
Happiness is of two sorts, though, of course, there
are intermediate degrees. The two sorts I mean
might be distinguished as plain and fancy, or animal
and spiritual, or of the heart and of the head.
...............................
Perhaps the simplest way to describe the difference
between the two sorts of happiness is to say that
one sort is open to any human being, and the other
only to those who can read and write.
...............................
The happiness of my gardener is of the same species*;
he wages a perennial war against rabbits, of which
he speaks exactly as Scotland Yard speaks of Bolsheviks;
he considers them dark, designing and ferocious,
and is of opinion that they can only be met by means
of a cunning equal to their own. Like the heroes
of Valhalla who spent every day hunting a certain
wild boar, which they killed every evening but which
miraculously came to life again in the morning,
my gardener can slay his enemy one day without any
fear that the enemy will have disappeared the next day.
Although well over seventy, he works all day and
bicycles sixteen hilly miles to and from his work,
but the fount of joy is inexhaustible, and it is
"they rabbits" that supply it. -The Conquest of Happiness
(1930), Bertrand Russell
*of the sort open to any human being
Featured image: "Russell in 1938" by Unknown - Licensed under
Public Domain via Commons
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