was organized not long ago in New York; it is, however, just as well
suited to other latitudes and longitudes. It is intended for people who
"cannot help worrying."
If really you can't help it, you are in an abnormal condition, you have
lost self-control,--it is a mild type of mental derangement. You must
attack your bad habit of worrying as you would a disease. It is
definitely something to be overcome, an infirmity that you are to get
rid of.
"Be good and you will be happy," is a very old piece of advice. Mrs.
Mary A. Livermore now proposes to reverse it,--"Be happy and you will be
good." If unhappiness is a bad habit, you are to turn about by sheer
force of will and practice cheerfulness. "Happiness is a thing to be
practiced like a violin."
Not work, but worry, fretfulness, friction,--these are our foes in
America. You should not go here and there, making prominent either your
bad manners or a gloomy face. Who has a right to rob other people of
their happiness? "Do not," says Emerson, "hang a dismal picture on your
wall; and do not deal with sables and glooms in your conversation."
If you are not at the moment cheerful,--look, speak, act, as if you
were. "You know I had no money, I had nothing to give but myself," said
a woman who had great sorrows to bear, but who bore them cheerfully. "I
formed a resolution never to sadden any one else with my troubles. I
have laughed and told jokes when I could have wept. I have always smiled
in the face of every misfortune. I have tried never to let any one go
from my presence without a happy word or a bright thought to carry away.
And happiness makes happiness. I myself am happier than I should have
been had I sat down and bemoaned my fate."
"'T is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows along like a song;
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong;
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years;
And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth
Is the smile that comes through tears."