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Beyond Economics
Happiness as a Standard
in our Personal Life and in
Politics

Jan Ott
Beyond Economics
 Jan Ott

Beyond Economics
Happiness as a Standard in our Personal
Life and in Politics
Jan Ott
World Database of Happiness, Erasmus Happiness
Economics Research Organization
Erasmus University
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

ISBN 978-3-030-56599-2    ISBN 978-3-030-56600-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56600-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

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 Preface

Confusion about the meaning of happiness and well-being can be very

frustrating in deliberations and discussions. This is regrettable because
happiness and well-being are important and unavoidable subjects in daily
conversations and in politics. Happiness is subjective well-being, or well-
being as experienced by people themselves. The other type of well-being
is objective well-being, or well-being as defined and assessed by experts
such as economists, biologists, physicians, and psychologists. If we want to
understand well-being, we must pay attention to both types and their
mutual relations.
Happiness, as the subjective appreciation of life, is based on the adop-
tion and application of standards. People adopt standards knowingly or
unknowingly, and are free to adopt whatever standards they prefer. They
may adopt very different standards and even inconsistent or immoral stan-
dards, and may change them whenever they want to.
This freedom must be respected, but it can be a source of confusion.
Happiness of different individuals will be incomparable if their standards
are very different; it will be complicated if they adopt inconsistent stan-
dards, and it will be unstable if they change their standards very often.
Happiness can even be immoral, and unfit as a general standard, if people
adopt immoral standards. Through research we know that people usually
adopt consistent, comparable, and morally acceptable standards, and do
not change them very often, but there is nevertheless substantial confu-
sion about these issues.
Another potential source of confusion is the relation between overall
happiness, cognition, and emotions. It is not unusual to distinguish

v
vi Preface

cognitive and emotional or affective happiness with different dynamics,

either as components of overall happiness or as different types of happi-
ness. Both options are acceptable, but we should not define overall happi-
ness as a high frequency of positive emotions and a low frequency of
negative emotions. People may value positive and negative emotions in
different ways if they apply different standards. Negative emotions can be
unpleasant and even painful, but can also be valuable and, perhaps in ret-
rospect, indispensable in someone’s life as a whole.
It is therefore respectful to pay attention, first of all, to evaluative hap-
piness, based on some reflection as a cognitive activity. It is also practical
since people think a lot about their own life, and they are usually able to
answer questions about their evaluative happiness quickly and in a rather
reliable way. Attention can then be paid to the different roles of cognition
and emotions, and to characteristics like consistency, comparability, stabil-
ity, and morality. The interaction between cognition and affect is intensive,
but it is a good start to assess the results of cognitive evaluation first.
An interesting outcome of happiness research is that it is relatively easy
to explain differences in average happiness in nations by an evaluation of
actual living conditions, while it is difficult to explain differences in indi-
vidual happiness. One reason is that more information is needed to explain
differences in individual happiness, for example, information about indi-
vidual genetics, personality, personal experiences, and mental problems.
Such information is not readily available in regular statistics and it is diffi-
cult to collect such information with simple surveys. Information about
actual common man-made living conditions can be found in regular statis-
tics, or collected through surveys. It is fascinating that the dramatic differ-
ences in average happiness in nations can be explained quite well. One
implication is that differences in collective man-made living conditions
play a crucial role for happiness.
Freedom contributes to happiness. There is more of individual freedom
and happiness in rich nations thanks to a high level of labor productivity.
There are, however, some awkward problems. There are unhappy minori-
ties, for example, relatively poor people and people with mental problems.
There is financial insecurity for people with flexible labor contracts, and
there is discrimination against minorities. There are high levels of posi-
tional competition and commercial manipulation, without proportional
benefits. The relations between rich and poor nations are unbalanced. The
sustainability of happiness is in danger due to serious ecological develop-
ments. Some problems are related to neo-liberalism.
 Preface  vii

Neo-liberalism is the dominant social-economic ideology in many soci-

eties. This ideology has positive consequences for freedom and happiness,
but there are shortcomings. The most fundamental shortcoming is argu-
ably that all the needs of the rich are gratified, while the fundamental
needs of the poor and their children remain ungratified. A more specific
shortcoming is that people are heavily manipulated by commercial adver-
tising. Their individual freedom to decide about standards is undermined.
Some other specific shortcomings are unjustifiable inequality, positional
competition, financial insecurity, and an upward pressure on production
and consumption with negative ecological consequences
It is not the ambition of this book to offer some blueprint for a perfect
society, but it does aim to reduce the confusion about the concept and the
nature of happiness. Reducing confusion can improve the effectiveness of
deliberations and discussions about happiness as subjective well-being and
well-being in general. It will make it easier to assess happiness as a poten-
tial descriptive standard, or as a potential standard to be pursued, and it
will make it easier to identify and analyze the current shortcomings of
neo-liberalism.
Reducing confusion can also be beneficial in yet another different way.
Many rich people want to change their priorities. They want to put less
priority on economic standards like income, and more priority on non-
economic standards like happiness. The Corona pandemic supports this
development. Many people have to stay home over longer periods. This
can be a financial disaster for poor people, but many rich people discover
that money is not enough for happiness. A reduction of the confusion
about happiness and well-being in general can facilitate this development
beyond economics.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands Jan Ott

 Acknowledgements

On November 27, 2012, I defended my dissertation An Eye on Happiness;

happiness as an additional goal for citizens and governments. After the
approval of the dissertation, I had many discussions with very different
people, for example, people with different religious or political convictions
and experts with different scientific disciplines. Confusion about happiness
and well-being is a recurrent and frustrating problem in such discussions.
In this book, I pay more attention to this confusion. Some people who
helped me with my dissertation continued their support. Ruut Veenhoven,
initiator and Director of the World Database of Happiness, gave valuable
advice and the Database was an important source of information. Many
volunteers filled this database day by day and bit by bit. Tim Taylor, author
of the book, Knowing what is Good for You: a theory of prudential value
and well-being, helped me again with corrections in linguistics and sugges-
tions in content. And finally: Marian never ceased to encourage me to
contribute to a better understanding of happiness and well-being.

ix
 Contents

1 Introduction: The Confusion About Happiness  1

2 The Concept and the Nature of Happiness as Subjective

Well-Being 17

3 Affective Happiness, or the Affective Component

of Happiness 35

4 Cognitive Happiness, or the Cognitive Component

of Happiness 45

5 Back to Overall Happiness: It Exists! 61

6 The Measurement and Explanation of Happiness 71

7 Governments and Happiness 93

8 Happiness as a Descriptive Standard or as a Standard

to be Pursued 107

xi
xii CONTENTS

9 What If? A More Critical Lifestyle and Some Policy

Options125

10 Summary, Concluding Remarks and General Conclusion135


Bibliography; Beyond Economics: Happiness as a Standard
in our Personal Life and in Politics; J.C. Ott145

Index153
 About the Author

Jan Cornelis Ott studied sociology and law and specialized in social eco-
nomic policy, labour relations and public administration. He worked as a
policy adviser for the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment
and participated in several Conferences of the International Labour
Organization. Since 2004 he has worked as a social researcher at the
World Database of Happiness at the Erasmus Happiness Economics
Research Organization, at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In 2012
he finished his dissertation An Eye on Happiness; happiness as an additional
goal for citizens and governments. He published many articles about the
importance of the quality of governments for well-­being and happiness,
for example in The Journal of Happiness Studies and in Social Indicators
Research.

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Confusion About

Happiness

The Scottish Enlightenment Revisited; Pessimism

andOptimism About Happiness as a Common Goal;
Confusion as an Obstacle
Happiness was an important subject in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1725
Francis Hutcheson published his Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil.1
The test or criterion of right action is in his view its tendency to promote the
general welfare of mankind. People should try to promote this general welfare,
and they should do it in an altruistic manner, disregarding their own interests.
He anticipated the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, who published The
Principles of Morals and Legislation in 1789,2 not only in principle but even in
the use of the phrase the greatest happiness for the greatest number. A key point
in this philosophy is that the morality of behaviour and decisions depends on
their impact on happiness. Hutcheson and Bentham clearly accept happiness,
not just as an individual goal but also as a common or collective goal.
Hutcheson was a professor in philosophy in Glasgow and had two stu-
dents who became famous in their own right: David Hume and Adam
Smith. David Hume published his Enquiry concerning the Principles of
Morals in 1751.3 In this book he argues that we have to discern questions

1
Hutcheson, F. (1725). Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil.
2
Bentham, J. (1789). The Principles of Morals and Legislation.
3
Hume, D. (1751). Enquiry concerning the principles of morals.

