In fine, the author, while he inculcates the maxim that we should, from the beginning, study to number happy days, would not teach, as he has been charged with teaching, that we may give labor and study and the toil of preparation to the winds, and consult only the indolent leading of our passions; for he knows, as do we all, that this course results in anything but ‘happy days.’ He would send us, on the contrary, in pursuit of happiness, to the teaching of wisdom and experience, that never bestow impracticable lessons. He would only inculcate, that while others have taught us to seek ultimate happiness through means of pain, we should make the means themselves immediate sources of enjoyment. It is a fact out of question, that we may train ourselves to find enjoyment in those toils and privations, which are to others, sources of disgust and sorrow. Who has not thrilled, as he read of the author, who, oppressed with cares, infirmities and years, took leave of a book, the result of the most laborious and protracted study, that was to be published only after his death, with a pleasant ode of thankfulness to it, as having furnished him agreeable occupation, and beguiled years of sorrow and pain? On this subject, I too can speak experimentally. I have often experienced an inward conscious satisfaction in realizing the pleasure and enjoyment, which I found in the same pursuits and labors, which were the most painful drudgery to others, equally qualified to pursue them with myself. The bee extracts honey from the same flower which to the spider yields only poison. Nothing but experience can teach us to what extent force of character, and a capacity without cowardly shrinking, to face danger, pain and death, may be acquired.--Compare, for example, a militia-man torn from the repose of his retreat, and forced into immediate battles, with the same person in the same predicament, when he shall have become a trained veteran. Compare the only child of weak, fond and opulent parents, as he is seen in the hour of apprehended shipwreck, or of fierce conflict with the enemy, with the sailor-boy, born in the same vicinity, but compelled by the rough discipline of poverty, to encounter the elements, and the aspect of danger and death from boyhood.