The most imperative motive of all human actions is the desire to be happy. But it is difficult to attain happiness if the search for it is made the constant aim of one’s life, although the primordial craving for it is an instinct in our nature.

The art of living is one in which we are but ill instructed by philosophers, scientists and metaphysicians; the first, because they leave the meaning of life as it is to show us some end in view; the second, because they are but rationalist theorists; and the last, because they claim to be able to lift the veil from the Beyond. The truth is that life is worth living, and that in order to live happily one must know how to draw from life a relative amount of happiness.

Simply by realising the charm of the pleasures—small though they be—which every instant of the day offers us, one may create for oneself a source of happiness, for this realisation gives what is usually called the joie de vivre (the joy of living), the principle in all happy nature.

Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, man does not see clearly the road leading to happiness because he is seeking it in the immediate and complete satisfaction of his desires, in material or intellectual delights whose worth he exaggerates; in superfluity, in possession, in all that he takes for happiness, but which is in reality mere enjoyment allied to fears, dangers, and regrets.

It is necessary, first of all, to simplify the causes of happiness. To illustrate my doctrine, I ask everyone to imagine the idyll in its true form, that is to say, as being the perfect presentment of the sentiment of love. Simplicity, whether in personal tastes, in the affections, or in daily actions, is the great secret of happiness.

With our nature, however justifiable it may be to acquaint ourselves with partial and transitory satisfactions, we cannot build up happiness on so fragile a foundation. Fortune is unstable; notoriety, whatever its cause, fades with time; glory is a vain word; health declines, and all is ruin and sorrow everywhere, save where complete satisfaction has been built up by continually aspiring towards the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.

Again, that aspiring must be the result of cultivating, in all simplicity, our mental “I.” Happiness lies in the depths of ourselves; it is by the right development of our personality that we may bring it into manifestation, make of it the enfolding comfort of our days.

Is it not true, that in love, if you live in the spirit, you possess more happiness than if you live in the senses? It is the same with material existence; simplified, reduced to the normal exercise of our faculties, it brings us a greater share of happiness than does excess. All the vices of our nature furnish but a momentary satisfaction, and that not unmixed with bitterness.

But how shall we attain to the development of our mental personality? First of all by the training of our Self, then by the selection of affinities. In this way each one, conscious of his own true desires, may bring around him those whose tastes and feelings are in harmony with his own. So may he avoid the painful and regrettable shocks and collisions which lead fatally to strife, from which combative and provocative natures cannot emerge without wounds, weariness, or disgust.

If you are obliged to live in a country different from your own, or amid surroundings where the mental atmosphere does not harmonise with yours, face the situation coolly; learn to be by turns the wise teacher and the willing disciple: in this way you will become understood, appreciated, and you will preserve intact your inner happiness.

You must learn to pass through moral and intellectual atmospheres as you pass through those of the physical world. Just as you put on the costume suitable to the season, so must your spirit assume the costume adapted to its surroundings. Many people fear life, they are in despair over the least ill-success; they tack about, dreading to enter the haven, and their mistakes vex and disconcert them. Remember that there is no circumstance which should cast you down or prevent your enjoying life, because, I repeat, happiness is inward content, a supporting spirit which one may attain in spite of the worst vicissitudes or unavoidable catastrophes. Since inward happiness proceeds from a habit of character produced by the training of oneself, the cultivation of simplicity, and adapting oneself to the uncongenial, it is necessary to submit to these things if one would steer his barque skilfully and taste all that constitutes the supreme enjoyment of life.

He who has followed these precepts will be able, when his days begin to decline, to look back calmly on the past. As he has drawn from every circumstance in his life the greatest possible good, as he will possess the certainty of having injured no one, he will see with infinite tranquillity the gates of Death opening before him; more especially if he has also cultivated a love of Nature, for the pleasure it gives by its restfulness and its eternal loveliness.