© The Author(s), under exclusive 1

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
J. Ott, Beyond Economics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56600-5_1
2 J. OTT

about is and ought; or ontological questions about how things actually are
and deontological questions about how things should be.
Adam Smith finished his first version of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
in 1759 and his last version in 1790.4 In this book Smith argues that the
morality of behaviour can be assessed independently of the consequences.
Important virtues are prudence, justice and benevolence. “The man who
acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict justice, and of
proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly virtuous.”5 He also writes:
“Concern for our own happiness recommends to us the virtue of pru-
dence; concern for that of other people, the virtue of justice and benefi-
cence, of which the one restrains us from hurting, the other prompts us to
promote that happiness.”6
Smith apparently respects happiness as a crucial value or touchstone,
but he finds that the possibilities of attention and care are limited. People
can take care for their own happiness, the happiness of their family, friends
and country, but taking care for universal happiness of all rational and
sensible beings is problematic.7 He, therefore, accepts happiness as an
individual goal, but he is sceptical about the possibilities to adopt happi-
ness as a common goal. It is important to notice that this scepticism is
practical by nature. In contemporary terminology we may say that Smith
is doubtful about empathy, as our capability to understand the position
and the feelings of other people. This attitude is supported by current
insights that empathy only works if people feel they are ‘of the same kind’.8,
9
It is an inconvenient truth.
It is also interesting to notice that Smith, with this distinction between
happiness as a personal or collective goal, pays attention to the problem of
‘collective-’ or ‘social choice’: how do we get from individual wants or

4
Smith, A., Theory of Moral Sentiments. Dover Publications, Inc. Mineola, New York.
First version in 1759, last version in 1790.
5
Ibid., page 239, first sentence in ‘Section III, Of self-command’.
6
Ibid., page 263, first sentence of ‘Conclusion of the first part’.
7
Ibid., page 238, in Chapter III, ‘Of universal benevolence’. “The administration of the
great system of the universe, however, the care of universal happiness of all rational and sen-
sible beings, is the business of God, and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler
department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrow-
ness of his comprehension—the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends,
his country”.
8
Boom, P. (2013) Just Babies. The origins of good and evil. Crown Publishers.
9
Kiley Hamlin, J. et al. ‘Not like me = Bad: infants prefer those who harm dissimilar oth-
ers’ Psychological Science, Vol. 24, Issue 4 (2013).
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 3

preferences to collective actions and policies. This is obviously a key issue

in economics and in political science.10
Inspired by Bernard Mandeville‘s The Fable of the Bees, Private vices,
Public benefits,11 Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776.12 He
concludes that it is acceptable, and positive for the general welfare, that
people promote their own private interests. This creates the invisible hand
of free markets, and leads to the best possible outcomes. It is clear that
Smith distinguishes general welfare and happiness, and that this distinction
is important for him. People can create more utility and general welfare,
and this can be a common goal, but they cannot create general happiness.
People may therefore promote their own interests, but Smith clearly
rejects selfish behaviour and is very critical about Mandeville, who is less
moralistic in this respect.13 It would be incorrect, however, to suggest that
Mandeville would approve, or even accept, unethical behaviour; he just
wanted to be open minded14 about human nature and despised hypocrisy,
in particular puritan hypocrisy by the church. Smith repeats his rejection
of selfish behaviour very explicitly in his last publication of the Theory of
Moral Sentiments in 1790, 14 years after the publication of the Wealth of
Nations.15
We may conclude that Smith distinguishes happiness and general eco-
nomic welfare for practical reasons. He accepted happiness as a fundamen-
tal value and an individual goal, but he was pessimistic about happiness as

10
Condorcet, N. (1785) also paid attention to this issue of collective choice in a rather
mathematical way in his essay ‘Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of
Majority Decisions’.
11
Mandeville B. (1714–1729). The Fable of the Bees, Private vices, Public benefits.
12
Smith, A. (1776). The Wealth of Nations.
13
See Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII, Section II, Chapter IV, Of licentious
systems.
14
Mandeville once said about himself: ‘I am a Philopirio’, or: ‘I am a lover of empirical
knowledge’. He was very critical about corruption and nepotism. He had to leave Rotterdam
after a conflict with some local administrators, and went to London in 1693 where he worked
as a physician. He found that governments should control people and steer them in the right
direction, but governments can only do so if they accept and understand the facts.
15
The very first sentence of ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’ is worth noting in this
respect: “How selfish soever man be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his
nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to
him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it”. This statement got
some nice empirical support in: Knight, John B. and Gunatilaka, Ramani, Is Happiness
Infectious? (February 2017). Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 64, Issue 1,
pp. 1–24, 2017.
4 J. OTT

a common goal. The happiness of other people has to be respected, but

people may pursue their own economic interests without being altruistic.
After the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Jeremy Bentham devel-
oped his utilitarianism with happiness as the ultimate guiding principle.
This terminology is a bit odd. In his book The Principles of Morals and
Legislation,16 Bentham uses the phrase the principle of utility, even though
he admits that the phrase the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle
is more appropriate. In his vision the word utility does not so clearly point
to the idea of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicity do. He
uses the phrase the principle of utility—and utilitarianism—nevertheless
for shortness.
Nowadays we must distinguish utility and happiness, because the terms
can no longer be used as synonyms.17
At the end of the eighteenth century there was a lot of attention to hap-
piness as a goal. In 1785 George Washington wrote in a letter: “My first
wish …, is to see the whole world in peace, and the inhabitants of it as one
band of brothers, striving who should contribute most to the happiness of
mankind.”18 Accepting happiness as a common goal is, however, more
complicated than accepting it as an individual goal. In 1796 there was a
proposal to adopt an article in the first Dutch constitution, proclaiming
that: “People become united in society for the purpose of the undisturbed
enjoyment of their natural and equal rights and the promotion of each
other’s happiness.” This proposal was never accepted because of the vague-
ness and broadness of the concept of happiness.19 Happiness was only
introduced in a legal context in the American Declaration of Independence
(1776) and in the first article of the French Declaration of Human Rights
(1791). Nowadays some nations acknowledge happiness as a general
goal,20 but so far without substantial consequences in actual policies.

Bentham, J. (1789). The Principles of Morals and Legislation.

16

See Ott, J.C. (2011). Limited experienced happiness or unlimited expected utility, what
17

about the differences? Journal of happiness Studies, 12 (3) 519–524. (Review of the book
Happiness around the world: the paradox of happy peasant and miserable millionaires (2009)
by Carol Graham; New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
18
George Washington, 1785, in a letter to Marquis de la Routerie. Citation can be read
high in the Obelisk of the George Washington memorial in Washington, DC.
19
Buijs, P. The Age of Happiness. Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment,
1658–1835. Dissertation, Utrecht 2007, with a summary in English. The critical attitude of
Kant about happiness as a value also played a role here.
20
There is a lot of attention to happiness and well-being in policy and legislation in the
UK. Gross National Happiness is even a primary goal in the Constitution of Bhutan since
2008; and well-being has been given high priority in New Zealand since 2019.
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 5

Continuing Confusion
In retrospect we may say that there has always been confusion about the
concept and the nature of happiness, for example about the morality and
the altruistic or egocentric character, about the difference between utility
and happiness, and about the possibilities to assess, explain and under-
stand happiness. There have been many developments in the interpreta-
tion of happiness,21 and empirical research has produced many results in
the last decades. We know more about happiness, but it is still a compli-
cated concept and phenomenon, with some troubling ambiguities.
Some relatively new and underestimated complications are related to
the dualism and comparability of happiness, and the value-freedom of
happiness research. Happiness is nowadays defined as the enduring appre-
ciation of life-as-a-whole. This happiness is in fact a specific type of subjec-
tive well-being, as will be explained later. Happiness, as the appreciation of
life as a whole, is dualistic because it depends on two components: the
affective and cognitive component.
The affective component is about emotional well-being or the hedonic
level of affect. This component depends on the gratification of general
human needs, but also on perceived gaps between how life should be, and
how it actually is. People have a language with symbols, and can imagine
and describe an invisible world, as they would like to have it, as a utopia.
They may also be less ambitious and just imagine the real world, but with
some important improvements.
It is important to distinguish between short- and long-term affective
happiness. Short-term affective happiness is about emotions and moods.
Long-term affective happiness is about more enduring mental and emo-
tional dispositions, such as cheerfulness or pessimism. Such dispositions
are related to emotional experiences but also to personality and genetic
properties. Mental problems, such as anxiety and depression, may have a
negative impact on long-term affective happiness.
It is relatively easy to measure short-term affective happiness with ques-
tionnaires. Momentary emotions, and emotions during short periods like
a day or a week, can be assessed by asking simple questions. The problem
is, however, that there are strong fluctuations in emotions and moods. It

21
In his book ‘Happiness, a history’ (2005, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York), Darrin
M. McMahon describes the developments in the interpretation of happiness since Socrates.
6 J. OTT

is difficult to assess average emotions and moods, and underlying trends,

over longer periods. The measurement of long-term affective happiness is
relatively complicated, and there is no consensus, so far, about some sim-
ple questions to be used in questionnaires.
The cognitive component in happiness depends on a more stable appre-
ciation of life. This appreciation is, like any appreciation, based on the
adoption and application of standards. Standards can be used in just a
descriptive way to describe a situation. Usually they have at least some
normative content, even if they are only used in a descriptive way. It is
informative, in this context, that there are several equivalents for the term
standard, like indicator, criterion, measure, norm, demand, expectation,
goal and value. There is always some normative connotation or loading,
but in slightly different degrees; going up from indicator to value.
Standard and norm are somewhere in the middle. If we use the phrase
happiness as a goal or happiness as a value, it would imply that happiness
has to be pursued, but if we use the phrase happiness as a standard, we may
still decide to apply happiness only as descriptive standard, or to actually
pursue it. It is important to accept, however, that there has to be some
minimum appreciation of happiness as a standard, even if happiness is only
used as a descriptive standard.
People may adopt and apply standards knowingly, but usually they do
so unknowingly. The adoption and application of standards are therefore
subject to pressure from the social environment, or even manipulation.
Such standards can be relatively simple, like standards about income,
wealth, the quality of jobs, cars and houses, social relations, appearance,
entertainment and hobbies. But standards can also be more fundamental,
for example, if they are related to values, like solidarity, justice, equality,
individual freedom and morality. With such standards people can appreci-
ate their life and decide how happy they are, but in a further step they can
also decide to use this happiness as a new autonomous standard, to be
applied, or even pursued, in their personal life or in politics.
People are free to adopt whatever standards they prefer, and to decide
about priorities, but they always have to decide about the priority they
want to put on their own short- or long-term affective happiness. Affective
happiness, or the hedonic level of affect, is always the most trivial and
inescapable standard to be applied in the evaluation of life. Children are
primarily occupied with this affective happiness, but as they grow older
they may adopt alternative standards, such as being social or good-­looking,
making money or being successful as a pianist or in chess or sports.
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 7

