| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/artofbeinghappy00droz |
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
There are about seventy Notes at the back of the book. These arereferenced in the text by a numeric anchor eg [1] or [15]; someanchors have an ‘a’ suffix eg [15a] or [21a].
There are two Footnotes in the main text, whose anchors are[A] and [B]. There are six Footnotes in the Notes section, whoseanchors are [C] to [H]. All eight Footnotes have been placed atthe back of the book after the Notes section.
Numerous minor text changes are noted in the Transcriber’s Note atthe end of the book.
FROM THE FRENCH OF DROZ,
‘SUR L’ART D’ETRE HEUREUX;’
IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
FROM
A FATHER TO HIS CHILDREN:
WITH
OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS.
BY TIMOTHY FLINT.
‘——sua si bonna nôrint.’—Virgil.
BOSTON,
PUBLISHED BY CARTER AND HENDEE.
1832.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832,
By Carter and Hendee,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
The text, upon which the following observations andcomments are based, does not assume to be a literal translationof the celebrated work of Droz. The original isstrongly idiomatic; and the author has carried an uncommontalent of being laconic sometimes to the point ofobscurity. I have often found it impossible to convey tothe English reader a sentiment, perfectly obvious in theoriginal, in as few words as are there used. The French,in its more numerous articles, more allowable and boldpersonifications, and arbitrary use of gender, has, in thehand of certain writers, this advantage over our language.When the doctrines of the book are comparedone with the other, and each with the general bearing ofthe work, the inculcation, namely, of the truth that virtueis happiness, there will be found nothing immoral or reprehensiblein it. The author, on the whole, leans tothe Epicurean philosophy. Unfavorable, though erroneousimpressions have been very generally entertained of thatphilosophy. In deference to that opinion, I have altogetheromitted the few sentences, which seemed appropriate tosome of the dogmas of the Epicureans. Nothing can be[iv]more remote from their alleged impiety, than the generaltenor of this work. One of its most eloq