November 28, 1933

While out at the Stoney [River, where Sigurd went deer hunting], I picked up Elbert Hubbard's Scrapbook and ran across something like this, "To live the abundant or bountiful life, we must be engaged in work which means the outpouring of our enthusiasm, greet each day as though it were our last, regret the coming of night because it separates us from our working day."

It is as Burroughs or was it Thoreau put it, "Greet each dawn with joy and enthusiasm." All of the philosophers say it differently, but all of them as far back as Aristotle admit that the only way to live a well rounded and happy life is to do something in which we can completely lose ourselves. Only by losing oneself can a man find true happiness and forgetfulness. And only by the expression of one's own genius can he be really contented. No matter how many recipes you find for happiness the meat in them is the same.