Montaigne would rather be more content and less knowing; and there is Lessing's great confession of faith: that if God in his right hand held all truth, and in his left the striving for truth, 'if he should say to me, "Choose," I would say, "Father, give me this striving, pure truth is for thee alone."'
Take work. Do you complain of it? Try doing more, of a productive sort. An engine-builder received complaint that his engine burned too much coal. 'How many cars on the train?' was the telegraphed query, with the reply, 'Four.' 'Try twelve,' went the prescription, and the train drew twelve with economy of fuel. 'Your brain tired?' William James echoed a student. 'Never mind, work straight on and your brain will get its second wind.' I myself do not know of any anodyne surer and quicker than that found in the garden. When all the world is askew, dibbling in seedlings in straight rows is a wonderful solace. Why do so many women treat domesticity as drudgery? Its infinite variety, so unlike the monotonous tasks of men, often wearies the mind, but like Chesterton I do not see how it can narrow it. And socialism, with its cry of armchairs for workingmen! Armchairs, as Creighton nobly says, will bring no lasting happiness; but to quicken a human being, even one's self, into a sense of the meaning of his life and destiny, that is a real happiness.
Take sorrow. Is it not infinitely better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Are there not many good moments in life which outweigh its greatest sorrows?
Take overpressure. Luther advised Melanchthon to stop managing the universe and let the Almighty do it; and Dr. Trumbull preached 'the duty of refusing to do good.'
Take the grief caused by others. One of the bravest women I know used in times of anxiety to gather her little children about her and say gayly, 'Now I will make some graham gems, and open some marmalade, and we will take a little comfort.' Solomon or Aristotle could have done no more.
Take, for a smile's sake, the weather. It may be bad, but as we cannot change it, the thing is our attitude toward it; and as dark enshrouds us, 'The sun is set,' said Mr. Inglesant, cheerfully; 'but it will rise again. Let us go home.'
In such ways as these the right-minded person will meet his discontents face to face, and one by one eliminate them. He will also take stock of his assets. St. Teresa said that by thinking of heaven for a quarter of an hour every day one might hope to deserve it. Why do we not deliberately devote some minutes each day to saying to ourselves, 'I am tolerably well; I have food and shelter; everybody so far as I know respects me, and a few persons love me truly. I have books and a garden, the stars and the sea. I enjoy this and that, and before long the other. The thing so long dreaded has never come to pass. I will embark at any rate for the land of the Contented Heart.' Would not such a conscious recapitulation be an actual force building up this thing of which we talk?
Can content be conveyed? Can it be passed from one who has it to one who has it not—as one lamp lights another nor grows less? I wonder what would be the effect of a group of young women, lately conning over in college class—
With what I most enjoy contented least—
if they should resolve to stop all that, and, undeterred by others' estimate of values, be trustees of their own content, not suffering it to be contingent upon the manners and conduct of others? I believe that it would act like the magnet, which not only attracts the needle but infuses it with the power of drawing others. Great-heart so inspired the travelers that Christiana seized her viol and Mercy her lute, and, as they made sweet music, Ready-to-Halt took Despondency's daughter, Mrs. Much-Afraid, by the hand and together they went dancing down the road.