“ I am, nevertheless, enclosing a check for the amount necessary to purchase your pony, because at your age I took a trip through the Rocky Mountains, which awakened in me a new desire for riding. It has proved my greatest ally in the severe strains to which the pursuit of my object has subjected me to, and because your ancestors have always kept their iron constitutions into extreme old age by almost daily rides, and because the sense of ownership of a horse may awaken in you the love and knowledge of the animal, and may accomplish a similar happy result. ”

“ Therefore, temperance, which is synonymous of moderation, in my use of the word, is the wisest thing you can practise. But be intemperate in the pursuit of your object. Let no expense be too large to equip yourself physically or mentally for your life’s work, as, for example, to assure regular exercise, to cure any physical imperfection or disease, or for the furtherance of any desire for investigation on natural or scientific subjects or points of interest allied to the thing which you are seeking to attain. ”

“ A jumble of pictures is not what you want, but a few good ones. Only beware lest a craze for expensive pictures overtake you, which would interfere with your more definite object. If, however, your career lies in the line of the artistic, the purchase and collection of fine pictures come well within the golden things passed by our touchstone. Many men get a craze after the futile,—a hobby it is usually called; and they will dissipate great amounts of energy in collecting such things as postage-stamps, post-marks, or some other object of little use, and at great expense of time and money. ”

“ Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. These are somewhat intermingled, as we consider liberty an essence of happiness. We also want health, and all that conduces thereto, particularly cleanliness and exercise. We want a fair amount of amusement and a good amount of work. We want the sense of being useful and the sense of being respected. This people will accord us if we are striving to accomplish some of the innumerable things which people want to have done. There is, of course, a higher field for man’s energy,—that of striving for things which mankind ought to want for and doesn’t ”

“ We are left better off in no respect after all these desires are gratified. We are poorer in money, in pocket, in self-respect, and often in virtue.
We could go on so indefinitely through the list of all sorts of desires, but I have only touched upon a few of the more crucial ones to show how the touchstone should be applied; and even then results are crude, and would be of little help to you in fixing on a low scale of expenditure. They may, however, give you some ideas which will seem to guide you when you come to meet the problems for yourself. ”

“ We have found, then, that we want employment which will somehow add to the welfare of the human race; and is not this well worth doing? If you make something of that nature your object, and keep it fully before your mind, how much better off you will be than if you have continually in mind your own amusement, your own comfort! ”

“ You have lived surrounded by wealth and a good deal of luxury; but the luxury in which you were lapped was the comfort with which a man of great working brain, who has well earned the right to spend freely, chose to take for his own rest and amusement, knowing well the value of every cent he has spent or given away. ”

“ By all means, yachting, but not for the purpose of show, as giving orders before other people, of taking dilatory trips in fair weather only, and lounging in an easy-chair on the deck of some yacht while others take the responsibility and do the work. While going to the expense of keeping a boat, you should so mould your life as to use it constantly. If you keep a boat on the off chance of wanting it every other week or just for the sense of having it ready, you will make it an annoyance to yourself rather than a pleasure. ”

“ If you have your amusement as your life object, you will soon become a bored man, whom nothing will amuse. If you have comfort, you will be the discontented man who is never comfortable; for you soon fix in your mind the ideal combination of temperature, garment, palate, belly, and entertainment, and, seldom being able to get them all at once, you will seldom quite reach your ideal.
You might remark that I have made the statement that employment in something useful is the element of happiness ”

“ You have money enough to do more than you want to do at present; but, if you learn habits expensive enough to spend the whole of it, you are going to be hard up when your expenses increase, as they will if you marry or assume greater responsibilities. Therefore, it is necessary for you to practise self-denial and deny yourself wisely. We have seen that self-denial of some sort is necessary to everybody who have not fixed their habits, and by that I mean fixed their habits to such an extent that no change in their circumstances will induce them to lead a more expensive life. ”

“ The question is what scale of expenditure we shall use and what proportion of our desires, etc., shall we curb.
The usual hand-to-mouth method is to go ahead, do what we want until we are “up against it” and have to economize, and then for a while do without some of the more important things which we find we cannot afford, having already spent our money on things of lesser importance. This is the lazy man’s way, the one who does not care to do his thinking, and chooses to let circumstances make his course rather than wisdom. ”

“ It is apt to be even more important yet, as it may prove to be the road to friendship, societies, society, and love. Moreover, you should not forget that, in the pursuit of your object, you must provide a material recreation for yourself,—literature, music, art, billiards, anything; something that will give you (and others, if possible) pleasure and diversion, and render your happiness independent of your work, if for any reason you are prevented from devoting your life to it. ”

“ Nevertheless, the money to which you are heir, while necessitating a lower rate of expenditures than that of the household you have been brought up in, is sufficient to enable you to live under much easier circumstances than most of your neighbors.
In fact, if many of your friends started life with the income that will be yours, they would consider themselves decidedly rich, and would become, for a time at least, very much happier. ”

“ The fact that many a man has thrown himself away by putting all his time into these things, and lived solely for good fellowship, for foolishness, or for imagination without attainment, is no reason why you should not partake in a small measure of these qualities, which is like the wheel grease on the axle or the clown in the circus. ”

