Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

What, then, is this mysterious thing called happiness, which apparently cannot be taken away from some, yet which others vainly pursue for a lifetime? I have already said that it is something that has to be learned or to be won. It is clear that having everything in the world to make one happy does not always bring happiness, and the reason is that there is no real well-being without consciousness of well-being. If one were heir to vast riches, yet lived and died without knowing of his wealth, it would have been just the same as to have had no wealth. To have youth, health, love, and opportunity, and not to know that one is blest by and through these great gifts, is, perhaps, not greatly different from having none of them. So we see the importance of being fully awake to the blessings we have. You think, for example, that you enjoy and appreciate your home, but if you should learn to-morrow that you had lost it, you would probably discover that you had not received nearly as much happiness from it as you should have. Perhaps you would even recall with remorse that you had sometimes envied the fairer home of some friend, and had allowed yourself to grow quite unhappy over the matter. If those you love best were suddenly to be taken from you, would you then discover how small had been your real appreciation of them? With a deeper appreciation would be found a gratitude constantly translating itself in terms of kindness, patience, and unselfishness. Ask yourself, then, whether you are sure you have derived the happiness that should have been yours from the blessings nearest you.

Have we not learned in part the secret of happiness? Consciousness of our blessings, deep gratitude for them, is one of the chief sources of happiness. And do we not see why we grow happier as we grow older? Our losses may be great,—are almost sure to be great,—but how we learn to appreciate what we have left! How trivialities sink into their place and the great things of life loom large! Once the day was overcast because of some fancied slight or neglect, or the weather had upset some cherished plan, or—but why go on with the list? Since then greater troubles have come and a new sense of proportion has been born within us; a consciousness of our great wealth is ever with us. This is one of the secure foundations of happiness.

Do not wait for Experience to teach you these things, for she keeps a dear school. Learn from the experience of others. There is plenty of justifiable sadness in the world, there is plenty of real trouble. Those of us who are not experiencing it owe it to those who are to be cheerful, serene, and strong, that they may lean on us and that we may help carry some of their heavy burdens.

Since it is entirely possible for life to grow happier as it goes on, and since many people find it exactly the reverse, what more can be said by way of pointing out the right path? And when should one seek this path? May one wait until the years of unhappiness come? One may not wait. The path may be choked with weeds unless one’s feet find it now. As you look forward into the years you have yet to live, what saner question can you ask than how you can find that inward happiness which has for many proved a bulwark against all the buffetings of fate?

It would be hard to over-emphasize the part work plays in making one happy. Idle people are generally unhappy. Look forward, then, to being busy, as long as you live. Find something to do, somewhere, and throw your whole self into your work. It need not be work that is paid for with money, but something to occupy your time and thoughts you must have. You need to feel that by your endeavors you are adding to the world’s welfare. Look forward to getting a large share of your happiness in service and you will not be disappointed. Work is a panacea for most of the ills of life. When a great sorrow comes, how shall one endure it unless one has work to do?

Another deep source of happiness is the carrying of responsibility. It is good to develop early in life the habit of solicitude for others. Fortunate are we if there are those who are in some way dependent upon us; it is good for us to deny ourselves for their sake. Happy is the girl who has younger brothers and sisters needing her affectionate and watchful care.

Love must play a large part in every life. In solitude we become narrow, we can never discover ourselves. We need friends and the stimulus of contact with our fellow men. We must give and receive affection. The trouble with most of us is that we think too much about receiving and not enough about giving. Here as everywhere it is more blessed to give than to receive.

For true happiness we need constantly increasing knowledge. An ignorant life can hardly be a happy life. We should be on terms of closest friendship with books. Every one should have some department or field of learning in which he is steadily making conquests, and this in addition to the reading of the best literature. It may be music, or art, or a science, or a language, or some other pursuit to which one turns for recreation and inspiration. In these days good instruction is obtained so easily that intellectual stagnation is inexcusable. Indeed, any one who is really in earnest can make intellectual progress without instruction except that which one gives himself. I knew a busy lawyer who so mastered the subject of botany through self-instruction that he became an able writer and a recognized authority on the subject. Many have mastered a foreign language with the assistance only of books. What a mistake it is to think that with the closing of the school and college days one should cease to be a student! We are never too old to begin the serious study of some subject hitherto unknown to us. Did not Julia Ward Howe begin the study of Greek at an age when most people only doze by the fire?

I have mentioned as important sources of happiness four things—work, responsibility, love, knowledge. It remains to call attention to three kinds, or perhaps three degrees, of happiness. The lowest is merely pleasure or a succession of pleasures. Pleasure depends largely upon what we have, that is, upon external things. It has no deep roots at life’s center; yet it is good if we estimate it rightly and recognize that it is not real happiness. Beautiful clothes to wear, good things to eat and drink, a fine house to live in—these things all give pleasure, yet many have found happiness without them. Some have had all of these and yet have led discontented lives. Parties, balls, social pleasures of every sort; travel, money to spend according to one’s whims; these have their place. Do they occupy a large place in your life? Well and good; but there is nothing about any of these worthy to be ranked as happiness. You can easily imagine yourself stripped of them all. Would you then be miserable?

Congenial companionship and congenial work come nearer to making real happiness for most of us. Indeed, there are few things upon which the majority of people are so dependent. Yet it would not be difficult to find those who have been deprived of both, and have yet led strong, serene, and useful lives.