With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully
imbued, and thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted
enjoyment which distinguished his life was, in great measure, the
result of preconcert. It is indeed evident that with less of the
instinctive philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the
stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself
precipitated, by the very extraordinary success of his life, into
the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for those of
pre-eminent endowments. But it is by no means my object to pen an
essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few
words. He admitted but four elementary principles, or more strictly,
conditions of bliss. That which he considered chief was (strange to
say!) the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the
open air. "The health," he said, "attainable by other means is
scarcely worth the name." He instanced the ecstasies of the
fox-hunter, and pointed to the tillers of the earth, the only people
who, as a class, can be fairly considered happier than others. His
second condition was the love of woman. His third, and most
difficult of realization, was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was
an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held that, other things being
equal, the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the
spirituality of this object.
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