LAUGH AND LIVE
Again I find it expedient to resort to the personal pronoun and
therefore this final chapter is to be devoted to "_you_ and _me_." There
are facts you may want to know _for sure_ and one of them is whether or
not I live up to my own prescription.
I do--_and it's easy_!
I have kept myself happy and well through keeping my physical department
in first class order. If that had been left to take care of itself I
would surely have fallen by the wayside in other departments. Once we
sit down in security the world seems to _hand us things we do not need_.
Fresh air is my intoxicant--and it keeps me in high spirits. My system
doesn't crave artificial stimulation because _my daily exercise_
quickens the blood sufficiently. Then, too, I manage to _keep busy_.
That's the real elixir--_activity_! Not always physical activity,
either, for I must read good books in order to exercise my mind in other
channels than just my daily routine--and add to my store of knowledge as
well.
Then there is my _inner-self_ which must have attention now and then.
For this a little solitude is helpful. We have only to sense the
phenomena surrounding us to know that we must have a _working
faith_--something _practical_ to live by, which automatically keeps us
on our course. The mystery of life somehow loses its density _if we
retain our spark of hope_.
All of my life since childhood I have held Shakespeare in constant
companionship. Aside from the Bible--which is entirely apart from all
other books--Shakespeare has no equal. My father, partly from his love
for the great poet, and partly for the purpose of aiding me to memorize
accurately, taught me to recite Shakespeare before I was old enough to
know the meaning of the words. I remembered them, however, and in later
years I grew to know their full significance. Then I became an ardent
follower of the Master Philosopher, than whom no greater interpreter of
human emotions ever lived. In the matter of sage advice there has never
been his equal. In "_Hamlet_" we find the wonderful words of admonition
from _Polonius_ in his farewell speech to his son _Laertes_--as good
today as four hundred years ago, and they will continue to be so until
the end of time.
It matters not how familiar we may be with these lines it is no waste of
time to read them over again once in awhile. They seem to fit the
_practical side of life_ perfectly. If we have any complaint by reason
of their brusqueness we have only to temper our interpretation according
to our own sense of justice. In other words if we wanted to loan a
"ten-spot" now and then we would just go ahead and do it--meanwhile, to
save you the trouble of looking up these lines, here they are in "Laugh
and Live"--
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou charácter--Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous sheaf in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,
This above all--_to thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man_.
[Illustration: "Wedlock in Time"--The Fairbanks' Family]
The time has come to close this little book. It has been a great
pleasure to write it and a greater pleasure to hope that it will be
received in the same spirit it has been written. These are busy days for
all of us. We go in a gallop most of the time, but there comes the quiet
hour when we must sit still and "take stock." I know this from the
letters that come to me asking my opinion on all sorts of subjects.
People believe I am happy because my laughing pictures seem to denote
this fact--_and it is a fact_! In the foregoing chapters I have told
why. If, in the telling I shall have been instrumental in adding to _the
world's store of happiness_ I shall ever thank my "lucky stars."
Very Sincerely
Douglas Fairbanks
A "CLOSE-UP" OF DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS
by George Creel
Reprinted from Everybody's Magazine by Permission of The Ridgway
Company, New York.