There is an intensive interaction between the affective and cognitive

component, but they also have their own dynamics and characteristics. It
is not unusual therefore to distinguish affective and cognitive happiness as
two different types of happiness. This dualism of happiness poses the ques-
tion of whether we may discern anything like overall happiness, or happi-
ness in general, or encompassing happiness. Or put differently: there is a
definition of ‘overall happiness’, but is there a corresponding reality? If we
have to reject this idea, we can only pay attention to either affective or
cognitive happiness. This complication is about the consistency of affec-
tive and cognitive happiness; or to be practical: about the differences in
levels of affective and cognitive happiness, at specific moments or over
longer periods. If such differences are small, we may conclude that there is
consistency, but we have to be careful if the differences are substantial.
If we may accept the notion of ‘overall happiness’, we will have to deal
with another complication: can we compare the happiness of different
individuals, and can we compare the happiness of the same individuals in
different periods of time? These two issues are sometimes denoted as the
problems of interpersonal and longitudinal comparability.
Comparability is always a somewhat intriguing issue. A helpful distinc-
tion is made by John Gerring and Craig Thomas between descriptive and
causal comparability.22 Observations are comparable in a descriptive way if
they are scorable on some scale, and if the measured attribute, such as self-­
reported happiness, means the same thing across different contexts.
Observations are comparable in a causal way if a cause X has the same
relationship with all observations or scores of the dependent factor Y, such
as the self-reported happiness of different individuals. Descriptive compa-
rability is a condition for causal comparability.
Put differently: we may say that happiness is always comparable in a
descriptive or quantitative way, because we can always compare the appre-
ciation of life of different people, if this appreciation is expressed in scores
on some numerical scale, like a 1 to 10 scale. But if this appreciation is
based on very different standards, then the meaning and the determinants
of self-reported happiness will be different as well. Then we cannot com-
pare happiness in a more qualitative causal way and we are not able to
explain differences in happiness. We can turn this argument around: if we

22
Gerring, J. and Thomas, C. W. (2011). Quantitative and Qualitative: A Question of
Comparability. Extended version of chapter published in International Encyclopedia of
Political Science. Eds: Badie, B.; Berg-Schlosser, D.; Morlino, L.; Sage, 2011.
8 J. OTT

can explain differences in happiness with some explanatory factors, then

we may assume that there is causal comparability, and if there is causal
comparability, then there must be descriptive comparability. The implica-
tion is not that the standards people apply are identical, but that they are
similar enough to create comparability.
The fact that happiness is also based on the adoption and adaptation of
standards implies that happiness is not a value-free phenomenon.23
Happiness is not by definition based on virtues or morally acceptable,
since people may adopt immoral and egocentric standards in their appre-
ciation of life. Even if happiness is not a value-free phenomenon, however,
we can still do happiness research in a value-free fashion. The idea of
value-free research was defended by the German sociologist Max Weber.24
This idea implies, in a nutshell, that the selection of a topic and the formu-
lation of research-questions can never be value-free, because these steps
depend on personal or political values. Value-free research is possible,
however, in the next stages of any research, and in particular in the collec-
tion and analysis of data. If this is done appropriately, then we may expect
that different scientists will get the same results.25 We may assume that this
idea is consistent with the vision of David Hume, that we must make a
distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’.

Ambition: Less Confusion in Personal

and Political Deliberations

Inspired by David Hume and Max Weber, some results of value-free

empirical happiness research will be used to reduce the confusion. We may
say that happiness is a wicked problem, and we should make it less wicked by
creating more clarity.26

23
In a symposium in Leiden (Netherlands): “Towards the Wellbeing-Economy” (December
12, 2019) an economist posed the straight question: “Who are you to decide what my well-
being is?”. He might have asked the same question for happiness. The correct answer would
be: “People are free to decide about their own standards in their evaluation of their own life; and
researchers must accept that!” As a consequence researchers must pay attention to the consis-
tency and stability of the standards and to the diversity of standards of different individuals.
If people apply very different standards, their happiness will be dependent on different fac-
tors and this creates an interpersonal comparability problem.
24
Max Weber. Wissenschaft als Beruf (1917–1919) und Politik als Beruf (1919).
25
This is the generally accepted criterium of the ‘repeatability’ of research.
26
Bache, I. and Reardon, L.; (2016) The politics and policy of wellbeing. Edward Elgar
Publishing. They define ‘wicked problems’ as ill-defined problems, without a definitive for-
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 9

It is always good to reduce confusion, but there are some specific rea-
sons to reduce the confusion about happiness. The first reason is that hap-
piness is an important type of subjective well-being, and well-being is a
central issue in many personal and political deliberations. People, politi-
cians and policy-makers included, spend a lot of time thinking about their
own well-being and about well-being in general. It would be beneficial if
the reflections and deliberations could be made more effective, by reduc-
ing confusion. If we are optimistic, we may even hope that a reduction of
confusion can improve the effectiveness of political systems, and may lead
to a better management of social conflicts, tensions and problems.
A reduction of confusion will also make it easier to assess the suitability
of happiness as a personal or political standard. Happiness is also based on
perceived gaps between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, and these gaps depend on the
adoption and application of standards. We may expect that individuals
approve their own standards as a rule. Individual happiness is therefore a
natural goal for individuals, but there are complications. The main com-
plication is that individuals adopt many standards unknowingly, and they
may adopt inconsistent, overambitious or inconvenient standards, or even
immoral standards, for example about racial relations.
It is even less self-evident that we should pursue happiness as a common
or collective goal, because individual happiness can, theoretically, be based
on very different standards, and might be incomparable as a consequence.
It is not helpful to accept happiness as a common goal, if the happiness of
every individual is unique.
We have to analyse these problems first before we decide about happi-
ness as a standard, to be used in a descriptive way or to be pursued in our
personal life or in politics. The acceptance of happiness as a personal or
common standard is ultimately a normative decision. It is appropriate,
however, to assess the suitability first, in a value-free fashion, before such
decisions are made.
It is important to observe that we can adopt happiness as a standard in
different ways. We can accept it in a modest way as a descriptive standard,
to describe differences in happiness and to identify and analyse problems.
We can also be more ambitious and use happiness as a standard to be
actively pursued, and to be used to decide about priorities. If we want to

mulation of the factors involved, without a set of describable solutions, where the explana-
tion determines the nature of the solution. This wicked problem can only be resolved from
time to time, but can never be solved for good.
10 J. OTT

pursue happiness actively, we still have different options. In classical utili-

tarianism happiness is always pursued in the most effective way: any act or
rule contributing the most to average happiness will have the highest pri-
ority. In the philosophy of negative utilitarianism, it is the most effective
reduction of unhappiness, of the most unhappy people, that will have the
highest priority.
Happiness is appreciated as a value in all options, but with different
levels of commitment. People who reject happiness as a standard to be
actively pursued might still be interested in the application of happiness as
a descriptive standard. People can benefit from such exercises by getting a
better understanding, even if they are critical about happiness as a domi-
nant goal. It is good to have such options!

Some Problems of Current Neo-liberalism

It is informative to pay attention to some current social-economic prob-
lems that might be identified and analysed more effectively. Neo-liberalism
has become a dominant social-economic system in most nations. This neo-­
liberalism is very successful in many respects, but it goes together with
some problems. Happiness as a goal, or just as a standard or point of refer-
ence, can make it easier to identify and handle those problems.
Neo-liberalism is based on the pursuit of private interests and directed
at maximum utility, as expressed in wealth, individual income and
GDP. This is not just selfish or egocentric, but very practical and produc-
tive, as explained by Smith. As argued by Sen (1999),27 there are two basic
reasons to respect free markets: first of all as a matter of principle: people
should be free to buy and sell, to work and to hire people, to save, and to
spend or invest, according to their own priorities. The second reason is
that markets are effective in creating employment, a good fit between pro-
duction and consumption, and a reasonable distribution of labour and
other resources. Competition, free trade and mobility of capital, labour
and resources are in general beneficial for well-being.28

27
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Anchor Books, Random House, New York.
In particular: Introduction and Chapter 1: The perspective of freedom.
28
See: Ott, J.C. How much competition do we need in a civilized society? Journal of
Happiness Studies, 12(3), 525–529. Review of the book ‘Winning; Reflections on an
American obsession’ (2011) by Francesca Duina. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press.
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 11

There is, however, also a broad consensus that free markets can create
problems, perhaps as collateral damage, and need effective supervision to
manage these problems. Free markets need strong governments to keep
them free and effective. Governments must have enough quality, for
example sufficient expertise, capability and capacity, to develop policy
options, to start a political discussion, and to select options in a demo-
cratic way, to provide for adequate interventions. This is particularly
important if markets are supposed to deliver crucial commodities and ser-
vices, like education, energy, water, food, medicine, medical care and
financial products. The need for interventions is more complicated if the
actual productivity of the economy is high, because then there are more
normative choices to be made.
We can make a short tentative list of some current problems of neo-­
liberalism, which could be identified and analysed more effectively if hap-
piness could be used as a standard.

