Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/381

Rh secured; thus repeatedly placing his hard-earned fortune at the service of his country.

He became a singularly happy man, so happy indeed that he could say near the close of his life,—if he could live it over again with some few changes he would like it,—not by the mere favor of fortune, nor by a lofty philosophy lifting him above the reach of disappointment and sorrow, but by controlling those evil passions he had in common with most others; by turning his faculties to the best account for himself and his fellow-men; by never losing sight of his wise maxim that “human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day”; and by simply enjoying the pleasant things of this world, freely and heartily, as other good people enjoyed them, getting the fullest possible measure of them he could.

He was a virtuous man, earnestly, methodically so; but his was not that straitlaced and forbidding kind of virtue which looks with a stern and sour eye upon human weakness and at every worldly enjoyment and pleasure. His was a thoroughly human, sympathetic, merry, lovable virtue—a virtue that nobody would be afraid of and that everybody would not only understand and esteem but enjoy.

In one word, the manner in which he became good, useful, great and happy is so much within the reach of common intelligence as well as common opportunities that, studying it, scarcely any human being can fail to see in it a great many suggestions which pointedly apply to his own actual condition, and to feel the impulse of trying something like this too, although perhaps in a much smaller sphere and with much more modest mental resources. And the mere attempt, if made with some degree of earnestness, will be almost sure to produce some good.