CHEERFULNESS
[Sidenote: Joy is not in things, it is in us.--WAGNER.]
Let us suppose that you must go into partnership for life with some
other boy, as the world is about to go into partnership with you, would
you not wish him to have, first of all, a cheerful disposition?
[Sidenote: Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by
experience.--P. T. BARNUM.]
Has it ever occurred to you that the world entertains the same thought
regarding yourself?
It is easy to understand why a partnership, the members of which
pleasantly pull together, is more likely to thrive than is one wherein
they are always complaining of each other and sadly prophesying failure.
The world, as your partner, will be toward you what you are toward it.
[Sidenote: The day is immeasurably long to him who knows not how to
value and use it.--GOETHE.]
Smile, once in a while,
'Twill make your heart seem lighter;
Smile, once in a while,
'Twill make your pathway brighter;
Life's a mirror; if we smile,
Smiles come back to greet us;
If we're frowning all the while,
Frowns forever meet us.
[Sidenote: It is a maxim with me not to ask what, under similar
circumstances, I would not grant.--WASHINGTON.]
[Sidenote: Next to virtues, the fun in this world is what we can least
spare.--STRICKLAND.]
"As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the
air and sunshine freely into your rooms," says James Allen, "so a
strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can result only
from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and good
will and serenity. There is no physician like cheerful thought for
dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare
with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live
continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion and envy, is
to be confined in a self-made prison-hole. But to think well of all, to
be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all--such
unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell day by
day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding
peace to the possessor of such thoughts."
[Sidenote: I resolved that, like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I
would look on the bright side of everything.--THOMAS HOOD.]
Says Robert Louis Stevenson: "A happy man or woman is a better thing to
find than a five-pound note. He or she is radiating a focus of good
will; and his or her entrance into a room is as though another candle
had been lighted."
[Sidenote: Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon.
Thoughts are mightier than armies. Principles have achieved more
victories than horsemen or chariots.--PAXTON.]
"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while
there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world
so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor," says Dickens.
Give but a smile to sorry men,
They'll give it, bettered, back again.
[Sidenote: Method is like packing things in a box; a good packer will
get in half as much again as a bad one.--CECIL.]
Bovee very truly says, "The cheerful live longest in years, and
afterwards in our regards."
[Sidenote: If it required no brains, no nerve, no energy, no work,
there would be no glory in achievement.--BATES.]
"I have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies," said Sydney Smith,
"but am otherwise very happy." How often those with whom we meet are
sorely afflicted and yet their cheerful faces do not betray their
troubles. They are too considerate of our happiness to sadden our
minds with their woes. Those whom we deem fretful without sufficient
excuse, if indeed any excuse justifies the habit of fretting, may be
much more sorely afflicted than we think they are. There is a world of
sympathetic truth in that old saying
"TO KNOW ALL IS TO FORGIVE ALL"
[Sidenote: It is not what one can get out of work, but what he may put
in, that is the test of success.--LILIAN WHITING.]
If I knew you and you knew me--
If both of us could clearly see,
And with an inner sight divine
The meaning of your heart and mine,
I'm sure that we would differ less
And clasp our hands in friendliness;
Our thoughts would pleasantly agree
If I knew you and you knew me.
If I knew you and you knew me,
As each one knows his own self, we
Could look each other in the face
And see therein a truer grace.
Life has so many hidden woes,
So many thorns for every rose;
The "why" of things our hearts would see,
If I knew you and you knew me.
[Sidenote: There is only one real failure in life possible; and that
is, not to be true to the best one knows.--CANON FARRAR.]
"If a word will render a man happy," said one of the French
philosophers, "he must be a wretch, indeed, who will not give it. It
is like lighting another man's candle with your own, which loses none
of its brilliancy by what the other gains." Another wise writer says:
"Mirth is God's medicine; everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care,
moroseness, anxiety--all the rust of life, ought to be scoured off by
the oil of mirth."
[Sidenote: Confidence imparts a wonderful inspiration to its
possessor.--MILTON.]
Orison Swett Marden, than whom no man's golden words have done more
to make the world brighter and better, says: "We should fight against
every influence which tends to depress the mind, as we would against a
temptation to crime. A depressed mind prevents the free action of the
diaphragm and the expansion of the chest. It stops the secretions of
the body, interferes with the circulation of the blood in the brain,
and deranges the entire functions of the body."
[Sidenote: The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the
faculty of self-control.--HERBERT SPENCER.]
"Do not anticipate trouble," says Franklin, "or worry about what may
never happen. Keep in the sunlight."
[Sidenote: Self-control, I say, is the root virtue of all virtues. It
is at the very center of character.--KING.]
