Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-12-22

it has eaten; it lies down and sleeps.
A man also can lie down and sleep for
a time. but it never lasts. When he be-
comes accustomed to this contentment
he tires of it and demands il greater
| Mans appetite is not appeased by
food: it increases with eating This
may seem absurd, but it is strictly
true.
And the fact that those who make
the most outcry are almost always
those who should find the best reasons
for contentment proves unquestionably
that happiness is not allied to the num-
Der of our needs and the zeal we put
into their cultivation. 1t is for every
ones interest to let this truth sink deep
| into his mind. If it does not, if he does
not by decisive action succeed in limit
ing his needs, he risks Il descent, insen-
sible and beyond retreat. along the de-
clivity of desire.
He who lives to eat, drink, sleep,
dress. take his walk-in short, pamper
himself all that he can-be it the court
Ter basking in the sun. the drunken
laborer, the commoner serving his bel
" the woman absorbed in her toilets,
the profigate of low estate or high. or
simply the ordinary pleasure lover. a
good fellow but too obedient to ma
terial needs-that man or woman is on
the downward way of desire, and the
descent is fatal. Those who follow it
obey the same laws as Il body on an
inclined plane. Dupes of an illusion
forever repeated, they think, Just a
few steps more the last, toward the
thing down there that we covet; then
we viii halt. But the velocity they
gain sweeps them on and the farther
they go the less able they are to resist
it,
Here is the secret of the unrest, the
ries Having condemned their will to
the service of their appetites. they suf-
fer the penalty They are delivered up
to violent passions which devour their
fesh crush their bones suck their
blood and cannot be stated This is not
a lofty moral denunciation have been
listening to what life says, and have
recorded rs | heard them some of the
truths that resonnd in every square.
Has drunkenness. inventive as it is
of new drinks, found the means of
quenching thirst? Not at all. 1t might
rather be called the art of making
thirst inextinguishable Frank iber-
image. does it deaden the sting of the
senses? No; it envenoms it. converts
natural desire into a morbid obsession
and makes it the dominant passion.
Let your needs RUE you. pamper them,
you will see them multiply like insects
in the sun. che more you give them
the more they demand He is sense
less who seeks for happiness in mate
rial prosperity alone. AS well under
take to fill the casll of the Danaides.
To those who have millions, millions
are wanting, to those who have thou
sands, thousands. Others lack TWEEN
ty franc piece or hundred sous. When
they have a chicken in the pot they
ask for Il goose; when they have the
goose they wish it We're a turkey. and
SO on We shall never learn how fatal
this tendency is. There are too many
humble people who wish to initiate the
great, too many poor workingmen who
ape the well to do middle classes, too
many shopgirls who play at being la
dies too many clerks who act the club
man or sportsman. and among those in
easy circumstances and the rich are
too many people who forget that what
they possess could serve better pur-
pose than procuring pleasure for them
selves. only to find in the end that one
never has enough Our needs, in place
of the servants that they should be,
crowd, a legion of tyrants in miniature.
A man enslayed to his needs may best
be compared to bear with ring in
its nose. that is led about and made to
dance at WILL The likeness is not fiat
tefing, but you will grant that it is
tue. 1t is in the train Of their own
needs that so man, of those men are
dragged along who rant for liberty,
progress and | don't know what else.
They cannot take a step without ask
ing themselves if it might not irritate
their masters. How many men and
women have gone on and on, even to
dishonesty, for the sole reason that
they had too many needs and could not
resign themselves to simple living.
There are many guests in the cham
bers of Mazas who could give us much
light on the subject Of too exigent
needs.
Let me tell you the story of an ex-
cellent man whom | knew He ten
derby loved his wife and children, and
they all lived together in France, in
comfort and plenty, but with little of
the luxury the wife coveted. Always
short of money, though with little
management he might have been at
ease, he ended by exiting himself to a
distant colony, leaving his wife and
children in the mother country. |
don't know how the poor man can feel