Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1905-01-11
By CHARLES WAGNER

consider themselves satisfied? Not the
least in the world If there are people
at once rich and content, be assured
that they are content because they
know how to be so not because they
are rich. An animal is satisfied when
it has eaten; it lies down and sleeps.
q time but it never lasts. When he be-
comes accustomed to this ccntentment
he tires of it and demands 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 NEST cutlery 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. II 1t does not, II he does
not by decisive action succeed in limit
ing his needs, he risks 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 1t the court
Ter basking in the sun, the drunken
laborer, the commoner serving his bel
| ly, the woman absorbed in her toilets,
the rrofligate 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 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 will 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
madness, Of many of our contempora-
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
! flesh, crush their bones. suck their
blood and cannot be stated. This is not
lofty moral denunciation. have been
| listening to what life says, and have
recorded as heard them some of the
| truths that resound in every square.
Has drunkenness, inventive as it Is
| of new drinks, found the means of
| luenching thirst? Not at all. 1t might
/ rather be called the art Of making
/ thirst inextinguishable. Frank liber-
! 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 rule you, pamper them,
| you will see them multiply like insects
in the sun. The 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 cask of the Danaides.
| To these 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 a goose; when they have the
| goose they wish it were 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 a 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,
have become a turbulent and seditious
crowd, a legion of tyrants In miniature.
A man enslaved to his needs may best
be compared to a bear with a ring in
its nose, that is led about and made to
dance at will. The likeness is not fat
tering, but you will grant that it is
true. 1t is in the train of their own
needs that so many of those men are
dragged along who rant for liberty,
progress and / don't know what else.
They cannot take step without ask
ing themselves if 1t 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 rae tell you the story of an ex-
cellent man whom I 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 q