of personality never. This is why the envy which personal qualities
excite is the most implacable of all,--as it is also the most
carefully dissembled.

Further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present
and lasting element in all we do or suffer; our individuality is
persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life: all
other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to
every kind of chance and change. This is why Aristotle says: _It is
not wealth but character that lasts_.[1]

[Greek: --hae gar phusis bebion ou ta chraemata]

[Footnote 1: Eth. Eud., vii. 2. 37:]

And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune
which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn
upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character.
Therefore, subjective blessings,--a noble nature, a capable head, a
joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly
sound physique, in a word, _mens sana in corpore sano_, are the first
and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be
more intent on promoting and preserving such qualities than on the
possession of external wealth and external honor.

And of all these, the one which makes us the most directly happy is
a genial flow of good spirits; for this excellent quality is its own
immediate reward. The man who is cheerful and merry has always a
good reason for being so,--the fact, namely, that he is so. There is
nothing which, like this quality, can so completely replace the loss