(a) In general: frustration of fundamental needs of the poor

The most general problem with neo-liberalism is that no distinc-
tion is made between fundamental and less fundamental needs. The
gratification of needs depends on the availability of money and not
on their priority for well-being or happiness. Marginal needs of peo-
ple with money are gratified quite well, while basic needs of the
poor, in particular in poor countries, are not gratified. Rich people
can play golf and fly around for their birthday parties, or to lie on
beaches for a few days, while poor people do not get adequate
­medical care and education. This drawback is very clear and visible,
but difficult to repair. It might be easier to define and analyse this
problem if happiness could be used as an additional standard. The
usual economic indicators for progress, like wealth, individual
income and GDP, are unfit to deal with such problems. In such
indicators expenditures always get the same weight, independent of
their impact on well-being or happiness. It is important to notice
that the distinction made here, between fundamental and less fun-
damental needs, deserves critical attention. Rich people may reject
the distinction, and may say they really need everything they con-
sume to gratify their needs. They may say they really need nice
paintings, for example a Rembrandt, to be happy. Strong arguments
are needed to say that such needs are less fundamental than other
needs. If we decide to apply happiness as a standard, however, and
12 J. OTT

if the gratification of fundamental needs has more impact on happi-

ness, then we are entitled to put a higher priority on the gratification
of fundamental needs.
(b) Upward pressure on production and consumption
Neo-liberal capitalism has produced a high level of labour pro-
ductivity in many nations. This labour productivity is very impor-
tant for well-being, happiness and individual freedom. This is a
great achievement, but some consequences are problematic for hap-
piness and for the sustainability of happiness. Personal income still
depends heavily on individual contributions to the production of
paid commodities and services. People have to produce to earn
money, and their high productivity creates an upward pressure on
the production and consumption of paid goods and services. The
upward pressure is a problem for ecological sustainability and for
the sustainability of happiness. It is also a problem for individual
freedom, because it creates a permanent overdose of commercial
advertising.
(c) Security by cost-ineffective positional competition in rich nations
In neo-liberal societies people always have to put a high priority
on their relative financial position in terms of income and wealth,
irrespective of the actual quality of their living conditions. High
levels of income and wealth always create more security for the grat-
ification of fundamental needs, and in particular against events like
illness, disability, unemployment, or being surrounded by bad
neighbours. If people can dispose of more money than other ­people,
they can always organize the best medical care and personal sup-
port. They can also move to a better neighbourhood if they want to.
Some security can be achieved with insurance, but having more
money than other people is always the most effective strategy.
Efforts to improve relative positions can be beneficial for everybody,
if they go together with more productivity, as pointed out by Adam
Smith. But this logic becomes disputable if productivity is already at
a high level. Improving one’s relative financial position, to get more
personal security, is very cost-ineffective in high-productivity situa-
tions. In such situations improvements in relative positions for some
people go together with a deterioration in relative positions for oth-
ers, without any beneficial side-effects. Collective provisions might
be an alternative. We need an additional standard to analyse this
problem. Happiness can be such a standard.
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 13

(d) Distribution of work in high-productivity nations

Particularly in rich nations, with high levels of productivity, neo-­
liberalism leads to problems in the distribution of work. Levels of
income and remuneration are less effective as motivating factors.
This is a type of luxury, and we may appreciate this situation, but it
creates problems. In rich nations like the Netherlands, it makes it
difficult to find people who want to take care of vulnerable young or
old people, or people with some disability. A related and symptom-
atic problem is the tendency of central banks to pump more cheap
money into the economy, to keep up economic activity and to mini-
mize unemployment. This random and crude approach is not very
effective and leads to low interest rates, with negative consequences
for pensions. It also creates more financial inequality, since big banks
and rich people benefit disproportionally. In general it leads to less
stability and predictability, with detrimental effects for people’s abil-
ity to make their own plans for the future. They lose control, and
losing control is bad for happiness. A better understanding of the
pursuit of happiness, as an alternative motivating factor, can make it
easier to get the work done, without such kill or cure remedies.

In a nutshell we may conclude that a reduction of confusion about happi-

ness can make it easier to adopt or reject happiness as a personal or collec-
tive goal or standard. If we adopt happiness as a personal or collective goal,
or just as an additional standard for the evaluation of social-economic situ-
ations, it will be easier to identify and analyse current problems. Particularly
in rich nations, people are already interested in putting a higher priority on
happiness as a standard for social progress, possibly in combination with a
lower priority for economic utility-based standards like economic growth
and purchasing power. Such a change in priorities in rich nations might
create more attention and priority for the low levels of happiness in poor
nations. It can also make it easier to diminish questionable consumption
and to organize an adequate distribution of labour in rich nations. So far,
however, such a change in priorities is not really taking place. Confusion
about the meaning, morality and explainability of happiness is an underly-
ing obstacle.
14 J. OTT

Approach
The approach in this book is based on the conviction that happiness is an
interesting subject, but that we should assess happiness first, as a concept
and as an actual phenomenon, before we decide about happiness as a stan-
dard to be used in a descriptive way or to be actively pursued. This assess-
ment can be done in a value-free fashion, but the eventual decision is
obviously a personal or political choice. Before such a decision is made, we
should also try to compare the suitability of happiness as a standard with
the suitability of alternative standards, like freedom, justice, solidarity and
doing your duty.
The first step in this book is a discussion of the concept of happiness
and some characteristics of happiness as a phenomenon (Chap. 2).
Chapters 3 and 4 are about affective and cognitive happiness, as the com-
ponents of overall happiness. In Chap. 5 we get back to overall happiness,
as an outcome of the interaction between affective and cognitive happi-
ness. The consistency of overall happiness appears to be sufficient. Chapter
6 is about some results of empirical research. With these results we can
assess the comparability of happiness more accurately. Chapter 7 is about
the importance of good governance. The relation between governments
and citizens is a sensitive issue, but can be managed. Chapter 8 is about
arguments to accept or reject happiness as a standard, followed by a careful
conclusion. Chapter 9 presents some ‘what if’ exercises: what might we
expect if happiness were accepted as standard in our personal life and in
politics? Such exercises are meant to clarify the practical importance of
happiness as a standard, and may also stimulate our imagination. Chapter
10 is a summary of the main conclusions.
The first seven chapters are value-free, but the conclusion in Chap. 8
and the ‘what if’ exercises in Chap. 9 are not value-free. The conclusion of
Chap. 8 is that we can use happiness as a standard, and the ‘what if’ exer-
cises in Chap. 9 are based on the assumption that happiness has at least
enough merit to justify such exercises. This conclusion and assumption are
obviously not value-free.
My personal/political opinion is that happiness is indeed an acceptable
standard. This opinion is based on the inventory of pros and cons, but also
on my expectation that a somewhat higher priority for happiness will not
have a negative impact on the importance of alternative goals I appreciate,
like equality before the law, minimal respect, individual freedom, justice,
minimal financial equality and solidarity. It might have a negative effect,
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONFUSION ABOUT HAPPINESS 15

however, on the relative importance of economic utility-based goals, like

maximal economic growth, personal income, profits and employment
just in terms of paid jobs. Such theoretical consequences are acceptable for
me. But this is a personal/political conviction about how the world
ought to be.

Title of the Book

There are two reasons for the long title of this book: Beyond Economics:
Happiness as a Standard in our Personal Life and in Politics. One reason is
that the validity of the economic theory of the invisible hand has been
eroded by high levels of productivity, and a substantial reduction of scar-
city. A second reason is that there are differences between ‘utility’, as a key
concept in economics, and happiness. Happiness is just subjective, utility
is somewhat ambiguous because it is subjective, but related to characteris-
tics of goods and services as objective realities, for example the utility of a
house is related to the number and the size of the rooms. Utility is about
the appreciation of goods and services for sale on the market, as expressed
in the prices people are willing to pay, while happiness is about the appre-
ciation of life as a whole. As a consequence happiness has more sources:
utility can be derived from the qualities and quantities of goods and ser-
vices, while happiness can be derived from anything; from goods and ser-
vices, but also from general conditions, activities, events and social
relations. Since happiness depends on more factors, we may conclude that
the pursuit of happiness, and the acceptance of happiness as a standard,
must go beyond economics.

Bibliography
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York: Anchor Books, Random House.
 CHAPTER 2

The Concept and the Nature of Happiness

as Subjective Well-Being

The Current Concept of Happiness

and Complications

This chapter presents an explanation of the concept of general or ‘overall’

happiness with an inventory of some complications. A widely accepted
definition of happiness is: The enduring appreciation of individuals of their
own life as a whole.1 This appreciation is a mental state, and not by defini-
tion based on correct information or high moral standards. Some compli-
cations are directly related to the wording in this definition, but there are
also some subtle differences between this definition and alternative inter-
pretations in everyday life. The difference between happiness and utility is
fundamental and deserves careful consideration. It is also important to pay
attention to complications in the nature of happiness as an actual
phenomenon; in particular, the subjectivity, the dualism, and the top-
down and bottom-up dynamics between happiness and domain satisfac-
tions. First of all we can pose the question of whether we can define
happiness, as a specific type of subjective well-being, in a value-free way.

1
A somewhat more extensive formulation is presented by Veenhoven: the degree to which an
individual judges the overall quality of his/her life-as-a-whole favourably; or in other words: how
much one likes the life one leads. Veenhoven, R. In: Introductory text for the World Database
of Happiness. Veenhoven, R., World Database of Happiness, Erasmus University Rotterdam,
The Netherlands. Assessed August 2020 at: http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl.

