this is a pity. I think our society is the poorer because so few of us make intelligent provision in our lives for happiness or even for pleasure—because so few of us pause to inquire whether our hearts are keeping time with the rhythm of pain or with the alternating rhythm of joy which pulses through the universe. Our dear fellow citizens, indeed, many of them, take a kind of sullen pride in doing without pleasure. Now, the man who does without pleasure himself, rarely gives pleasure to anyone else.
What is still more serious, the man who prides himself on doing without pleasure and on doing without happiness, is likely to listen with a sort of sour disdain and contempt to the claims of an activity which proposes as its end the increase of pleasure, the increase of happiness. I go to him and say: "Let us do what we can to encourage the pursuit of letters; for this pursuit is of all human activities the most delightful." He looks at me with a deep puzzled frown of disapprobation, and says: "Yes, yes, my dear man, no doubt. Delightful, no doubt. Delightful—but of what use is it? Of what practical use is it?"
The sort of man who always asks, "Of what practical use is it?" is called a utilitarian; and our American society abounds in him. The
