The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

go, see what is characteristic, make the
acquaintance of people who typify the locality,
observe whatever is of interest either historically
or socially, eat the food of the country, learn its
manners and its language, and come home with a
new stock of pleasant thoughts for winter evenings.
In all these different situations the man who has the
zest for life has the advantage over the man who
has none. Even unpleasant experiences have their
uses to him. I am glad to have smelt a Chinese
crowd and a Sicilian village, though I cannot
pretend that my pleasure was very great at the
moment. Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks,
mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all kinds
of unpleasant experiences, provided they do not go
so far as to impair health. They say to themselves
in an earthquake, for example, ‘So that is what an
earthquake is like’, and it gives them pleasure to
have their knowledge of the world increased by
this new item. It would not be true to say that such
men are not at the mercy of fate, for if they should
lose their health they would be very likely to lose