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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Jolly by Josh, by "Josh"
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Jolly by Josh
+
+
+Author: "Josh"
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2006  [eBook #17499]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOLLY BY JOSH***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+A JOLLY BY JOSH
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Privately Printed
+
+MCMII
+
+
+
+
+    Dear Charlie,--Having a spare moment as I crossed the continent
+    last time, I sat down in the rear end of a Lake Shore Limited
+    train, and began to cast about me with a view to hitting upon some
+    way of passing the time amicably with myself. As I looked about
+    the car, I studied the faces and persons of my fellow-travellers,
+    and found them uniformly uninteresting. My mind wandered from them
+    out of the window, and I noted with a casual eye the advance
+    civilization was making on both sides of the track. I began
+    wandering vaguely from that back to the time when this was a
+    trackless wilderness; and I pictured to myself the advent of the
+    white man, and so on in an aimless sort of a way, from the
+    beginning of our country until I reached the Declaration of
+    Independence, the terms of which have always remained vividly
+    impressed upon my mind.
+
+    "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!" That is what we are
+    after. So it is. How ridiculous! Why don't we think of it oftener?
+    How many of us are free? How many of us are happy? And,
+    particularly, how many of us would be any happier if we got the
+    things we want? What foolish wants we have, anyway! Almost
+    everybody wants something they don't want.
+
+    Just then my eye caught sight of the official stenographer
+    advertised as free. To an economical soul like mine the
+    opportunity of having a free stenographer for a day and a half was
+    too good to let slip by. So, placing my chair up alongside of his,
+    I took from my pocket a letter which I had just received from my
+    nephew, who had been spending his vacation in the West, and which
+    I had not known exactly how to answer.
+
+    The train of thoughts in which I had indulged, and the peculiarly
+    vacant condition of my mind, made the time favorable for expansion
+    upon the theme which had occurred to me; and so I inflicted on the
+    poor boy a long letter, or sermon, or essay, or whatever you may
+    please to call it, which I am enclosing to you.
+
+    I know that you are interested in topics of this sort, and so send
+    it along with an apology for the amount of your valuable time
+    which I am so wilfully wasting.
+
+                                          Your old friend,
+                                                             JOSH.
+
+
+
+
+_Dear Tom_,--I have just received your letter, asking if you could bring a
+pony back from Colorado. I answer most assuredly, "Yes"; that is, if you
+want to! But do you want to? This question having occurred to my mind, and
+perhaps not to yours, you must excuse my becoming a little long-winded if
+I launch out on a train of ideas which has presented itself to my mind.
+
+Let me briefly serve up the circumstances that surround you, and perhaps I
+can paint them so that you will look at them from a new point of view.
+
+You are eighteen years of age. 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.
+
+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. 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.
+
+It seems to me that the Declaration of Independence has put it pat when it
+defines the principal object for which we strive as "LIFE, LIBERTY, AND
+THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."
+
+This may seem wandering far from the question of a pony; but, if you have
+patience and follow me closely, you will find the old man is not too far
+from the point.
+
+Now let us bear fully in mind that Life, Liberty, and Happiness are the
+objects which we have in view. In the tangled complications of modern
+existence one gets lost and bewildered, unless having very definitely in
+mind the objects for which we are striving. We would be like a ship
+drifting or sailing in a fog without a compass. We do not know whether we
+are attaining and accomplishing, or losing ground, unless we have
+definitely in mind an objective point or points with which to make
+comparisons of our position at different times.
+
+I do not hesitate to write freely that we are engaged in the pursuit of
+happiness, even though shallow minds might take exceptions on the ground
+of selfishness. This is not so, as to a properly constituted mind
+happiness includes seeing others happy, and the greatest satisfaction
+comes from making them so. I will therefore let the Declaration of
+Independence stand for the present without amendment.
+
+Let us begin by postulating a great degree of happiness for friend Harris,
+who has a dear little wife, a small house, and twenty-five hundred per
+year. He will have no vacations and several children; and though we see
+him full of happiness now, and envy his good luck and all, yet we foresee
+that in twenty years, even though his salary is doubled, he will have been
+enabled to lay by nothing, and will have a little heart-burning at the
+thought that he cannot give his three daughters the ball dresses and
+jewels they see among their boon companions.