© The Author(s), under exclusive 17

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
J. Ott, Beyond Economics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56600-5_2
18 J. OTT

Happiness, Defined as Subjective Well-Being, Can

Be Defined in a Value-Free Way
As very nicely demonstrated by Alexandrova (2017),2 it is virtually impos-
sible to define well-being in general, without any consideration of the
people involved and their social-economic context. If well-being is defined
in more specific contexts, then it is, in her view, still impossible to do so in
a value-free approach, without the adoption of any value-­ judgement.
These arguments are convincing if well-being, or quality of life for that
matter, is defined as an objective reality, with some explicit or implicit
selection of standards. Value judgements are indeed inevitable in such
definitions.
In a discussion about well-being between economists one economist
was therefore fully entitled to pose the straight question: Who are you to
decide what my well-being is?3 He might have asked the same question for
happiness. People are free, and feel free, to decide about their own
individual priorities and standards in their appreciation of their life and
living conditions. In this way people are also free to decide how they
experience meaning and purpose in life. This is obviously one of the most
fundamental capabilities people have.
We do not need such value judgements, however, in the definition of
subjective realities. If well-being is defined as a subjective reality, as
experienced in people’s consciousness, we can just take this experience as
a matter of fact. Happiness is a specific type of subjective well-being and
can be defined without value-judgements.

Happiness as a Specific Type of Subjective Well-Being

Ruut Veenhoven (2015)4 discerns four types of subjective well-being, or
well-being as experienced by the people themselves in their consciousness,
by making two distinctions, between:

2
Alexandrova, A. (2017) A philosophy for the science of well-being. Oxford
University Press.
3
In a symposium in Leiden (Netherlands): “Towards the Wellbeing-Economy”, December
12, 2019.
4
Veenhoven, R. (2015). Overall satisfaction with life: Subjective approaches. in: Wolfgang
Glatzer, Laura Camfield, Valerie Moller & Mariano Rojas (Eds.) ‘The Global handbook of
Quality of Life: Explorations of well-being in nations and continents’, Springer Publishers,
Dordrecht, Netherlands, page 207–238.
 2 THE CONCEPT AND THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS AS SUBJECTIVE… 19

• Passing short-term subjective well-being and enduring long-term

subjective well-being
• Well-being related to specific domains of life or related to life
as a whole

The combination of distinctions creates four types of subjective well-being

(Table 2.1).

• Passing well-being related to a domain of life: pleasure

• Enduring well-being related to a domain of life: domain satisfaction
• Passing well-being related to life as a whole: top experience
• Enduring well-being related to life as a whole: happiness

An interesting issue is the relation between happiness and domain-­

satisfactions: is happiness an outcome of different domain-satisfactions
(bottom-up), or do domain-satisfactions depend on happiness (top-­
down)? Headey and Wearing (1992, their proposition 3.2)5 discern seven
domains of life, strongly related to happiness or well-being in their termi-
nology: marriage and sex, friendship and leisure, material standard of liv-
ing, work and health. They find, with Australian panel-data,6 that happiness
has a top-down impact on satisfaction with leisure, material standard of
living and work, while there is a mutual influence between happiness and
satisfaction with marriage and sex. Health is usually taken for granted and
only moderately related to overall happiness. It can become a dissatisfier if
there are serious problems; then it has a negative bottom-up impact on
overall happiness and on the other domain-­satisfactions. Absence of seri-
ous health problems is a primary condition for happiness and
domain-satisfactions.

Table 2.1 Four types

of subjective well-­being;
happiness is the endur-
ing appreciation of life
as a whole
Passing Enduring
Domains of life Pleasure Domain satisfaction
Life as a whole Top experience Happiness

5
Headey, B. and Wearing, A. (1992). Understanding Happiness: A theory of subjective
well-being. Melbourne, Australia. Longman Cheshire Pty Limited.
6
Source: the Victorian Quality of Life (VQOL) panel study.
Another random document with
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the fall term draw near—delayed by repairs on the schoolhouse far
beyond its usual time—without a single word or sign as to her going.
And the day before it was to begin Mrs. Hagood said to her, “Posey, I
want you to pick the green tomatoes to-morrow morning, then after
dinner you can chop them for the mixed pickle.”
Posey’s heart sank with dismay. The ambition the teacher at the
Refuge had awakened, had grown with her own growth; more still,
an education seemed her one hope of escape from the life of a
charity dependent, and she determined to risk a great deal rather
than give it up. “Hadn’t I better pick the tomatoes to-day?” she asked
not without an inward trembling of the heart. “You know school
begins to-morrow.”
Mrs. Hagood paused in the pantry door. “Well, what if it does?”
“Why, you promised me, don’t you remember? that I should go to
school this fall.”
“I don’t remember, no, and I can’t spare you to go, anyway.
There’s all the pickles to put up, and apples to dry, and apple butter
to stir, and the pig to be killed, with lard to try out, and sausage to
make, and potatoes to be sorted over, and Brother Solon’s wife
coming for a visit. You don’t much more than earn your salt now, and
to go to school you wouldn’t be worth anything. All you care about it
anyway is just for an excuse to race and run and get rid of work.”
“It isn’t, either,” Posey protested hotly, “I like to study. Ask my
teachers at the Refuge if I didn’t have my lessons. Besides I want to
go to school so I can be a teacher myself some day.”
“A teacher,” with a scornful laugh that sent the blood to Posey’s
face, “a pretty teacher you’d make.”
“And when I came here with you,” Posey went on, sticking to the
point in issue, “you promised that I should go to school.”
“I can teach you all you need. And for a poor girl who has to
depend on charity for her bringing up, to know how to work is a great
deal more account than a little smattering of books, and a lot of high-
flown, silly ideas that will never amount to anything.”
 “Then you don’t mean that I shall go to school at all?” Posey’s
voice trembled a little as she put the question. She had grown pale
around the mouth, and her eyes had become wide and dark.
“I don’t know as it’s any of your business what I intend,” was the
answer in Mrs. Hagood’s most decided tone. “I’ve told you that you
couldn’t go now, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
Posey laid down the ball of carpet rags she had been winding and
faced Mrs. Hagood, her slim figure very erect and a spot of red
burning on each cheek. “You are a wicked woman, and a liar,” she
cried shrilly, all the gathered disappointment and bitterness of
months breaking out in a sudden burst of fiery passion. “You
promised Mr. Mott, at the Refuge, that I should go to school; I heard
you, and I shall write and tell him just what you have done.”
“You will, will you?” scoffed Mrs. Hagood. “And who do you
suppose will believe what you say, a deceiving medium’s child?”
“I wasn’t her child, as you know well enough,” retorted Posey. “And
whatever she was, she was better than you. She sent me to school,
and didn’t make me work every enduring minute of the time. And my
own mother was the most beautiful lady that ever lived; you are no
more like her than you are like an angel. You are a bad, cruel
woman, that’s what you are.”
Posey had been so repressed with Mrs. Hagood that when her
long smoldering resentment leaped into wrathful words the latter
stood for a moment in bewildered astonishment. It was only for a
moment, however, a color so deep it was fairly purple mottled her
face; glancing around her eye rested on a small wooden rod she had
taken from a curtain, and seizing this she turned on Posey, “You vile
little beggar. I’ll teach you to talk that way to me!”
With the first blow that fell Posey sprang forward and fastened her
sharp white teeth in Mrs. Hagood’s hand. But the latter’s greater
strength shook her off before anything more than a deep mark had
been made, the pain of which, as well as the insult of it only adding
to the storm of blows the hand rained. “There,” she exclaimed, as
breathless with anger, excitement, and exertion, she gave Posey a
final violent shake, and whirled her into her little bedroom with such
force that she fell in a heap on the floor, “you’ll stay in here till to-
morrow morning, and we’ll see then if you will talk in any such way,
and fly at me like a wildcat. If you do you’ll get something that you’ll
remember as long as you live, I can tell you.” And with this parting
threat she shut the door with a bang.
Left alone, throbbing with a rage of resentful passion, into which
the physical pain entered as a part, Posey threw herself on the bed
and buried her head in the clothes with the old cry, “Mamma, my
mamma,” and then as a gust of stormy sobs shook her frame. “Why
can’t I die, too, oh, why can’t I?”
But her tears were not of penitence, far from it, and it was well that
Mrs. Hagood had not demanded of her any expression of sorrow for
her offense, or of submission for the future; for in Posey’s present
mood she would have been beaten to death before she would either
have confessed or yielded. As it was she sobbed as softly as she
could, and kept her face well in the pillow that Mrs. Hagood might not
have the pleasure of knowing that she was crying, and under her
breath she repeated over and over, as though it gave her some
relief, “I hate you, oh, I do hate you, you bad, cruel woman!”
 CHAPTER VII
A DESPERATE RESOLVE

