Strength and happiness / by Richard A. Proctor.

  • Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony), 1837-1888.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Strength and happiness / by Richard A. Proctor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be purchased by money, come in abundance to the last and are inaccessible to the first/’ But in yet other ways do we find illustrated by the effects of due care for others, the saying to him that hath shall bo given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which ho seemeth to have.” Not only has the hard and ungonial man fewer gratifications, but those which he has he enjoys less than the man who cares for the wants and wishes of others. The one loses the power of enjoyment through his over-anxiety for self-gratification, the other unconsciously pursues—through his kindliness of character—the very course which a wise and thoughtful consideration of the plan best qualified to secure self-gratification would suggest. The one, while caring unduly for himself, is exhausting and satiating his power to care for any form of pleasure, the other, while ministering to the enjoyments of others, is fostering his own capacity for enjoyment. Here again, if one wished to suggest a course of action by which a man who suffered from life- weariness might again know the charm of happiness, one could advise no better course than to minister systematically to the enjoyments of those around. The very tide of life is made fuller thus, even as the tide of thought is made fuller by turning from mere reflection to an interchange of ideas and thoughts with those around. While there is work to be done in the way of increasing others’ happiness, no man —not even the most jaded and satiated—need