The system seems to have some points of merit, and it is whispered that
even Uncle Sam has sometimes let his affairs be managed on this plan, but
that need not enter into this case; for you and I are both of us
intelligent beings, observers after a fashion, and we intend to plan
things out a bit and see what we can do with them, and perhaps see what
stuff this luck that people talk about is made of.

Let us see where we now stand. We have found that it is the attitude
toward your income, and the scale of living your income permits, that must
be regulated; that your desires, if all were granted, will soon grow to a
point far out of reach of your purse, no matter how rich you get; and,
therefore, that the intellectual problem is before us of picking out a
scale of living somewhere well within your present income and endeavoring
to attain an attitude of mind toward living on that scale which will make
you happy rather than discontented.

I know that you are thinking that I have forgotten the personal equation,
that I am arguing as if all people were of the same temperament,
forgetting that under given conditions one person would be happy and
another would not, and that you, with your varied interests and contented
disposition, would always find things to make you happy, even if you had
to give up many of the luxuries which you now enjoy. This is true, but you
must please note that I have not intimated that you couldn't; and, in
fact, the point of what I say rests on the assumption that you could.
Moreover, in regard to other people, you will notice that this letter is
not addressed to them; and, if any of them should happen to see it, they
can put on the garment if it fits, or they can leave it alone,--it is all
one to me.

But how can we bring this about? how tell what things you have been used