The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-10-24
DOES sELFIsHNEss PAY9

which pleasures balance with pains and good
equals evil?
Can the man, who il always trying to make
himself happy, who studies the happln s. OF
no one else, who sets no value on anything
but what he enjoys, who looks upon the world
as his exclusive personal and individual
oyster and who counts everything as lost
which does not contribute to his relief or bis
pleasure, be considered happy
Let US view him with reference to each
one of his desires. He is avaricious and
he sees around him the great wealth OF the
world belonging to few lucky men. He is
himself wealthy, if we look only at what ne
has, but if we lock at what he wants, what ne
tries TO get, what he covets and what he hank-
ers for every minute of the waking hours OF
| his life, he is wretched and worse OH than IL
poor without the desire to be iich. lie may
| be worth twenty millions of dollars, yet there
are thousands and hundreds OF thousands OF
millions which he does not possess, and which
he wishes to have He has pride and pleasure
in what be has, but both are outweighed
thousand times by the pain he has in wanting
what he has not and can not get, although
urged by the eager and constant.desire to get
more and more as long as there should be any
thing more to possess. What he has is but
as grain of sand in comparison with the
measureless universe which he wants but can
not get. What he has gives him little
pleasure, but that pleasure is thousand
times overbalanced by the pain of wanting
what he has not
| The selfish man is ambitious. He labors
hard to win distinction, rank, Office and
power He may have succeeded, and he may
have become judge. q senator, governor,
general, bishop, president, revolutionary
leader, q dictator, or conqueror. Inc
power he may have gives him appetite for
more. He is gratifed with what he is, but
there burns in his breast the fire of selfish
ambition. His power is great as compared
with that of other men, but when he sees
that he governs but a small fraction of the
world, and only for brief instant of time,
his selfishness nets him nothing but regret
and pain. He lives in constant, eager, pain
full longing for what he cannot get, or if
gotten, is barren of enjoyment, and when he
dies the account Of life as reckoned BY his
own selfish arithmetic, has been against him
by thousand pains for every pleasure.
Even so, if we consider the selfish volup-
tuary, we shall find that where he grati6es
every taste and every appetite to the utmost
of his capacity through long and hearty life,
he has been hundred times more panied by
what he could not appropriate to himself than
he has been comforted by what he has actually
enjoyed. With unsuitable hunger, thirst and
lust for all that the world contains. he finds
himself gathering but q little, and disap-
pointed as to all the rest.
Is it better in any respect with the selfish
seeker after knowledge? He gives the labor
of his life to the acquisition Of knowledge.
being never satisfied and seeing the coveted
unknown stretching out into boundless ex-
panse in all directions around him. What
he learns intensiies his desire to know, and
shows him OF the same time how little he can
know. The draught of knowledge which he
actually drinks is poisoned with the gall and
bitterness of regret for what he can never
get.
If is a pleasure to the egotist to out
do his neighbor, if he can only be happy in
comparative success, if his only enjoyment is
in winning and showing evidences OF success,
he is tormented as long as he sees another
more prosperous than himself
Saws Rochefoucauld: Extreme avarice
almost always mistakes ITSELF there is no posi-
ton which more often deprives itself OF its
object nor on which the present exercises SO
much power to the prejudice of the future.
"Avarice bursts the bag, says the old Spanish
motto. What the miser accumulates is pain IN
the growing want which he feels more and
more each day Could he see himself in his
true features he would see foolish man
tormenting himself with the pain OF an
Unsuitable DESIRE
Every selfish man. whatever direction his
desires may pursue, is daily irritating his old
wounds which give him always growing pains
| II the value of wealth is to be measured by
the good it does to its owner, its value ceases
when it makes him unhappy, leaving large
proportion of the possessors of great property
worse of than they would be in contented
mediocrity.
What any one man can have when COM
pared with what he cannot have, however
painful may be his desire, is but as pebble
compared with q mountain, and the period
during which he can enjoy what he may get
is brief as the TALL of an acorn compared with
the duration of the oak on which it grew.
His selfish having is the barren possession OF
clod, while bis selfish passion bankers for
kingdom. The clod which he has measures bis
meager atom of pleasure, but the kingdom
which he signs and agonizes for measures bis
lifelong torture.
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