or none at all, so the happiest man is one who has enough in his own
inner wealth, and requires little or nothing from outside for his
maintenance, for imports are expensive things, reveal dependence,
entail danger, occasion trouble, and when all is said and done, are
a poor substitute for home produce. No man ought to expect much from
others, or, in general, from the external world. What one human being
can be to another is not a very great deal: in the end every one
stands alone, and the important thing is _who_ it is that stands
alone. Here, then, is another application of the general truth which
Goethe recognizes in _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ (Bk. III.), that in
everything a man has ultimately to appeal to himself; or, as Goldsmith
puts it in _The Traveller_:

_Still to ourselves in every place consign'd
Our own felicity we make or find_.

Himself is the source of the best and most a man can be or achieve.
The more this is so--the more a man finds his sources of pleasure in
himself--the happier he will be. Therefore, it is with great truth
that Aristotle[1] says, _To be happy means to be self-sufficient_. For
all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain,
precarious, fleeting, the sport of chance; and so even under the most
favorable circumstances they can easily be exhausted; nay, this is
unavoidable, because they are not always within reach. And in old age
these sources of happiness must necessarily dry up:--love leaves us
then, and wit, desire to travel, delight in horses, aptitude for
social intercourse; friends and relations, too, are taken from us by
death. Then more than ever, it depends upon what a man has in himself;
for this will stick to him longest; and at any period of life it is
the only genuine and lasting source of happiness. There is not much to