+
+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.
+
+Where will you land? As you are heading now, you will never be an
+earner--it is more likely that you will be a spender--of money. You have
+been accustomed to lots of things you could not afford on ten thousand a
+year. Of course, you can cut down to that figure; but where will it land
+you when you are married and have three daughters to send into society?
+You will be worse off than Harris or Thompy in spite of the fact that you
+have twice as much as one and just as much as the other.
+
+Here is a curious fact I noticed when in college. I was asked by the
+manager of the crew to collect subscriptions for him, and I undertook the
+job in the dormitory in which I lived. I often found that the richest men
+were the poorest. They never had money with them, and, while they promised
+large amounts, they seldom paid; while the men of moderate means seemed to
+be the ones who would readily promise reasonable amounts, and then draw a
+check for it the first time you asked them. I am stating these facts for
+the purpose of drawing some conclusions; and I think you will agree with
+me, particularly when I have proved them up by testing them from the other
+side.
+
+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.
+
+Let us now apply this to your particular case, and draw some more
+conclusions.
+
+_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.
+Observe the result:--
+
+When at the end of ten years you are married, you will find there is no
+increase in income, and you will have a lot of expensive tastes for things
+which you have come to look upon as necessary; and the increased expenses
+of a household will make you give up all sorts of personal comforts. This
+will make you feel poor, much poorer than Harris, for instance. As your
+children appear, they will in turn rob you of more of the things you have
+been accustomed to. You will have to keep a family horse and a pony, and
+give up trotters and boats.
+
+I am not detailing these tragedies with the idea of painting a gloomy
+future, but merely to illustrate a point of view,--a habit of mind. I
+might say.
+
+It becomes evident, then, that, in order to bring your mind to the point
+of view that will make you happy, it would be well to study the case of
+Harris, the happiest man you know. Perhaps you could manage to do
+artificially, as it were, what nature or circumstances has done for him.
+He had no prospects, but good health, good heart, and good mind. He was
+perfectly delighted when he found he could earn twenty-five hundred
+dollars a year, a larger sum than he had ever had; and he saved some and
+spent some in new ways until he found, when he married, that his living
+expenses consumed it all. His wife, expecting little, was pleased with all
+she got; and, altogether, they seemed to get, in a large measure, the
+objects for which we strove and fought the war of 1776.
+
+From the start you were differently placed. You became accustomed to
+gratifying your desires: you had little purpose in your actions; and,
+accordingly, you have now the habit of looking on each wish, whether of
+long standing or momentary, as something you might as well gratify.
+
+My second conclusion I will jump to now, without filling in the
+intermediate steps leading up to it; namely, that, to attain happiness, it
+is necessary to cultivate the custom of restraining your impulse to
+gratify your every desire.
+
+To illustrate this, I will carry out my threat of proving it up from the
+other side. You have often in your yachting experiences seen the yachts
+belonging to the Goulds, Vanderbilts, and other men of great wealth. These
+men feel it necessary to own ships almost as large and expensive to
+operate as ocean steamers. They build houses that cost several hundreds of
+thousands of dollars, and they give balls that would ruin men of moderate
+wealth, while their weddings are likely to cost in the neighborhood of a
+million dollars in decorations, gifts, and expenses. The deduction from
+this is that the ability of man to spend is only limited by the length of
+his purse, and a man's desire to spend has no such limits.
+
+The conclusion to be drawn from this is that you have got to curb your
+desires unless you are unusual in one of two respects, either in your
+money-getting ability or in your lack of imagination for inventing new
+desires. In any case _you_ can eliminate these possibilities. Now,
+admitting that at some point you have got to curb your desires, why not do
+it at a point near Harris's, which will leave you in a more comfortable
+frame of mind in regard to your money matters, rather than Perry's, who
+does not have all he wants, and is discontented, or Vanderbilt, who would
+consider himself ruined if he had to live on ten thousand a year?
