The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-11-19
"Is Life Worth Living :"

A Frcnchman has written book
entitled, as Life Worth Living" This
man may not be either utopian or q
pessimist. And the book, in spite of its
title, may not embody the whining argl-
ments of one who has failed in life. 1t
may not and it need not, contain single
sentence that could be, by perversion,
construed into an apology for suicide.
However much it may shock progressive
optimists to hear it, it may as we'll be
admitted, not for arguments, but for
conscieuce's sake, that this book is treat.
ing live issue. There are many men
and women who are in no great trouble
either of mind, body or estate, who ask
themselves every day almost without
giving form to the question mentally, is
fife worth living?" And there is large
class whose census would surprise us if
it could be taken, who positively believe
that the worst calamity that ever befalls
:, man is to be born, and the only real
goo d luck he ever encounters is to die.
A king in the orient who had pros
porous reign of forty years, kept diary.
At The end of the forty years be discov'
cred that he had spent fourteen happy
days. When this fact was made public.
It was the subject of much wonder and
comment. Yet there is little doubt that
thousands of his subjects better situated
for enjoyment than the king even, had
enjoyed less happiness in the same period.
Col. Gardner of the British Army during
the last century was deemed the happiest
man in the realm. He possessed every
grace and fortune. And yet he was
known to wish that he had been created
dog instead of man.
These instances are given to illustrate
The patent truth that the outward appear
ance of happiness cannot be relied on.
The same two instances may be used to
illustrate also that even when all the
required conditions of happiness are
present, the individual surrounded by
those conditions may be acutely misera-
bic. The conclusion is forced then that
human happiness is an effect which does
not invariably follow its logical cause.
All the requirements, conditions and
opportunities for happiness may be
present, and yet for reason unknown or
for no reason at all, the man finds him.
self unable to employ them. Thus it
follows that when the opportunities for
happiness are unfavorable, the absence of
it is absolutely certain, and when they
are favorable the chances of being happy
ere superfnely slim-in too many in
stances, alas the proportion being as
fourteen days to forty years.
The pursuit of happiness is the busi-
ness of life, no matter what form it takes.
If one man is given wholly to frivolty
and another wholly to the engrossing
cares of business, it is because each con.
ceiyes that in his particular course the
greatest happiness lies. If one man is
Ioral and another dissolute, it is because
each seeks his good, whether present or
future, in his line Of conduct. But
Jumping every class, industrious and
idle, moral and dissipated, af1uent and
poor, into one common whole, the fact
remains that existence is a grinding load
to the great majority, and like the ire
rressible ghost, the question returns, us
life worth living?"
We see many whose surroundings
plutely tell us that they have nothing to
live for. Their past has been as "a
raging wave of the sea foaming out It's
own shame" and their future bids fair to
be "as a wandering star to whom is
reserved the blackness of darkness for.
ever" Those who cannot look backward
with pride, can scarcely look forward
with hope. They have made shipwreck
of life. Adversely is upon their habita,
tion like a cold and settled rain. 1t may
he sorrow; it may be crime; it may be
both. But whatever it is, the world that
burst upon them as blue domed and
fower.hoored Eden, has blackened into
plague spot, wilderness, and sepul-
chre, To such as these life is not worth
living. They live on from sense OF
duty or from the animals instructive
dread of death.
But there is another and larger class
who are asking themselves if life is
worth living, and it is this class in whom
WEAKNESS of life constitutes and unsolved
enigma. With them there is no apparent
cause. They are people who have seen
no trouble above the average, and with
whom the world is going we'll. They
have their share of earth's goods, and it
seems ought to be happy. From this
class, however, the ranks of suicide are
largely recruited. With them the allotted
years Of life seem too long, and they tire
Of the journey before it is ended. They
have lived until every pleasure pals
upon the taste. Ambition is dead, and
love has lost its delights. Like the chill.
Gren of Israel in the sun-bleached desert,
Sin the morning they say would God it
were evening, and in the evening they
say would God it were morning." Life
has left for them no new and fresh and
sweet sensations.
"Tpe world has less Of brightness,
Ard the earth ghastlier whiteness