How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
207/400
- Publication/creation
- London : George Routledge, 1932.
- Physical description
- xiv, 374 pages ; 22 cm
- Contributors
- Wolfe, W. Béran 1900-1935.
- Notes
-
This edition was reprinted in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1948.
Copy 1 Note: 1937 reprint. X158203
- Attribution and usage
-
Wellcome Collection
Conditions of use: it is possible this item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
The image contains the following text:
to does not laugh, continue until you have made
someone laugh. If you cannot find anyone to laugh at
your stories there is a danger that your sense of humour
is perverted. Get someone to tell you a story that he
thinks amusing. Tell this story to someone else until
you have established the communal bond of good humour.
Continue this prescription until you have experienced the
reward of citizenship in the republic of laughter.
As we train ourselves by going to the theatre and
identifying ourselves with the players, so we train our¬
selves unconsciously by the books and magazines we
read. Some read stories only with happy endings because
they cannot bear to look at the realities of life. Men and
women with a martyr complex read only tragedies so
that they can intensify their hopelessness. Some cannot
listen to “ serious ” music because such listening requires
a surrender of the ego to the dynamic pattern of the
composer, others refuse to listen to popular music
because a certain musical snobbishness impels them to
protect the feeling of uniqueness which they consider
essential to happiness. It is as necessary to have a well-
balanced mental diet as it is to have a well-balanced menu.
Courage and good-humour are the vitamins of the good life.
The Value of Sport
One of the most amazing phenomena of modern life
is the growth of popular interest in sports. Football,
cricket, and horse-racing attract ever increasing crowds.
When seventy-five thousand people attend a football
match a psychological reason greater than interest in the
game itself is at work. This psychological reason is the
need of e?npathy with success—that is, close association
with the successful conquest of obstacles. Since the days
of the Roman circus, mass attendance at athletic contests
has been a constant phenomenon of civilization. Modern
man, pressed by the drabness of the machine age, needs
more frequent opportunities for identifying himself with
successful power, both to glory in vicarious compensation