+
+I know that you may think that you cannot come to Harris's point of view,
+as your points of view have always been horizontally opposite, he looking
+up to a sum upon which you look down. But never mind. I am suggesting that
+we do reach that point, nevertheless, or, if not that point, that we shall
+use our intellects, and, with a view to expediency, select a point it
+would be wise to reach.
+
+I assert that we have now an intellectual problem before us. 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.
+
+The system seems to have some points of merit, and it is whispered that
+even Uncle Sam has sometimes let his affairs be managed on this plan, but
+that need not enter into this case; for you and I are both of us
+intelligent beings, observers after a fashion, and we intend to plan
+things out a bit and see what we can do with them, and perhaps see what
+stuff this luck that people talk about is made of.
+
+Let us see where we now stand. 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.
+
+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. This is true, but you
+must please note that I have not intimated that you couldn't; and, in
+fact, the point of what I say rests on the assumption that you could.
+Moreover, in regard to other people, you will notice that this letter is
+not addressed to them; and, if any of them should happen to see it, they
+can put on the garment if it fits, or they can leave it alone,--it is all
+one to me.
+
+But how can we bring this about? how tell what things you have been used
+to keep and what to give up? how keen a desire it is well to quell, and
+which ones? To reach this point, it is necessary to digress again in order
+to find the element of the magic touchstone which will tell us whether the
+thing we are looking at is made of gold or some baser metal.
+
+You must first have a look at our objective points, and try to analyze
+these a little bit. 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; the position of the martyr or reformer, who
+works for the welfare of the people and receives ill-treatment for it,
+like Christ. But, while we all of us hope we would not be found wanting,
+were the demand made, we cannot help joining with Kipling in the wish
+"which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me."
+
+Accordingly, while I am not blind to disagreeable but necessary
+possibilities, you will see that, if I digress to satisfy each one of
+them, I shall never reach the point, which no doubt in your mind by this
+time is the end; and so you must not pick flaws if I make statements which
+cover the probable, but not all the possible, contingencies.
+
+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! 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; but I have not proved it by
+reasoning, nor have I led up to it by any line of argument. Let it rest at
+that. 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.
+
+In addition to this, you must not be unpleasant to the senses. You must be
+morally and physically clean. You must have good manners, which is mostly
+being courteous and sympathetic and doing sundry social things according
+to the social code which happens to be then in vogue. You must learn,
+though it bores you as much as your Latin composition did, the proper way
+to dress at various functions and to answer people's invitations and
+generally do the correct thing.
+
+It won't take long to learn these things; and you need not remember them,
+as, if you once have in mind that there is a correct way of doing things,
+you can always find out the particular one at issue by asking.
+
+It seems to me that I can best illustrate my point by comparing you to a
+tool, of which there are two ends,--the handle and the working or cutting
+end.
+
+It is your business for your first thirty years of existence to make as
+good a tool of yourself as you can, and your business for the rest of your
+life to do as much work as possible; that is, let the tool be used after
+it is made. Thus, then, let us divide your experiences and acquirements
+into the handle and the edge of your tool. The handle,--your manners,
+education on general topics, such as history, literature, art, etc., your
+habits of cleanliness, promptness, etc., and your physical ability,
+health, etc.
+
+Your edge is your special fitness for work; that is, your education,
+experiences, aptness, power of concentration, and accomplishment.
+
+Now I am going to ask you to keep this division clearly in mind, as I
+think you will find in it many of the elements of the touchstone for which
+we are looking.
+
+I know the thought will have occurred to you that you do not know what you
+will take up, and are in no position to tell what things will go to make
+up the right sort of an edge; yet you will observe that you are, of
+course, in the same position as other pieces of unshaped wood and steel,
+and for your first ten years nothing is done except to shape you up
+gradually, teaching you to speak and read, and generally getting house
+broken. During your teens you are going to college, learning how to meet
+with and talk to men, to be a gentleman and develop your muscles.
+Incidentally, you pick up a little knowledge of what the world has been
+doing.
+
+Most of this you will forget; but, if you are wise, you will have drawn a
+few conclusions and made some observations, one of which is that it was
+mighty good of those old chaps who have been workers in the past to have
+cleared such good roads for us in every direction, so that a fellow could
+almost begin where they left off, when his handle is polished and he
+starts cutting.
