The Conquest of Happiness

[Frederic Leighton]

When I was a boy I knew a man bursting with happiness whose business was digging wells. He was of enormous height and of incredible muscles; he could neither read nor write, and when in the year 1885 he got a vote for Parliament, he learnt for the first time that such an institution existed. His happiness did not depend upon intellectual sources; it was not based upon belief in natural law, or the perfectibility of the species, or the public ownership of public utilities, or the ultimate triumph of the Seventh Day Adventists, or any of the other creeds which intellectuals consider necessary to their enjoyment of life. It was based upon physical vigour, a sufficiency of work, and the overcoming of not insuperable obstacles in the shape of rock. The happiness of my gardener is of the same species; he wages a perennial war against rabbits, of which he speaks exactly as Scotland Yard speaks of Bolsheviks; he considers them dark, designing and ferocious, and is of the opinion that they can only be met by means of a cunning equal to their own. Like the heroes of Valhalla who spent every day hunting a certain wild boar, which they'killed every evening but which miraculously came to life again in the morning, my gardener can slay his enemy one day without any fear that the enemy will have disappeared the next day. Although well over seventy, he works all day and bicycles sixteen hilly miles to and from his work, but the fount of joy is inexhaustible, and it is 'they rabbits' that supply it.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) - image and one last question.

[davidhuh]

Nice one Frederic!

Some follow loungers might like what Russell had to say about smoking
http://youtu.be/80oLTiVW_lc

Cheers David

[Frederic Leighton]

Thank you, David! I've just found this online (on pipesmagazine) - Russell remembering the very instant that he became a pipe smoker, at the age of 22.

I remember the precise moment. One day in 1894 as I was walking along Trinity Lane, when I saw in a flash that the ontological argument (for the existence of God) is valid. I had gone out to buy a tin of tobacco; on my way back, I suddenly threw it up in the air and exclaimed as I caught it, "Great Scott, the ontological argument is sound.

[Luca]

When I was a boy I knew a man bursting with happiness whose business was digging wells. He was of enormous height and of incredible muscles; he could neither read nor write, and when in the year 1885 he got a vote for Parliament, he learnt for the first time that such an institution existed. His happiness did not depend upon intellectual sources; it was not based upon belief in natural law, or the perfectibility of the species, or the public ownership of public utilities, or the ultimate triumph of the Seventh Day Adventists, or any of the other creeds which intellectuals consider necessary to their enjoyment of life. It was based upon physical vigour, a sufficiency of work, and the overcoming of not insuperable obstacles in the shape of rock. The happiness of my gardener is of the same species; he wages a perennial war against rabbits, of which he speaks exactly as Scotland Yard speaks of Bolsheviks; he considers them dark, designing and ferocious, and is of the opinion that they can only be met by means of a cunning equal to their own. Like the heroes of Valhalla who spent every day hunting a certain wild boar, which they'killed every evening but which miraculously came to life again in the morning, my gardener can slay his enemy one day without any fear that the enemy will have disappeared the next day. Although well over seventy, he works all day and bicycles sixteen hilly miles to and from his work, but the fount of joy is inexhaustible, and it is 'they rabbits' that supply it.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) - image and one last question.

I ask without agenda or the desire to offend but out of true curisosity. Do you not, does not one else, find thid cloyingly patronising?
The happy, simple ones! One of my favourite cartoons by a fiendishly funny Italian satirical artist (Novello) portrays a charwoman feigning wonder at gazing upon the sea* and the caption says: "The cleaning lady who pretended to see the sea for the first time -- (quality people love simple folk)".

(*) as late as the 1950s,a lot of poor Italians lived in hillside/mountain villages and had never had occasion to travel to the famous riviera coastlines. My own grandparents related, in perfect seriousness, an almost identical tale.

My favourite B. Russel story is the aprocryphal one whereby, in a London taxi, he was asked by a cabbie with an obvious penchant for pithiness: "So, whass it all about, then, Bert?"

[Frederic Leighton]

Thank you, Luca, for your comments. Let me tell you that the book, entirely available online, continues describing other sorts of happiness, like the ones available to 'intellectual men'.

Pleasures exactly similar to those of my gardener so far as their emotional content is concerned are open to the most highly educated people. The difference made by education is only in regard to the activities by which these pleasures are to be obtained. [...]

In other words, Russell is not suggesting that poor/illiterate people are happy and rich/educated people are sad. Russell's very practical approach and his generous use of irony could sound simplistic, but I can actually enjoy this reading and also learn a lot from it.

Of the more highly educated sections of the community, the happiest in the present day are the men of science. Many of the most eminent of them are emotionally simple, and obtain from their work a satisfaction so profound that they can derive pleasure from eating and even marrying. Artists and literary men consider it de rigueur to be unhappy in their marriages, but men of science quite frequently remain capable of old-fashioned domestic bliss.

Grayson Perry's exploration of class identities, available here, is also witty and very enjoyable.