Very soon Posey heard dishes clattering sharply on the table, for
in Mrs. Hagood’s state of mind she handled even the plates and
cups as though they had been guilty of offense, and presently the
little brass bell rang out with an energy that warned Mr. Hagood it
would not be wise to linger in obeying its summons. A moment later
and his steps sounded on the porch, he was wiping his hands on the
towel that hung by the door, they were sitting down at the table, and
then came his question, “Where’s Posey to-night?”
There was but a thin door between her room and the kitchen, and
Posey had no need to strain her ears to hear Mrs. Hagood as with
loud and forceful emphasis she poured forth the story of Posey’s
misdoings, to which the kindly old man who had taken the friendless
child to a tender place in his heart, listened sorrowfully. As Mrs.
Hagood ended she also heard his mild tone, “Why, now, Almiry, I
wouldn’t be too hard on Posey; if she is quick-tempered she’s soon
over it, an’ she’s always ready an’ willin’. As for her bein’
disappointed about not goin’ to school, she oughtn’t to have did what
she did, but I s’posed you did mean to send her part of the time; it
don’t seem quite right not to, now really, Almiry, an’ there’s the law,
you know.”
It was a good deal of a protest for Mr. Hagood to make on any
subject—more than he would have uttered for himself, as Posey well
knew; but the grim silence in which his wife had listened was only
the hush before the storm which he had drawn on his own head.
“Oh, yes, Elnathan Hagood,” with a biting sarcasm of tone, “that’s
right and just what I might have expected of you; take up against
your own wife and for a vile, impudent, little street-beggar. You
needn’t think you two have been so hand in glove all summer without
my seeing it, and this is the upshot, and you uphold her in it.”
 “Oh, Almiry!”
“But then I’ve done nothing for you, nothing at all. I didn’t make
you all you are, and earn for you all you have. I haven’t worked my
fingers off day in and day out for you. Oh, no; but you don’t owe me
anything for that, certainly not. Only I’d like to know where you’d be
now if it hadn’t been for me, and where you’d go now if it wasn’t for
me, wanting to give to every missionary and shiftless creature you
can hear of, and to dress a pauper up in silk and make a lady of her!
One thing I guess, you’d find the poor-house at the end, and that
pretty soon. But then that’s all the thanks I get.”
“Now, Almiry, you know better,” expostulated Mr. Hagood.
“But I’ll tell you one thing,” she continued cutting him short, “it
won’t be healthy for you to be a-settin’ her up against me, and I’ll see
that you don’t have much chance to do it. And I’ll tell you another
thing you may both depend on, she shall never go to school now, not
a single day. I taught once, I can teach her, and I’ll begin to-morrow.
And one thing more, as long as I have my health and strength I don’t
propose to be run over in my own house by any miserable little
upstart, as she’ll find out to her sorrow if she ever tries it again.”
Mrs. Hagood had raised her voice with the intention that the words
should reach Posey’s ears, who in return shook her small clenched
fist towards the closed door, and was only restrained from calling out
the words which rose to her lips by the lesson she had recently and
painfully gained, that in a contest of strength she was no match for
Mrs. Hagood, and was sure to be the sufferer.
Mr. Hagood sighed as he rose from his almost untasted meal and
went out about his evening chores. And as Posey’s gust of passion
ebbed away she sighed also, not only for the supper she had been
deprived of, whose savory whiffs had intensified her always healthy
appetite, but from the realization, of which this going supperless was
an evidence, how mortally she had angered Mrs. Hagood. For, as
she well knew, the battle between them was not over; instead it was
just begun; that dominant will would not rest till it had crushed and
broken the will which had dared to oppose it, and Posey aching and
smarting, but rebellious and unyielding, lay and looked at the ceiling
and felt that it was indeed a painful way on which she must enter
with the morrow, and in which her one friend, however innocent,
must also suffer.
These gloomy forebodings of the future grew as the darkness
thickened in her little room; then a slight sound at her window
attracted her attention, and softly raising the sash she found on the
sill outside, a long row of juicy harvest apples. Tears filled her eyes,
but they were such as she had not shed before that day, and she
kissed the red-cheeked apples and with a rush of love and gratitude
for the unspoken kindness they expressed.
Poor, hasty, undisciplined Posey! That she had not been
blameless she well knew. “But Mrs. Hagood was so mean,” so she
justified herself, “or I’d never have done so, and I don’t believe
anybody else would have stood it either. O dear!” and she sighed
very deeply as she munched an apple, “how I wish Mr. Hagood and I
could go away somewhere and live all by ourselves; I’m sure with
him I’d never get angry and ugly, and feel like fighting.”
For most of all it was love and tenderness that her lonely little
heart longed for, and having these she thought to be good would be
easy. “Oh, mamma,” was the whispered plaint that rose to her lips, “if
you had only lived I might have been good, but how can I now? You
told me that God would love me, but I don’t think He can for nobody
else does.” The wind was rising, and as Posey leaned against the
frame of the still open window and listened to it rushing and
murmuring through the tall trees around the house, and watched the
dim, shadowy motion of the waving branches, to her excited fancy
the one seemed to urge, “Come away, come away,” and the other
like inviting hands to beckon, “Come, come.” And as she looked and
listened an impulse, a sudden resolve sprang in her heart, and
setting her teeth firmly she murmured as if in answer, “I will come, I
will!”
Posey did not undress when she lay down again, though first she
knelt down by the bed and repeated her,

“Now I lay me down to sleep,”

 as usual. But to-night she felt that this was not enough, that she
needed something to give fuller expression to the tumult of feeling
within her. At the Refuge she had been taught the Lord’s prayer, but
instinctively she shrank from that clause of forgiveness of others, for
she well knew that the spirit throbbing so hotly in her heart was
anything but a forgiving one, so for want of something better she
added a petition of her own, “O Lord, I haven’t anybody in the world,
unless it is you. Take care of me; show me what to do; help me,
please do! Amen.”
It was the first time in her life that Posey had ever really prayed—
all which had gone before had been a form, a habit. But now in the
hour of her heart-sinking and loneliness, in the stress of her anger
and resentment, shaken by the mingled impulses of fear and the
courage which comes of desperation, with no earthly support to lean
on, her tumultuous young soul reached out, feebly it is true, but still
with real longing, for a guidance and strength higher than her own.
Posey was too excited by all that had happened, too thrilled with
her new, wild determination, to sleep much or soundly. Nearly every
hour she heard the old clock in the kitchen strike, and when she
counted three she slipped noiselessly out of bed. Her room was no
longer dark; a great yellow moon had risen and made it, as well as
the outer world, almost as light as day. Indeed it is safe to say that
but for that flood of softly illuminating brightness Posey would never
have dared to put her rash impulse to the test. As it was, her fingers
shook as she gathered together a few articles from her scanty
wardrobe and tied them up in a gingham apron, not forgetting the
few mementos of her mother which through everything she had
clung to, and were the first to be thought of now. Then putting on her
coarse straw hat, and wrapping about her an old cape that chanced
to be hanging in the room, she took her shoes in her hand,
cautiously raised the window, and carefully crept out, something
easily done as it was but a few feet from the ground.
As Posey stole around the corner of the house old Rover saw her,
and after a brief sniff came toward her wagging his tail in friendly
recognition. Many a time had she been comforted by the voiceless
sympathy in the soft eyes of this dumb friend, and now as she
stroked his head, and felt the touch of his warm tongue on her hand,
her sense of utter desolation was for the moment relieved.
When she reached the pantry window Posey put down her bundle
and stretching on tiptoe slipped her slender hand between the slats
of the blind, and easily lifted the latch, and then with the help of a
stool on the back porch quickly crept in. Mr. and Mrs. Hagood slept
quite on the other side of the house, and moving quietly she had no
fear of being heard by them, while the bright moonlight gave her light
enough.
She had come to the pantry for two reasons: to make up for the
supper she had lost the night before, and to get supplies for the
enterprise on which she was entering. Nor did she hesitate to take
the best she could find. “I’ve done enough here to earn it,” was her
reasoning, as she helped herself plentifully and without a scruple to
the company cake kept sacredly in a tin box. She appropriated the
cold chicken set aside for the morning’s breakfast, with a naughty
chuckle at the thought of Mrs. Hagood’s wrath when she should
discover its absence, and she spread her thick bread and butter with
the best peach preserves that were only brought out on especial
occasions. And having satisfied her appetite she next packed full a
small-handle basket she found on a shelf, adding as its crowning
delicacy a saucer pumpkin pie, she by chance discovered.
This done, as she was turning to leave, her eye fell on a
memorandum book with pencil attached in which Mrs. Hagood kept
her egg account. The sight suggested an idea, and tearing out a
blank leaf she wrote on it as best she might by the uncertain light, in
a sprawling, childish hand:
“Dear Mr. Hagood,
“You have been so good to me that I awfully hate to
leave you, and I hope you won’t blame me for running
away, for I couldn’t stay any longer, no more at present,
good by with love,
“Posey.”
 With that she climbed out of the window, closed the blind so that
all should be secure again and tiptoeing around into the woodhouse
laid the folded note on his basket of kindlings, where Mr. Hagood
would find it the first thing in the morning. This done, she put on her
shoes and hat, took up her bundle and basket, to go she knew not
where; her one thought that it would be away from Mrs. Hagood and
the renewed contest which the morning would be sure to bring. As
she moved toward the gate the old dog followed her with a wistful
whine, as if he was puzzled by and questioned this strange action.
“Dear old Rover,” Posey whispered, throwing her arms around his
neck, while her tears fell thick on the white star on his forehead,
“dear old doggie, you must go back; I can’t take you with me. I wish I
could and Mr. Hagood, too, so go back, old fellow, and stay with
him,” and with one last hug she shut the gate between them, with a
real pain in her heart; and also shut the gate to the only place in the
wide world that she could call home.
Already she had thought, “When Mrs. Hagood misses me she will
think I’ve started back to the Refuge (as I’d like to), and so I must go
just the other way,” and so it was in this opposite direction that she
hurried. And what a strange world this was into which she had come,
the world of night, of mystery, of strange quiet, of brooding peace. All
the well-known objects took on a new and unfamiliar look, as though
they had different faces for the day and the night. In the solemn
stillness sounds unheard by day became strangely distinct—for the
first time she heard the spring at the foot of the hill falling into its
rocky basin; the cry of a hidden cricket, the rustle in the wind of the
already fallen leaves, the crow of a rooster in a neighboring barn—
sounds all that in the day she would hardly have noticed, how loud
and eerie they were now!
In all the village but one light was burning, in the room of an old
man who had been long sick and was near death. As Posey saw it
she wondered if when people died they went out into the night alone,
and felt strange and perhaps afraid. A few hours before she had
almost wished she could die, but now she shivered a little at the
thought as well as the chill of the night air, and the strange sensation
of being out alone. Yes, she was glad to be alive, even if there did
not seem to be any place anywhere for her.
Few girls of her age would have dared to do what she was doing.
But Posey was not timid by nature, and much of her courage came
from the tension of her feverish excitement. Still, when she had
passed through the village, where all was familiar and there was a
certain sense of companionship in the clustered houses and the
thought of the sleeping people inside, and leaving the last house
behind, from the hill-top on which she stood, she saw the open fields
and dark woods stretch away till they melted in dimness, her heart
beat fast and almost failed. For with the sight a sudden sense of
desolation rushed over her, a realization of how alone and young,
and weak and helpless she was.
For the first time, too, she began to be troubled by thoughts of the
future. She had heard of runaways who had to sleep nights in old
barns and under haystacks. Boys from the Refuge had sometimes
run away, and when brought back had told such stories. Very likely
she would have to also, and it seemed to her that it would be
dreadful to sleep in an old barn, especially if there should be rats.
Besides when her little store of provision was gone, how would she
live unless she begged? She had often seen ragged children in the
city going from door to door with baskets, but that was a degradation
she had never known—one her whole nature shrank from. She
would rather starve, she felt, than to beg at doors, and perhaps be
turned away, as she knew beggars so often were.
As all these things rose before her Posey almost wished herself
back safe in the little room she had left. Almost but not quite, for a
memory of Mrs. Hagood’s face as she had last seen it, and Mrs.
Hagood’s voice as it had last reached her ear stayed her wavering. “I
won’t go back now, if I die,” she pledged herself, setting her teeth
firmly, and bracing herself with dogged resolution. “But oh, how I do
wish I could have brought Rover!”
 CHAPTER VIII
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

