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.