CHAPTER VI. Cheerfulness

CHEERFULNESS

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?

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.

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.

"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."

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."

"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.

Bovee very truly says, "The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards."

"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"

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.

"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."

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."

"Do not anticipate trouble," says Franklin, "or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight."

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."

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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."

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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--

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 pessimist it.

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.

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

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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

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.

'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.