The Contented Man by Hilaire Belloc — Read

Lucifer, for some time a bishop in Southern Italy (you did not know that, but it is true nevertheless, and you will find his name in the writings of Duchesne, and he took part in councils; nay, there was a time when I knew the very See of which he was bishop, but the passage of years effaces all these things) -- Lucifer, I say, laid it down in his System of Morals that contentment was a virtue, and said that it could be aimed at and acquired positively, just as any other virtue can. Then there are others who have said that it was but a frame of mind and the result of several virtues; but these are the thinkers. The great mass of people are willing to say that contentment is strictly in proportion to the amount of money one may have, and they are wrong. I remember now there was a Sultan, or some such dignitary, in Spain, who counted the days of his life which had been filled with content, and found that they were seventeen. He was lucky; there are not many of us who can say the same.

Then once a man told me this story about contentment, which seemed to me full of a profound meaning. It seems there was once an old gentleman who was possessed of something over half a million pounds, a banker, and this old gentleman every night of his life would go through certain little private books of his, compare them with the current list of prices, and estimate to a penny what he was worth before he slept.