Happiness: Essays on the meaning of lifeHilty, Karl
Philosophy
Happiness: Essays on the meaning of life
Hilty, Karl
Conduct of life; Happiness
“_Why art thou then so faint of heart,
O man of little faith?
Have I not strength to do My part
As God’s word promiseth?_
_Why wilt thou not return to Me
Whose pity will receive?
Why seek not Him whose grace can free
And every fault forgive?_
_Why was it hard the way to find,
Which straight before thee ran?
Why dost thou wander as though blind?
’Tis thine own choice, O man!_”
NOTES
NOTE 1
_“Friedrich Max von Klinger,” says Professor Hilty, “was born in 1752,
at Frankfort. His family were poor, and after he had with difficulty
pursued his studies at the University of Giessen, he became at first
a play-writer for a travelling company. He then served during the
Bavarian War of Succession in a corps of volunteers. Later he became
reader and travelling companion to the Czarevitch Paul of Russia,
afterwards the Emperor. He was made Director of the corps of cadets
of the nobility, as well as of the Emperor’s pages, and of the girls’
school for the nobility. Under Alexander I. he was also made Curator
of the University of Dorpat. In all these relations of life, which
were as difficult as can be imagined, in his contact with actors,
crown-princes, Czars, noble pages and women of the court, diplomats
and professors--who, taken together, are certainly not of the classes
most easy to deal with--and living at a court thoroughly degraded and
beset by self-seekers of the lowest kind as was the court of Catherine
II., von Klinger preserved his candid character and moral courage and
gained the high respect of his contemporaries. In Goethe’s Wahrheit
und Dichtung, he mentions von Klinger as follows: ‘This maintenance
of a sterling character is the more creditable when it occurs in the
midst of worldly and business life and when a way of conduct which
might appear to many curt and abrupt, being judiciously followed,
accomplishes its ends. Such was his character. Without subservience
(which, indeed, has never been a quality of the natives of Frankfort)
he attained to the most important positions, was able to maintain
himself there and to continue his services with the highest approval
and gratitude of his noble patrons. Through all this, he never forgot
either his old friends or the paths which he had come.’ In the later
years of his life, Goethe renewed the study of von Klinger’s writings,
‘which recalled to me his unwearied activity and his remarkable
character.’”_
NOTE 2
_Dante, Purgatorio, xxvii, 126, 131._
NOTE 3
_Jakob Böhme, from a supplement to his works (Historische Uebersicht)._
NOTE 4
_Dante, Purgatorio, xxvii, 115._
NOTE 5
_Dante, Purgatorio, ix, 19._
NOTE 6
_Dante, Inferno, iii, 1, 9._
NOTE 7
_Dante, Purgatorio, iv, 88._
NOTE 8
_Dhammapada, transl. Charles R. Lanman, in Hymns of the Faith, A. J.
Edmunds, Chicago, 1902, page 38._
THE QUEST OF HAPPINESS
A STUDY OF VICTORY OVER LIFE’S TROUBLES
BY NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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