That night’s experience was one Posey never forgot. The road she
had chosen she was now on for the first time; where it led to she had
no idea; all she knew about it was that it would take her away from
Mrs. Hagood, and in the direction where she thought there would be
least danger of her being looked for. But once fairly started she
hurried on, her one thought and anxiety to put all the distance
possible between herself and Horsham before her absence was
discovered.
But what it cost her to do this! To her excited fancy the commonest
objects—innocent stumps, wayside bushes, fence-corner shadows—
took on in the weird light grotesque shapes that filled her with fear
and trembling. If she had a stretch of lonely woods to pass through
she ran till the beating of her own heart fairly startled her. Was she
out of sight of houses, she would quicken her steps and almost fly.
When a house came in sight she walked more slowly; to be near
people, even if they knew nothing of her, was something, and the
barking of a dog was always a welcome sound. When she heard it
she knew there was something living and awake, which lessened a
little her feeling that she was a sort of wandering spirit, driven on and
on in a dim world where, save for the uncanny night birds, nothing
was astir but herself. Yes, Posey was afraid, at times desperately
afraid, but she felt that every step was taking her farther from Mrs.
Hagood, and for the sake of that she was willing both to dare much
and to endure much.
By and by, however, signs of the coming morning began to appear.
First a faint line of light along the eastern sky, then lights were seen
gleaming here and there in farmhouse windows, and curls of smoke
rising from chimneys, in token that the world was rousing to the new
day; once across the fields she heard a loud hearty voice calling,
“Coo-boss, coo-boss,” to the cows in some out-of-sight pasture, and
again she caught a distant glimpse of some boys with bags on their
shoulders, evidently off for an early nutting expedition. Gradually
these signs of life multiplied, the clouds grew more rosy, the trees,
no longer vague, dark masses, showed their brilliant hues of red and
gold; wayside objects lost their dim and spectral look; all the world
was waking into the crisp brightness of a clear, fresh, autumn
morning, sweet with the fruity smell of ripened orchards, and rich
with the soft mellowness of the long summer time.
With everything around her new and strange Posey had no idea
how far she had come. This she did know, that the bundle and
basket she carried were all the time growing heavier, that her aching
feet dragged more and more slowly, and that she was so tired she
could go only a little way without stopping to rest.
The sun was now well up, and as Posey paused she looked
around the unfamiliar landscape. What she saw was a stretch of
level, low-lying fields which merged into a wooded swamp—a thick
tangle of trees and bushes whose dark line spread out as far as her
eye could follow. Beyond the swamp, and at no great distance, rose
a steep range of wooded hills; solid masses of gayly tinted colors
they appeared that morning, following with gentle curves the
windings of the swamp; and crowning the highest of these hills,
rising above the trees, lifted the white spire of a church, its gilted
weather-vane glittering in the sun. Before her the white road lifted in
a long upward swell that made her sigh with the thought of climbing
it, and shut in her view to the flat around. But one house was near—
a tall gaunt house of weather-beaten red, standing on a slight knoll a
little back from the road, with a single tree, a tall and sombre pine,
beside it, and all the green paper curtains that shaded its front
windows drawn closely down. A dreary house it was in Posey’s eyes,
and the people who lived in it she thought must grow so tired of
looking out on those flat pastures, tufted with hillocks of coarse,
marshy grass, and the swamp with its bordering fringe of dead, grey
bushes.
But it may be that to her eyes the fairest view would have taken on
something of her desolate mood. In the sand that now made the
road, her steps dragged heavier and more slowly, but save for brief
pauses to rest she dared not stop. She was not far enough away.
Oh, no, not yet. Mrs. Hagood might be hunting her even then, was
the thought hurrying her on. She was hungry, too, with the crisp air,
and her exertion, for all the hearty lunch she had taken at starting;
but she was afraid to make any inroad on the contents of her basket,
for when once that was gone she had no idea how or where she
would get anything more. It would be dreadful to keep feeling so faint
and hungry, and was there anybody anywhere, she wondered, who
would pity her enough to give her something to eat, or take her in
when it came night again? Or would she have to go on and on, till
she fell down somewhere and died? And a slow trickle of tears ran
down her cheeks at the foreboding. This was a hard world, she
bitterly felt, for girls who had no homes. If God was good why didn’t
He make homes, real homes, for all of them? She was sure she
would if she were God, and especially one for poor Posey Sharpe.
A little stream, its course marked by fringing reeds and rushes,
wound its way through the fields and crossed the road a little way
before her, spanned there by a wooden bridge with high, close sides,
overhung at each end by clumps of willows which formed a thick
green screen. Slowly and wearily Posey stumbled up the slight
ascent leading to the bridge; she had taken but a few steps when a
loose board rattled under her tread, and a moment later she started
with a little cry as the face of a boy suddenly appeared around a side
at the farther end.
His eyes also grew wide with surprise, and it was no wonder, for a
strange little figure it was which met his gaze. Her shoes were white
with dust, her hat was jammed to one side, her cape was all askew,
her gingham bundle hung limply from one arm, and in the other hand
was the basket, from which she had lost her handkerchief that at first
had covered it. This basket with the saucer pumpkin pie on top, was
what first caught the boy’s notice, and he called out in a half
bargaining, half jesting tone, “Any extra pies you want to trade for
tinware this morning?” Then as he saw the tear-stains on her
cheeks, into which the dust had settled in grimy streaks, and her
swollen, overflowing eyes, he quickly swung himself around onto the
bridge, asking, “What is it; what’s the matter?”
 Now notice was of all things what Posey most dreaded, and as the
morning was still early few people were yet stirring, so till now she
had not attracted attention. For one thing she had been careful not to
do so; since daylight she had crept carefully by the few houses she
had passed, as much in the shadow of the fences as possible; and
once when she saw a wagon coming, with people and trunks, as if
for some railroad station, she had hidden behind a clump of bushes
till they were gone by. For her great fear was that some one would
send word to Mrs. Hagood, or even return her by force, and every
hour but added to her fierce determination never to go back—never!
Of course she knew that she would be seen and questioned. “And
I must have something ready to say,” had been her thought. “Yes, I
know, when any one asks me where I am going, I shall tell them that
my Aunt Mary is sick and has sent for me. I know it’s a lie, and I hate
liars, but I can’t tell the truth, and if I had an Aunt Mary and she was
sick I’m sure she’d send for me,” and with this she had salved her
conscience. But now as she heard the friendly tone, and looked into
the frank boyish face, with honest, merry blue eyes, and a kindly
expression under the sunburn and freckles, she forgot all her
prudent plans in a longing for the sympathy that spoke in his tone,
and lifting her eyes to his she answered simply, “I’m running away.”
He gave a slight whistle of surprise, “Running away? What are you
doing that for?”
By this time Posey had come close to him, and putting her bundle
and basket down on the abutting stone work of the bridge, she rolled
up her sleeve and showed her arm, across which ran a number of
angry red welts. “And they’re worse here,” she said, putting her hand
up to her shoulders.
“My!” he exclaimed, his tone full of mingled sympathy and
indignation. “Whatever did you do that your mother whipped you like
that?”
“She wasn’t my mother,” was the vehement reply, all Posey’s
sense of outraged suffering breaking out afresh. “She was only the
woman who took me from the Refuge in Cleveland; she made me
work from morning till night, and scolded me the whole time; she was
the crossest woman you ever saw, and she wouldn’t let me go to
school after she had promised at the Refuge that I should. And she
was mad and whipped me that way because I told her that she was
a mean, wicked liar, just as she was.” Her eyes flashed with the
remembrance.
“Haven’t you anybody of your own?” he asked.
She shook her head. “My mother and father both died when I was
a little bit of a girl.” Then with a piteous little cry, “I don’t see why my
mother couldn’t have lived or I have died, too!” and overcome with a
mingling of weariness, nervous excitement, and emotion, Posey
dropped down beside her bundle, and hiding her face in it burst into
a passion of sobs.
“There, there,” and as he spoke there was a shake in his own
voice, and a moisture in his own eyes. “Don’t cry so, don’t. I’m
awfully sorry for you. I’ve lost my father and mother, too, and I know
how tough it is on a fellow, though Uncle John and everybody have
been good to me.”
By this time Posey had succeeded in checking her sobs, and in
answer to his questions she poured out her whole story, ending with
her flight. “You’re a regular brick,” he exclaimed with boyish
enthusiasm as she finished, “to start off that way, alone in the night.
I’d like to see my cousin Emma or Fannie doing anything of that sort,
and they both bigger than you are; but my, they hardly dare to look
out of doors alone after it comes dark! Won’t I have something to tell
them, though, when I go home? And I don’t blame you for running
away, either, though to be sure,” he added impartially, “it might have
been better if you had kept out of a row.”
“Yes, it would,” Posey admitted meekly.
“But now that you have done it,” he asked in a practical tone, and
with a business-like clearness, “what are you going to do?”
“I—I don’t know,” answered Posey, realizing suddenly and with
confusion, how very vague her ideas were, and what a wild
undertaking hers was. “I didn’t know—I thought—I hoped—that I
might find somebody—somewhere, who would let me live with them.
I can wash dishes, and iron, and sweep, and churn, and bake apple
pies and ginger-cake—Mrs. Hagood taught me—and do lots of
things about the house,” sadly feeling that her list was after all but a
short one. “I would try so hard to suit. Don’t you think I could find
such a place?” and she looked in his face appealingly.
“I should think so,” he answered after a moment’s pause. For with
all his boyishness there was about him a certain thoughtfulness and
readiness of decision, which led Posey to regard him with an
instinctive trust and reliance. “At any rate,” he added, “you might try;
I don’t think of anything better just now that you could do.”
All this time there had been a frequent splashing and stamping
down below them in the creek, and several times the boy had looked
over the side of the bridge to call, “Whoa, there, whoa,” or “Stand
steady, Billy.” “Let’s see,” he went on, “you’re about eight miles from
Horsham now,—you must have clipped it pretty lively, but you look
awful tuckered, and I don’t believe you could make another eight
miles.”
“I—I’m afraid not,” Posey sadly agreed, for having once stopped it
seemed to her that she never could start on again.
“And as you’re running away I suppose you want to get as far
away as you can?”
“Yes, indeed, I do.”
“Well, then, I guess I will give you a lift. Of course you don’t know
me, but my name’s Ben Pancost, and I’m a tin peddler,” the last with
an air of business-like pride.
“You don’t look old enough to be a tin peddler,” was Posey’s
comment. “All I ever saw were old men with hook noses.”
“I was fifteen last March. I guess Mr. Bruce thinks that will do, at
any rate I’ve been on one of his wagons all summer. I stayed last
night at that house,” indicating by a jerk of his thumb the red house
on the knoll, “and this morning one of the wagon tires seemed loose,
so I drove into the creek to let Billy drink, and swell up the wheel.
You saw my red cart as you came along, didn’t you?”
 “No; the willows must have hid it. I didn’t know that there was
anybody anywhere near, that was why I was scared when you
looked around the corner of the bridge. And, oh, it’s so good of you
to let me ride!”
But Ben had a boy’s horror of thanks. “I guess by this time the
wheel is soaked,” he hastened to say, “so I’ll drive out of the creek
and then this train will be ready to pull out.”
An hour before Posey would hardly have believed that she could
ever again feel like laughing. But there was something so infectious
in the cheery good humor, the ready self-confidence, and above all
the hearty sympathy of her new friend, that she laughed gayly at his
merry tone and twinkling eyes, as, swinging around the corner of the
bridge, he jumped down, and soon the stout bay horse and red cart
came into view at the opposite end of the bridge—such a cart as she
had more than once seen that summer, with great sacks of rags
piled high on its top, and a fringe of old rubber boots dangling around
the bottom.
While Ben was making sure that everything was in good order and
securely fastened before he started, Posey ran down to the clear
water and wetting her handkerchief washed her face and hands,
straightened her hat and cape, and made herself look as tidy as she
could. Her spirits had even risen so high that sitting down on the
grassy bank she ventured into her lunch, and fancying that she saw
Ben give another glance at the pie, as a slight expression of her
overflowing gratitude she held it out to him, urging, “Do take it. I
know it’s good, for Mrs. Hagood always makes such nice pumpkin
pies.”
Ben looked at the tempting delicacy with a true boy’s appetite. “I’ll
tell you what I will do,” drawing out his pocketknife, “I’ll cut it in two
and eat one half if you will the other. No, I sha’n’t take the whole of it.
Besides, I’ve read of people breaking bread together as a pledge of
friendship; well, we’ll break this pie together as our pledge.”
“You see,” he continued as he wiped away the last flaky crumb,
“the potatoes this morning were warmed over, the pork was warmed
over, the coffee was warmed over, and it was a sort of a warmed-
over breakfast generally. But then I oughtn’t to complain, for Billy and
I had our lodging and breakfast, and I only had to give a tin dipper, a
quart basin, and two pie tins for it all. That’s why I stop at houses
instead of hotels when I can, the women, mostly, will take tinware for
pay, and as there’s a profit on it, why, that makes my expenses that
much the less for Mr. Bruce.”
As he helped Posey to the high seat, and mounting beside her
gathered up the lines and chirruped to the horse, she gave a start.
“Why, you are going back the way I came.”
“Only a little way. The road bends so you didn’t notice where the
one you were on came into this, but I’ll show you the place; Horsham
is south, and I’m going west; then after a little I shall turn north, for
I’ve quite a circuit to make to-day.”
 CHAPTER IX
TWO HAPPY TRAVELERS