One of our present day apostles of the gospel of cheerfulness tells
us that worry is a disease. "Some people ought to be incarcerated for
disturbing the family peace, and for troubling the public welfare, on
the charge of intolerable fretfulness and touchiness."
[Sidenote: In the long run a man becomes what he purposes, and gains
for himself what he really desires.--MABIE.]
The boy whom the world wants will be wise, indeed, if he includes in
his preparations for meeting the years that are before him--
A CURE FOR TROUBLE
Trouble is looking for some one to trouble!
Who will partake of his worrisome wares?
Where shall he tarry and whom shall he harry
At morning and night with his burden of cares?
They who have hands that are idle and empty,
They without purpose to build and to bless;
They who invite him with scowls that delight him
Are they who shall dwell in the House of Distress.
[Sidenote: I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter
of an hour beforehand.--LORD NELSON.]
Trouble is looking for some one to trouble!
I'll tell you how all his plans to eclipse:
When he draws near you be sure he shall hear you
A-working away with a song on your lips.
Look at him squarely and laugh at his coming;
Say you are busy and bid him depart;
He will not tease you to stay if he sees you
Have tasks in your hands and a hope in your heart.
[Sidenote: The period of greenness is the period of growth. When we
cease to be green and are entirely ripe we are ready for decay.--BRYAN.]
Trouble is looking for some one to trouble!
I shall not listen to aught he shall say;
Out of life's duty shall blossom in beauty
A grace and a glory to gladden the way.
I shall have faith in the gifts of the Giver;
I shall be true to my purpose and plan;
Good cheer abounding and love all-surrounding,
I shall keep building the best that I can.
[Sidenote: Prepare yourself for the world as the athletes used to
do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners to give them
the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not
do.--CHESTERFIELD.]
"Give, O give us, the man who sings at his work!" says Thomas Carlyle.
"Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow
the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same
time--he will do it better--he will persevere longer. One is scarcely
sensible to fatigue while he marches to music. The very stars are said
to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the
strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of
endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous--a
spirit all sunshine--grateful for very gladness, beautiful because
bright."
[Sidenote: Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely
effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.--MATTHEW
ARNOLD.]
[Sidenote: In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is
necessary.--GOETHE.]
[Sidenote: To do nothing by halves is the way of noble minds.--WIELAND.]
Have you a cheerful member in your circle of friends, a cheerful
neighbor in the vicinity of your home? Cherish him as a pearl of great
price. He is of real, practical value to all with whom he comes in
contact. His presence in a neighborhood ought to make real estate sell
for a bit more a square foot, and life more prized by all who partake
of his good cheer. He greets the world with a smile and a laugh--a real
laugh, born of thought and feeling--not a superficial veneer of humor
the falsity of which is detected by all who hear it. "How much lies in
laughter," says Carlyle "It is the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the
whole man. Some men wear an everlasting simper; in the smile of another
lies the cold glitter, as of ice; the fewest are able to laugh what
can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter and snicker from the
throat outward, or at least produce some whiffing, husky cachination,
as if they were laughing through wool. Of none such comes good."
[Sidenote: Whatever your occupation may be, and however crowded your
hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every
day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry.--CHARLES
ELIOT NORTON.]
Do you like the boy who in a game of ball is whining all the time
because he cannot be constantly at the bat?
Isn't the real manly boy the one who can lose cheerfully when he has
played the game the best he possibly could and has been honestly
defeated?
[Sidenote: Nothing of us belongs so wholly to other people as our
looks.--GLOVER.]
Nothing is ever well done that is not done cheerfully. The one with a
growl spoils whatever joy good fortune may seek to bring him. The man
with whom the whole world loves to be in partnership is
THE ONE WITH A SONG
[Sidenote: Our greatest glory consists, not in never falling, but in
rising every time we fall.--GOLDSMITH.]
The cloud-maker says it is going to storm,
And we're sure to have awful weather,--
Just terribly wet or cold or warm,
Or maybe all three together!
But while his spirit is overcast
With the gloom of his dull repining,
The one with a song comes smiling past,
And, lo! the sun is shining.
[Sidenote: A noble manhood, nobly consecrated to man, never
dies.--WILLIAM MCKINLEY.]
The cloud-maker tells us the world is wrong,
And is bound in an evil fetter,
But the blue-sky man comes bringing a song
Of hope that shall make it better.
And the toilers, hearing his voice, behold
The sign of a glad to-morrow,
Whose hands are heaped with the purest gold,
Of which each heart may borrow.
[Sidenote: It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be
patient.--GEORGE ELIOT.]
The one who thinks the world is full of good people and kindly
blessings is much richer than the one who thinks to the contrary. Some
men live in a world peopled with princes of the royal blood; some in
a world of want and wrong-doers. Those whom we distrust are likely to
distrust us. To believe a man is a man helps to make him so at heart.
