover what really goes to make up their actual pleasures. These good island people whose influences have been so different from ours I'd like to get at their point of view."