How wonderfully the face of all the outer world changes with our
feelings.
It was so with Posey. As her heart grew light she began to feel the
brightness and charm of the sunny October morning, a late lingering
robin whose note when she first heard it a little while before she had
thought sad and sorrowful, now had a cheery sound; and the call of
a flock of blackbirds flying over she thought most musical.
Even the swamp, which had looked to her so dismal, as she rode
through it was transformed and became full of delights. Its thick
crowding bushes gleamed with coral-hued berries, its tangled depths
were rich with every tone of tint or color, and through the centre a
little river, set thick with lily pads, loitered along with the laziest
possible current. Not a few of the trees and shrubs which bordered
the narrow roadway, made, as Ben explained, by filling in earth
through the swamp—were draped with festoons of wild clematis
vines in their autumn beauty, set with fluffy masses of filmy, smoke-
hued fringe. From her high seat Posey reached out and pulled
lengths of this, which she twined about the dashboard, exclaiming
with delight at its delicate beauty. A few wild roses were still in
blossom on the thickets, whose gleaming red hips hinted at a wealth
of earlier bloom, and here and there the scarlet leaves of the poison
ivy added their vivid hue to the wealth of color.
For part of the way the trees beside the roadway met overhead,
forming an arch, now more of gold than green, through which the
golden sunshine filtered and flickered in delicious coolness. Once or
twice the narrow road widened into a grassy space; “Turning-out
places,” Ben explained, for teams to pass each other. Which set
Posey to wondering what people would do if they met in any other
than the right spot.
 “But they have to meet there,” Ben asserted. “When one person
sees another coming he stops and waits. There’s no trouble when
everybody looks out.”
But what was to Posey the crowning charm was a wide drainage
ditch or canal, near the outer edge of the swamp, the cause of the
fringe of dead bushes she had already noticed. Ben stopped his
horse on the bridge that crossed it, that at their leisure they might
look up the long, straight stretch of water, whose clean-cut banks of
velvety turf narrowed in perspective till they seemed at last to meet
in the level distance, while on its still surface, trees, shrubs, clumps
of nodding blue asters, and the sky, bluer than all, were reflected as
in a mirror.
“Oh, how lovely!” cried Posey. “I never saw so pretty a place in all
my life. I wish we could ride through it all day.”
“Yes, it is pretty,” answered practical Ben, “but it’s not good for
much as it is now. I suppose, though, it will all be dry land some day;
that’s what the man said where I stayed all night, and this big ditch is
to help. He thought some time it would all be dry land.”
“At any rate, I’m glad to have seen it as it is now,” declared Posey.
For Posey had yielded herself to the gladness of the day, and in
after years it stood apart in her memory. There was the delicious
sense of freedom as of a bird escaped from its cage, with that of
triumph as the distance widened between her and her late bondage;
and in addition the blissful reaction from anxiety, the rest after
fatigue, the happiness in her new-found friend, and of trusting
confidence in his protecting care and superior knowledge. She had
shaken off the past, the future was an unknown quantity, the happy
present was enough.
For to Posey, whose life had held such a scanty store of pleasure,
one continued delight was that long ride in the soft, warm, October
sunshine. Through quiet country roads they wound, among fields
green with aftermath, and hills rich with October woods. Sometimes
these were so near that she could see the ripe leaves dropping softly
down like a golden rain, and again distant with all their varied hues of