There is no Wealth but Life.

Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration!

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

That man is richest who has the widest helpful influence over the lives of others.

III

The presence of a wise population implies the search for felicity as well as for food.

The desire of the heart is also the light of the eyes.

No scene is continually and untiringly loved, but one rich by joyful human labour

Smooth in field; fair in garden; full in orchard; trim, sweet and fragrant in homestead.

No air is sweet that is silent; it is only sweet when full of low currents of under-sound.

Triplets of birds, murmur and chirp of insects, deep-toned words of men, wayward trebles of childhood.

As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are also necessary

The wild-flower by the wayside, as well as the tended corn, the wild creatures of the forest, as well as the tended cattle.

Man does not live by bread only, but by every wondrous word and unknowable work of God

Happy that he knew them not, and that round about him reaches yet into the infinite, the amazement of his existence.

IV

The existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right, may not be a luxurious one.

(But) consider whether luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it.

Luxury is indeed possible in the future-luxury innocent and exquisite;

Luxury for all, and by the help of all.

But luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant.

The cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold.

Raise the veil boldly, face the light!

As yet the light of the eye can only be through tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth.

(But) go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the kingdom

When Christ's gift of bread and bequest of peace shall be Unto this Last as unto thee!

THE TASK OF HAPPINESS

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

1

I

I see a solemn, a terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe, where suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls with dispassionate partiality, but where it may be, and generally is, nobly borne;

Where any brave man may make out a life which shall be happy for himself, and, by so being, beneficent to those about him.

The task before us, which is to co-endure with our existence, is one of microscopic fineness, and the heroism required is that of patience.

There is no cutting of the Gordian knots of life; each must be smilingly unravelled.

O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither!

Soon it seems you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado.

Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is labour.

We were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire.

Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind - still to be true to what small best we can attain to.

66

1 Reprinted by permission of Robert Louis Stevenson's publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, from "Letters," Virginibus Puerisque," "Across the Plains," "Prayers" and "Memories and Portraits."

We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know it; blessed those who remember it.

II

There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good. One person I have to make good-myself.

But my duty to my neighbour is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.

--

To be honest, to be kind to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation

Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

III

To have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth and has to be learned in the fire.

Granted that life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion to make us accept and serve in that tragedy.

Service is the word, active service in the military sense, and the religious man is he who has a military joy in duty. For to miss the joy is to miss all.

Noble disappointment, noble self-denial are not to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness.

Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties.

To do our best is one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequence is the next part, of any sensible virtue.

Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. But where the best consistently miscarry, how ten-fold more

remarkable that under every circumstance of failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, all should continue to strive.

This is not alone their privilege and glory, but their doom; they are condemned to some nobility.

Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy; surely not all in vain.

To believe in immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life.

IV

The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties.

Help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces; let cheerfulness abound with industry.

Give us to go blithely on our business all this day.

Bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.

And when the day returns, return to us our sun and comforter, and call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts

Eager to labour-eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our portion- and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure.