" Ruskin was once consulted by an
anxious person, who complained that he was unhappy, and said that he
attributed it to the fact that he was so useless. Ruskin replied with
trenchant good sense: "It is your duty to try to be innocently happy
first, and useful afterwards if you can."
What, then, can we do in the matter? How are we to secure happiness?
The answer is that we cannot; that we must take it as it comes, like
the sunshine and the spring. Few of us are in a position to alter at a
moment's notice the course of our lives. It is more or less laid down
for us what paths we have to tread, and in whose company. We can to a
certain extent, taught by grim experience of the habits, thoughts,
tempers, passions, anticipations, retrospects, that disturb our
tranquillity, avoid occasions of stumbling. We can undertake small
responsibilities, which we shall be ashamed to neglect; we can, so to
speak, diet our minds and hearts, avoiding unwholesome food and
debilitating excesses. To a certain extent, I say, for the old fault
has a horrid pertinacity, and even when felled in fair fight, has a
vile trick of recovering its energies and leaping on us from some
ambush by the way, as we saunter, blithely conscious of our victory. It
may be a discouraging and an oppressive thought, but the only hope lies
in good sense and patience. There are no short cuts; we have to tread
every inch of the road.
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