In Quest Of Contentment

IN QUEST of CONTENTMENT BY Marjorie Barstow freeribit New York WHITTLESEY HOUSE London MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC. BARSTOW GUBBISTBIE All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be in any form without penruasfon of the publishers. PUBLISHED BY WHIT1XESEY HOUSE A division of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. Printed in tie United Staffs of America by Tb Maplt Presf Co York, Pa. FOREWORD WH HAT would happen if some hapless rich man left a fortune to the family which in a given length of time had produced, not the largest number of children, but the greatest number of books Reader, shudder and say, God forbid It is significant that one of the most outstanding figures of our time, Havelock Ellis, maintained separate apartments from his gifted and much loved wife. To her brilliant interpretations of her husband, the world owes much. The Brownings matured apart before they married the Webbs, Sydney and Beatrice, who, like Siamese twins, seem always to have been The Webbs, have latterly been politically divorced into Lord Passfield and plain Mrs. Webb Shelley and Mary Godwin were like two pathetic cyclones, and George Eliot had her intellectual handmaiden, George Henry Lewes. These, from the finished realm of literary marriages, offer a wide enough experience to guide any millionaire who might contemplate so dangerous an experiment as the one suggested above. In current life there are many, all too many, examples not yet suitable for public mention from which one might deduce an eligible theory. Hollywood is too discouraging, even though successful mar riages blase forth, and everyone remarks, with doubtful surprise, when a literary marriage does not end on the rocks quicklyenough. It is therefore with a sense of great timidity that I again let myself be lassoed into introducing a wife-written book. I VI FOREWORD call upon these hosts of the great with no implications of personal comparison, but merely to plead that what has been done successfully by these should not be lightly discredited in us. We cant help it. None of the arguments for limitation of offspring hinted at in this volume and in The Arts of Leisure works. The books will appear, most unexpectedly, and with a spaced regularity that is circumscribed only by natures laws. The publisher urges a foreword, and the author seems eager to acclaim the legitimacy of the relationship between myself and the blessed event Perhaps that is why she has quoted me so copiously so that I may not be able to disagree with it or disclaim it. In her own behalf, her modesty is misleading only in the twist given the title, In QUEST of Contentment. She is a natural enough mother to prove, in its character and make-up, that she has found it. SYDNEY GREENBIE. CASTINE, MAINS, October, 1936. CONTENTS FOREWORD, by Sydney Greenbie v Introduction WHEN You CANT LAUGH IT OFF 3 CONTENTMENT IN HEALTH Chapter I. THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH 12 Chapter II. SUPPOSE You Do STARVE 21 Chapter IH. THE FESTIVE ARTS OF DINING 33 Chapter IV. LETS FACE THE Music AND DANCE 43 Chapter V. Now I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP 57 Chapter VI. TURN DOWN AN EMPTY GLASS 72 Chapter VII. THE CIVILIZED JOY OF THE SENSES 84 CONTENTMENT IN WEALTH Chapter VIIL THE MORAL ASSURANCE OF WEALTH 96 Chapter IX. OUR NEIGHBORS, THE JONESES Ill Chapter X. BIGGER AND BETTER 122 Chapter XI. THE TECHNIQUE OF SECURITY 133 Chapter XII. OUR LADY OF POVERTY 143 vii CONTENTS CONTENTMENTIN LOVE Chapter XIII. SET LOVE IN ORDER 151 Chapter XIV. ON MAKING THE TWAIN ONE FLESH 162 Chapter XV. GOOD WILL Is A CORDIAL 176 Chapter XVI. MOONLIGHT AND Music AND LOVE AND ROMANCE 185 Chapter XVII. WHO WANTS TO BE POPULAR 193 Chapter XVIII. THE HIGH HEART OF DEVOTION 203 LEISURE AND THE ENDS OF LIFE Chapter XIX. THE FUN OP WORKING FOR NOTHING 216 Chapter XX. BE GOOD AND WILL You BE HAPPY 229 Chapter XXI. A THING OF BBAUTT 237 Chapter XXIL THE BEST Is YET TO BE 251 Chapter XXIII...