Taking Your Fun

American|Orison Marden

Ten things are necessary for happiness in this life, the first being a good digestion, and the other nine—money; so at least it is said by our modern philosophers.Yet the author of A Gentle Life speaks more truly in saying that the Divine Creation includes thousands of superfluous1joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support of life.

He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness—not from ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him. The man who has mastered the secret will not wait for ideal surroundings; he will not wait until next year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he can travel abroad, until he can afford to surround himself with works of the great masters; but he will make the most out of life today, where he is.

Paradise is here or nowhere; you must take your joy with you or you will never find it. It is after business hours, not in them, that men break down. Men must, like Philip Amour, turn the key on business when they leave it, and at once unlock the doors of some wholesome2recreation. Dr. Lyman Beecher used to divert himself with a violin. He had a regular system of what he called "unwinding", thus relieving the great strain put upon him.

"A man, " says Dr. Johnson, "should spend part of his time with the laughers."

Humor was Lincoln's life-preserver, as it has been of thousands of others. "If it were not for this, " he used to say, "I should die." His jests and quaint stories lighted the gloom of dark hours of national peril.

"Next to virtue, " said Agnes Strickland, " the fun in this world is what we can least spare."

"I have fun from morning till night, " said the editor Charles A. Dana to a friend who was growing prematurely old. "Do you read novels, and play billiards, and walk a great deal? "

Gladstone early formed a habit of looking on the bright side of things, and never lost a moment's sleep by worrying about public business.

There are many out-of-door sports, and the very presence of nature is to many a great joy. How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented3, all nature smiles with us—the air seems more balmy4, the sky more clear, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly, and the sun, moon, and stars all appear more beautiful. "It is a grand thing to live—to open the eyes in the morning and look out upon the world, to drink in the pure air and enjoy the sweet sunshine, to feel the pulse bound, and the being thrill with the consciousness of strength and powerin every nerve; it is a good thing simply to be alive, and it is a good world we live in, in spite of the abuse we are fond of giving it."

Upon every side of us are to be found what one has happily called—unworked joy mines.

And he who goes "prospecting" to see what he can daily discover is a wise man, training his eyes to see beauty in everything and everywhere.

"One ought, every day, " says Goethe, "at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." And if this be good for oneself, why not try the song, the poem, the picture, and the good words on someone else? Shall music and poetry die out of you while you are struggling for that which can never enrich5the character, nor add to the soul's worth? Shall a disciplined imagination fill the mind with beautiful pictures? He who has intellectual resources to fall back upon will not lack for daily recreation most wholesome...

In the world of books, what is grand and inspiring may easily become a part of every man's life. A fondness for good literature, for good fiction, for travel, for history, and for biography—what is better than this?

热词天地

1.superfluous[su:'pɜ:flʊəs] adj．过多的；多余的

2.wholesome['həʊlsəm] adj．有益健康的；健全的；合乎卫生的

3.contented[kən'tentɪd] adj．满意的，满足的

4.balmy['bɑ:mɪ] adj.（指空气）暖和的；温暖的；芳香的

5.enrich[ɪn'rɪtʃ] vt．使充实；使丰富；使富有；使富裕