Some heroically minded people assert there are only two things in life: duty and happiness. It is not everybody who wants to do his duty--that is a special gift of Providence few enjoy. But everyone wants to be happy, and happiness is the greatest thing of all: other people’s happiness as well as our own. We are not all sagacious to discern the angel of duty when she comes mixed in a promiscuous assembly of spirits less honourable than she. They all dress becomingly and smile bewitchingly that you cannot mark her down; her radiance shines no brighter than other luminous spirits that accompany her. We should try the spirits whether they be good or evil ones. However, they move first, and try us with their beauty, their flattery, and their gilded promises. According to the gospel of St. Robert Louis Stevenson, there is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. A third thing some people suggest makes life worth living is experience. Experience, they maintain, is a more valuable treasure than happiness; experience is a pearl of great price, and we must sell all we have to possess it. The world is spacious; range it widely, breathe its bracing airs, sail its deep seas in search of experience. Pursue it, and if in the pursuit you are blown about by the fickle winds of fate, the buffeting may be disagreeable, but it is most exhilarating and healthy to the earnest seeker after experience. Provided you are blown, and blown violently, the direction of the gale matters not; the north-easter and the zephyr both teach. Experience builds up character and increases knowledge, though during building operations your wisdom may remain a stationary virtue. If you come out of the conflict with only experience to your credit at the other end of the struggle be thankful. Life is very good. Its chief spoils may be anguish and sorrow, yet experience makes it full and rich. The logic of this cold philosophy needs consideration before adopting it as gospel. If a dinted shield and a broken sword are the only spoils you bring home from the wars and hang up in the family parlour as trophies of victory, it is not an adequate recompense for the rich and vital experience gained in the fight. Experience was what Don Quixote in the slippered comfort of his home hungered after. It was what he found on his travels, and after passing through much tribulation it was the one prize he brought home with him at the journey’s end. Experience many an ambitious man has found to be as an empty goblet to his thirsty lips.