To think him a rascal is a start for him in the wrong direction. The
world smiles at us if we smile at it; when we frown it frowns. It is
the armor of war and not that of love that invites trouble. He who
carries a sword is the most likely to find a cause for using it. The
man who remembers it was a beautiful day yesterday is a great deal
happier than he who is sure it is going to storm to-morrow.
[Sidenote: Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.--PARKHURST.]
Though life is made up of mere bubbles,
'Tis better than many aver,
For while we've a whole lot of troubles,
The most of them never occur.
In the thousand and one little everyday affairs of life the man who is
disposed to take things by the smooth handles saves himself and those
about him an endless amount of worry. The pessimist is an additional
sorrow in a world that holds for all of us some glints of sunshine and
some shreds of song. It was of one such sorry soul that I penned the
lines--
[Sidenote: What folly to tear one's hair in sorrow, just as if grief
could be assuaged by baldness.--CICERO.]
He growled at morning, noon and night,
And trouble sought to borrow;
On days when all the skies were bright
He knew 'twould storm to-morrow.
A thought of joy he could not stand
And struggled to resist it;
Though sunshine dappled all the land
This sorry pessi_mist_ it.
[Sidenote: Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and
let every new year find you a better man.--FRANKLIN.]
Occasionally we meet a person well along in years who has not yet
acquired sufficient wisdom to understand that without some of the
elements of a storm in the sky we could never look upon that most
marvelously beautiful spectacle--a rainbow.
[Sidenote: Give us to go blithely about our business all this day,
bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and
grant us in the end the gift of sleep.--STEVENSON.]
Without hunger and thirst, food and drink would be superfluous; without
cold, warmth would lose its grateful charm; without weariness, rest
were of no avail; without grief, gladness would lose its delight. The
thoughtful, thankful soul will keep the lips from complaining and the
hands from wrong-doing by always supplying them with
A SMILE AND A TASK
[Sidenote: Teach your child to hold his tongue, he'll learn fast enough
to speak.--FRANKLIN.]
Keep a smile on your lips; it is better
To joyfully, hopefully try
For the end you would gain, than to fetter
Your life with a moan and a sigh.
There are clouds in the firmament ever
The beauty of heaven to mar,
Yet night so profound there is never
But somewhere is shining a star.
[Sidenote: There is no use arguing with the inevitable; the only
argument with the east wind is to put on your overcoat.--LOWELL.]
Keep a task in your hands; you must labor;
By deeds is true happiness won;
For stranger and friend and for neighbor,
Rejoice there is much to be done.
Endeavor by crowning life's duty
With joy-giving song and with smile,
To make the world fuller of beauty
Because you are in it a while.
[Sidenote: A young man cannot honestly make a success in any business
unless he loves his work.--EDWARD BOK.]
"Of all virtues cheerfulness is the most profitable. While other
virtues defer the day of recompense, cheerfulness pays down. It is
a cosmetic which makes homeliness graceful and winning. It promotes
health and gives clearness and vigor to the mind; it is the bright
weather of the heart in contrast with the clouds and gloom of
melancholy." These words from the writings of one of our sunniest
philosophers are worth much gold to one who will ever keep them in mind.
[Sidenote: There is a great deal more to be got out of things than is
generally got out of them, whether the thing be a chapter of the Bible
or a yellow turnip.--MACDONALD.]
Sydney Smith says that "all mankind are happier for having been happy;
so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years
hence by the memory of it." This being true we should do all in our
power to turn men from gloom to gladness; from the shadows to sunshine.
With this purpose in mind I have written
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PESSIMIST
[Sidenote: The boy who does not go to school does not know what
Saturday is.--BABCOCK.]
Brother--you with growl and frown--
Why don't you move from Grumbletown,
Where everything is tumbled down
And skies are dark and dreary?
Move over into Gladville where
Your face will don a happy air,
And lay aside your cross of care
For smiles all bright and cheery.
[Sidenote: A faithful friend is a strong defence, and he that hath
found him hath found a treasure.--ECCLESIASTICUS.]
In Grumbletown there's not a joy
But has a shadow of alloy
That must its happiness destroy
And make you to regret it.
In Gladville we have not a care
But, somehow, looks inviting there
And has about it something fair
That makes us glad to get it.
[Sidenote: The three things most difficult are, to keep a secret, to
forget an injury, and to make a good use of leisure.--CHILO.]
'Tis strange how different these towns
Of ours are! Good cheer abounds
In one, and gruesome growls and frowns
Are always in the other.
If you your skies of ashen gray
Would change for sunny skies of May,
From Grumbletown, oh, haste away;
Move into Gladville, brother.
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BOSTON]