THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



to Theognis. It is this succinct but highly suggestive 

 utterance: 



"Money to mortals becomes a madness." 

 Our other quotation is from the "Adversaria" of 

 John Jortin, an English church historian and critic, 

 who was born in 1698 and died in 1770. Though 

 rather long, the excerpt has peculiar pertinence to the 

 present inquiry, since happiness is its direct theme; 

 and the case it presents is so usual a one that we may 

 well give it precedence to the opportunity for moralising. 



"Where," says Jortin, "where is happiness to be 

 found ? Where is her dwelling-place ? 



"Not, where we seek her, and where we expect to find 

 her. Happiness is a modest recluse, who seldom shows 

 her lovely face in the polite or in the busy world. . . . 

 Among the vanities and the evils, which Solomon be- 

 held under the sun, one is, an access of temporal for- 

 tunes to the detriment of the possessor; whence it 

 appears, that prosperity is a dangerous thing, and that 

 few persons have a head strong enough, or a heart good 

 enough to bear it. A sudden rise from a low station, as 

 it sometimes shows to advantage the virtuous and ami- 

 able qualities, which could not assert themself before, 

 so it more frequently calls forth and exposes to view 

 those spots of the soul, which lay lurking in secret, 

 cramped by penury, and veiled with dissimulation. 



"An honest and sensible man is placed in a middle 

 station, in circumstances rather scanty than abounding. 

 He hath all the necessaries but none of the superfluities 

 of life; and these necessaries he acquires by his pru- 



[186] 



