LAUGHING.
"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
Laughing, like crying, has a good effect on the infantile lungs; nor is
it less salutary in other respects. "Laugh and be fat," an old adage,
has its meaning, and also its philosophy.
There is an excess, however, to which laughing, no less than crying, may
be carried, and which we cannot too carefully avoid. But how little to
be envied--how much to be pitied--are they who consider it a weakness
and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that
_the Saviour of mankind never laughed_. When I hear this last assertion,
I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a
new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books
which I have seen give us any such information.
But I will not dwell here. The common notion on this subject, if not
ridiculous, is certainly strange. I will only add, that, come into vogue
as it might have done, there is no opinion more unfounded than the very
general one among adults, that children should be uniformly grave; and
that just in proportion as they laugh and appear frolicsome, just in the
same proportion are they out of the way, and deserving of reprehension.
It is strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who
were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when
will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public
sentiment in the christian world get right on this subject!