“ The obvious conclusion sounds almost like a platitude,—that it is not the amount of money one has that increases one’s happiness, but the use it is put to and the attitude of mind you have toward your income and the life you can lead with it. ”

“ A priori, you would be dissatisfied because you will be unable to do the things you have been accustomed to doing, and your attitude will be that of a man who has to deny himself things he thinks he wants. You will then cut down the rate of expenditure to within your income, as you have a certain modicum of sense in regard to matters of this kind,—not acquired, but inherited,—and permit yourself to spend freely up to your limits. ”

“ I shall let your intelligence and experience supply the proof that a definite object of employment with something in view of interest and benefit to the human race is, if not an essence of happiness, perhaps the easiest way to obtain the elements of happiness; namely, an object for yourself, a sense of usefulness, and the respect of your associates. ”

“ Do not develop your heart and lungs to such an extent that, when you have taken up a more sedentary life later, they will suffer a reaction. Almost all the great athletes suffer a few years’ discomfort while adjusting themselves to a less athletic existence than was theirs in college. Therefore, be moderate and specialize in this, so that in after life you may do what you are best fitted for, and in the attainment of athletic success make a test case of your proficiency of attainment. Do not fear to be prodigal of energy concentrated on the right thing. ”

“ Let a large expenditure be a circumstance. You can afford, however, to spend money on charities even to the point of dissipation. It is a cultivation of the heart. It might prove a career; and so, before your object is chosen, you approach it, as a possibility, afterward, as a card for the discard, in either case creditable.
There are other classes of desires which appeal to the sensuous and sensual nature of man. ”

“ There is no need of moderation in labor, exposure, or discomfort. Thus you will eventually reach your ends, and may obtain results at which people will stand amazed, believing them to be beyond the range of possibilities, as they will not know that for years a systematic preparation has been going on to prepare yourself for this result.
As a boy, your desires have been limited by your opportunities. You have had certain kinds of recreation provided for you which you have enjoyed. Your expenditure of money has been limited by your purse, which will have been small if your parents were wise ”

“ I know that you are thinking that I have forgotten the personal equation, that I am arguing as if all people were of the same temperament, forgetting that under given conditions one person would be happy and another would not, and that you, with your varied interests and contented disposition, would always find things to make you happy, even if you had to give up many of the luxuries which you now enjoy. ”

“ Thompy, who has four thousand now, is not quite as happy as Harris, and complains a good deal of being poor. He is hard-working and progressive, and will doubtless double his salary; while Perry who is getting ten thousand, part as income from property and part as trustee of something or other, is the poorest man I know. He has desires, tastes, and expensive habits which would make fifteen thousand a year look small to him, and can’t get along without entertainments and personal expenses on a considerably higher plane than he can now afford. ”

“ If you choose books wisely and know what is in them and where to get at them when you want them, you can for a very small expense have a mine of information and recreation at your elbow, which could make you the best educated of men. ”

“ Always in moderation. Do not acquire the habit of drinking. It is useless; and, after all that is said in favor of it by our mutual friend, Omar, and others, I can never see that a man is worse off for never having been drunk, and I am even Puritanical enough to think that he is better off, and, moreover, he has more self-respect, to say nothing of the respect of others. Nobody ever loses caste by refusing to drink. It is a difficult thing to do sometimes; but you know the old adage, that any man can lead a horse to water, but a hundred cannot make him drink. ”

“ We have found that it is the attitude toward your income, and the scale of living your income permits, that must be regulated; that your desires, if all were granted, will soon grow to a point far out of reach of your purse, no matter how rich you get; and, therefore, that the intellectual problem is before us of picking out a scale of living somewhere well within your present income and endeavoring to attain an attitude of mind toward living on that scale which will make you happy rather than discontented. ”

“ We have several times spoken of the touchstone we were seeking, one that will tell what actions are good and what bad, which desires to fulfil and which to deny. We have now reached something pretty close to our definition. Gratify those which contribute toward the success of the object you have in mind: deny yourself those which are detrimental to it, and which do not tend directly or indirectly toward its accomplishment. ”

“ Play no games that are not distinctly winning games. There is a winning game to be played. Why, then, play a game which is neither a winning nor a losing game? It never gave me any pleasure to gamble with a machine or with cards, because I know these to be losing games. The plan of the game is always laid out so that the balance of chance is slightly against the player, sometimes considerably against the player, else why should the game be started? ”

“ As the youngest of many sons, you have never had any responsibility; and yet your parents have left you with a taste for all kinds of expensive things, although, when you come to your money in a few years, you will have enough to gratify only a small part of the tastes which you have acquired. ”

“ If you have a fondness and desire for teaching or philosophy or accounting or trade, try to find out the essential requisites of the particular one which interests you, and follow up and acquire all the attainments which may be found useful. If you wish to enter politics or the lecture field, learn to speak and collect and classify your ideas when you are speaking and before people. ”

“ Use theatres sparingly. They are perfect gluttons for time, and use up money. But of these the more important is time, and they make desperate inroads into the next day. So be temperate in theatres. Put part in for education and part for the discard. ”