+
+An important thing at this period is to get the handle evenly
+balanced,--turned correct on centres, as they say; that is, not to get too
+far out of the normal in any particular, such as dress, promptness,
+profanity, or length of hair.
+
+So much for the rounding of the handle; and now about the tool. At first,
+by watching, handling, and careful work, you must begin to show the
+quality and amount of metal you possess. Find out, as it were, by
+tentative trials whether it is capable of good edge or not. In other
+words, you want to find your bent and your abilities. To this end, if you
+are naturally good at mathematics and have a scientific and inquiring turn
+of mind, as you have, it is well to give it vent. Do not fear, for
+instance, to spend your time and earnings on electrical apparatus or
+studies and experiments in physical science. 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.
+
+Let me summarize briefly the points that I have just covered.
+
+You are now working for a definite object. 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. It
+becomes obvious that those who have fixed their habits on economical and
+praiseworthy lines will not only be the wealthiest, but will be the people
+who enjoy the most freedom. It is to them that wealth is a real blessing;
+and it is they who make their wealth a blessing to others, always keeping
+in mind the personal equation.
+
+It is therefore up to you to choose habits and fix them, so they will
+bring about the best result, and thus conduce to your happiness, the merit
+of your actions, and the use of your money. How, then, among all the
+opportunities which arise shall you choose, how tell which ones of the
+luxuries to which you have been accustomed you shall discard?
+
+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.
+
+We wish to attain the attitude of mind of a Stoic toward the first class
+of desires, and that of a spendthrift almost toward the second. For
+example, keep your personal comfort well in bounds, and train yourself to
+disregard it entirely; otherwise, you may say farewell to freedom.
+
+Be temperate in eating your food, drinking cold water, taking exposure, in
+your hours and in general. For example, it is not a good plan to have too
+much of anything which you like particularly. It immediately dulls the
+sense of pleasure in that thing, and, raising the level of your likes to a
+degree that makes you dislike some other thing, perhaps, which you liked
+before, thus working a loss rather than a gain. 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. 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; and your expenditure of time will
+have been limited by the hours you have been unable to take from study,
+which will also have been small.
+
+At college your opportunities will have broadened, and you begin to have
+something similar to the elective system. You can choose more freely how
+to spend your time. Your development to this point, I have already said,
+may be called the rounding of the handle; and your education will be
+normal if you have average application, intelligence, and memory. During
+college your future course will begin to shape itself, but before you fix
+upon your definite object there is likely to be a period at which you can
+be tempted into the greatest dissipation. By dissipation I do not mean the
+accepted term, but the scientific use of the word; namely, the useless
+expenditure of energy in futile pursuits. It is the opposite of
+concentration, which means directing energy upon your object. To make
+myself clearer, I will define energy as also meaning, in addition to your
+labor, your money, as money is the accumulated energy of your ancestors,
+just as coal is the accumulated energy of sunshine.
+
+You must remember also that there is a certain amount of allowance to be
+made for some rather indefinite objects, which are none the less
+important, and which, for want of a better name, I shall call the Discard.
+Among these can be named the education of the imagination, having a good
+time generally, foolishness, mysticism, good fellowship, aesthetics,
+humanity, and humanities in general. 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. 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.
+
+We are now prepared to go over some of your pursuits with our touchstone,
+and see which ones we can recommend and which we cannot, which of the
+desires with which you are confronted or may be confronted are worth while
+or worth the expenditure of energy.
+
+
+FOOD?
+
+You should make no stipulation about your food, except that it be
+wholesome. The pleasantness of its taste in your mouth should have little
+weight with you. If you confine yourself to just that food which you like,
+and get so that your comfort depends on it, you will deliver over your
+freedom just as though you delivered yourself to be bound hand and foot in
+a dungeon. When the time comes that you must cut down your expenditure and
+live less "well," you become unhappy, as you have taught yourself to look
+upon all food with the idea that it should give you pleasure rather than
+sustenance.
+
+
+YACHTING?
