PART II.. How Far Our Happiness Depends on Nature and Fate.

How Far Our Happiness Depends on Nature and Fate.

I. Our Bodily and Mental Constitutions.

Life as a Synonym of Happiness.――Necessity and Chance the Arbiters of Life.――The Endowment of the Child.――The Laws of Heredity.――Hereditary and Congenital Traits.――The Heritage of the Race.――Family Jewels and Family Curses.――The Avenue of Escape.――Precepts for Self-training.――Words for Women.――Beauty and its Cult.――Its Perils and its Power.――The Ideal of the Beautiful.――The Four Temperaments.――Cheerfulness and its Physical Seat.――Diseases that are Cheerful and those that are Not.――What to do in an Attack of the Blues.――Old Age and its Attainment.――The Fallacious Bliss of Youth.――Men who Outlive Themselves.

STROWINGS, pp. 57-80

II. Our Physical Surroundings.

Clothing and its Objects.――The Dress of Women.――The Value of Good Clothes.――The Room and its Furniture.――Our Living Rooms.――Own Your Own House.――Foes to Fight in House-building.――A New Principle for Architects.――Love of Home and Homesickness.――How Climate Influences Cheerfulness.

STROWINGS, pp. 81-91

III. Luck and its Laws.

What Solon said about Happiness.――Destiny in Human Affairs.――The Calculation of Chances.――Results of the Laws of Luck.――They Cannot be Escaped.――Runs of Luck and their Results.――“A Fool for Luck,” and Why.――The Story of Polycrates and its Moral.――The Fetichism of Gamblers.――Luck Does Less Than Many Think.――The Miracles of Insurance.――The Dark Hand of Destiny.――Trifles Rule the World.――We Are the Slaves of Chance.――But What is Chance?

STROWINGS, pp. 92-108