“The wisdom of the world is based upon the experience of the worldly prosperous; and what is worldly prosperity but the accumulation of dollars? To be prosperous is one thing; to be happy, quite another.”
“I see you are coming back to our old argument. I am sure I could never school myself to the cheerful disregard for money which you seem to have. For my part, I could not do without it, although, to be sure, I sometimes manage on very little.”
“Again the wisdom of the world!” exclaimed Ah Ben, “and what has it done for us?”
“It has taught us to be very comfortable in this latter part of the nineteenth century,” Paul replied.
“Has it?” cried the old man, his eyes fixed full upon Henley's face. “I admit,” he continued, “that it has taught us to rely upon luxuries that eat out the life while pampering the body. It has taught us to depend upon the poison that paralyzes the will, and that personal power we were speaking of. It has done much for man, I grant you, but its efforts have been mainly directed to his destruction.”
“No man can be happy without health,” answered Paul, “and surely you will admit that the discoveries of the last few decades have done much to improve his physical condition.”
He was nestling back into the corner of his lounge, where the shadow of the mantelpiece screened his face, and enabled him to look directly into Ah Ben's eyes, now fixed upon him with strange intensity. There was a power behind those eyes that was wont to impress the beholder with a species of interest which he felt might be developed into awe; and yet they were neither large nor handsome, as eyes are generally counted. Deep set, mounted with withered lids and shaggy brows, their power was due to the manifestation of a spiritual force, a Titanic will, that made itself felt, independent of material envelopment. It was the soul looking through the narrow window of mortality.
“Health?” said Ah Ben, repeating Henley's last idea interrogatively, and yet scarcely above a whisper.
“Yes, health,” answered Paul. “I maintain that the old maxim of 'early to bed' says something on that score, as well as on that of wealth.”
“True, but you said that a man must needs be healthy to be happy.”