+
+By all means. It gives judgment, coolness, and readiness to face and
+overcome danger, muscle, ozone, handiness of hands, steadiness of eye,
+experience, and a sense of the depth and expanse of the ocean. 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. But here caution is recommended; and you should only keep
+a yacht if you can do so well within your means, and thoroughly
+understanding that some day you may have to give it up, and that you must
+not think that a hardship.
+
+
+CLOTHES?
+
+Yes, but within bounds. You can always afford to pay more for clothes than
+they are worth, and pay more attention to them also than they are worth;
+but here again temperance is recommended.
+
+
+HORSES?
+
+Yes; that is, enough to learn to ride, to master your horse, develop your
+muscle and _abandon_ and poise, but not enough to watch jockeys carrying
+your colors or your coachman before you carrying your reins. Learn to
+ride, learn to drive; but that does not mean necessarily that you had
+better bring a pony back with you.
+
+
+THEATRES?
+
+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.
+
+
+BOOKS?
+
+By all means. Spare no money on them. Be a spendthrift for books. We can
+always afford them; but pay for the printed matter, and not for the
+covers. 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.
+
+
+CLUBS?
+
+Freely. It mostly goes to the discard; but you can afford that, provided
+you are careful not to have too great a waste of time. There are more
+opportunities lost inside of club walls than are gained.
+
+
+CARDS?
+
+There is no gain in gambling beyond the opportunity of watching the human
+character, and, incidentally to develop it; but it is time lost, and
+unworthily lost. The end does not justify the means. You had better play
+and read and sleep rather than gamble.
+
+
+WINE?
+
+Yes and no. 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. It is
+a pity that men should be inferior to horses in that respect. You will
+think that this is becoming a temperance lecture. Perhaps it is; but never
+mind, it does not call for total abstinence.
+
+
+TOBACCO?
+
+I can see no advantage to be gained by tobacco; and you will find that it
+administers to your comfort, and that is the only advantage that it has.
+This in itself is a very damaging kind of an advantage, as, without
+advancing your object, it endangers your freedom, as all comforts do.
+
+
+ATHLETIC PROWESS?
+
+By all means cultivate this and in every form possible, but even here have
+an eye to moderation. 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.
+
+
+FURNITURE?
+
+In fixing up your room, your house, or personal surroundings, have good,
+comfortable furniture for rest and for work, but not for show. Be simple,
+even to the extent of being severe. The fewer things you have, the better
+off you are. Shun all other possessions as the devil would holy water.
+Have nothing that is not for a definite purpose and that you do not
+actually use. The criterion to be applied to these is not what you can
+find use for, but what you cannot get along without. A traveller who knows
+his business can travel on very slender baggage, and be perfectly
+comfortable and clean. Consider yourself a traveller through this world,
+and study to cut down your baggage. Thus you will avoid dissipation, and
+keep your freedom.
+
+
+PICTURES?
+
+Yes. Do not be afraid to cultivate the artistic. It is a card thrown to
+the discard, but one which you cannot regret. Do not have too many. 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.
+
+If you allow such things to distract your attention from your object, you
+may lose it entirely, just as you lose sight of something in the hands of
+a conjurer who has succeeded in directing your attention to something of
+momentary interest. In this connection it is well to say that the habit of
+spending must be avoided. 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. Among these can be reckoned a taste for opium or
+morphine, a taste for women, or for those kinds of literature and drama
+which appeal to the sensuous nature. All these desires are like
+drunkenness, in that no one is the better off for gratifying them.
+Arguments of all sorts will be brought forward by men who have yielded to
+these desires; but, while convincing the one who is eager to be convinced,
+they are all of the negative sort,--they try to prove there is no reason
+why they should not. Our touchstone will not pass any such arguments:
+there must be positive reason why you should do a thing, otherwise do not
+do it.
+
+This may seem Puritanical, but let's be Puritans to a certain extent. 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?
+
+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.
+
+And now we come back to the original question, whether you really want a
+pony. There are several really good ones in the stable that you can use.
+You are to be away a large part of the year, and you have never made half
+the use which you might have of your opportunities to ride.
+
+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.
+
+                                          Yours very truly,
+                                                       UNCLE JOSH.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOLLY BY JOSH***
+
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