Temperament driver of happiness

My book-of-the-month summary for January is “The Complete Essays of Mark Twain,” edited by Charles Neider (Doubleday & Company, 1963, 705 pages).

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain” was a measurement of river depths) was born on Nov. 30, 1835, in Missouri, and died on April 1, 1910, in Connecticut.

Born shortly after Halley’s Comet appeared, he predicted he would “go out with it,” and died the day after Halley’s return.

Although known worldwide as a humorist, Twain’s personal life included the loss of his only son at 19 months, a daughter at 24, another at 29, and his wife at 58.

He spent much of his later years depressed and bitter — writing with “a pen warmed-up in hell” about injustices.

Here are excerpts (edited for brevity) from “The Complete Essays”:

• “It is good morals to let an ignorant duke do showy benevolences for his pride’s sake, and go on doing them unwarned, lest if he were made acquainted with the actual motive he might shut up his purse and cease to be good.”

• “The human being always looks down when he is examining another person’s standards; he never finds one that he has to examine by looking up.”

• “The astronomer is very proud of his achievement, the rat is proud of his. Yet both are machines; they have originated nothing, they have no right to be vain.”

• “As soon as the Seeker finds what he is thoroughly convinced is the Truth, he seeks no further, but gives the rest of his days to hunting junk to patch it and caulk it and prop it with.”

• “You can teach an idiot to advance and retreat at the word of command.”

• “It is just like man’s vanity to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”

• No political or religious belief can make (people) unhappy or happy. It is purely a matter of temperament. Beliefs are acquirements, temperaments are born.”

• “I want women to be allowed to vote. It is our last chance. By extending the suffrage to women this country could gain a great deal. In a moral fight woman is dauntless. Man is an arrant coward.”

Contact Wendel Sloan at: [email protected]