diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18394-8.txt | 2710 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18394-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 56726 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18394-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 60130 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18394-h/18394-h.htm | 2792 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18394.txt | 2710 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 18394.zip | bin | 0 -> 56702 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 8228 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18394-8.txt b/18394-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..873cfea --- /dev/null +++ b/18394-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2710 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by Orison Swett Marden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cheerfulness as a Life Power + +Author: Orison Swett Marden + +Release Date: May 15, 2006 [EBook #18394] +[Last updated: May 25, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER + +BY + +ORISON SWETT MARDEN + +Author of "Pushing to the Front," "The Secret of +Achievement," etc.; and Editor of "Success." + +Tenth Thousand + +New York +Thomas Y. Crowell & Company +Publishers +Copyright, 1899 +By Orison Swett Marden + + + + +A FOREWORD. + + +The soul-consuming and friction-wearing tendency of this hurrying, +grasping, competing age is the excuse for this booklet. Is it not an +absolute necessity to get rid of all irritants, of everything which +worries and frets, and which brings discord into so many lives? +Cheerfulness has a wonderful lubricating power. It lengthens the life of +human machinery, as lubricants lengthen the life of inert machinery. +Life's delicate bearings should not be carelessly ground away for mere +lack of oil. What is needed is a habit of cheerfulness, to enjoy every +day as we go along; not to fret and stew all the week, and then expect +to make up for it Sunday or on some holiday. It is not a question of +mirth so much as of cheerfulness; not alone that which accompanies +laughter, but serenity,--a calm, sweet soul-contentment and inward +peace. Are there not multitudes of people who have the "blues," who yet +wish well to their neighbors? They would say kind words and make the +world happier--but they "haven't the time." To lead them to look on the +sunny side of things, and to take a little time every day to speak +pleasant words, is the message of the hour. + + THE AUTHOR. + +In the preparation of these pages, amid the daily demands of +journalistic work, the author has been assisted by Mr. E. P. Tenney, of +Cambridge. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS. + +I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS 7 + THE LAUGH CURE 9 + A CHEAP MEDICINE 13 + WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH? 14 + +II. THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS 16 + A WORRYING WOMAN 19 + OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE 22 + A WEATHER BREEDER 24 + "WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?" 27 + LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE 29 + +III. OILING YOUR BUSINESS MACHINERY 31 + SINGING AT YOUR WORK 33 + GOOD HUMOR 35 + "LE DIABLE EST MORT" 38 + +IV. TAKING YOUR FUN EVERY DAY AS YOU DO YOUR WORK 42 + UNWORKED JOY MINES 44 + THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD 45 + +V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK 51 + CHARLES LAMB 53 + JOHN B. GOUGH 55 + PHILLIPS BROOKS 60 + +VI. "LOOKING PLEASANT"--A THING TO BE WORKED FROM THE INSIDE 64 + WORTH FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS 66 + THE "DON'T WORRY" SOCIETY 67 + A PLEASURE BOOK 69 + +VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN 73 + + + + +CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER. + + + + +I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS. + + +William K. Vanderbilt, when he last visited Constantinople, one day +invited Coquelin the elder, so celebrated for his powers as a mimic, who +happened to be in the city at the time, to give a private recital on +board his yacht, lying in the Bosphorus. Coquelin spoke three of his +monologues. A few days afterwards Coquelin received the following +memorandum from the millionaire:-- + +"You have brought tears to our eyes and laughter to our hearts. Since +all philosophers are agreed that laughing is preferable to weeping, your +account with me stands thus:-- + + "For tears, six times . . . $600 + "For laughter, twelve times . . 2,400 + ------ + $3,000 + +"Kindly acknowledge receipt of enclosed check." + +"I find nonsense singularly refreshing," said Talleyrand. There is good +philosophy in the saying, "Laugh and grow fat." If everybody knew the +power of laughter as a health tonic and life prolonger the tinge of +sadness which now clouds the American face would largely disappear, and +many physicians would find their occupation gone. + +The power of laughter was given us to serve a wise purpose in our +economy. It is Nature's device for exercising the internal organs and +giving us pleasure at the same time. + +Laughter begins in the lungs and diaphragm, setting the liver, stomach, +and other internal organs into a quick, jelly-like vibration, which +gives a pleasant sensation and exercise, almost equal to that of +horseback riding. During digestion, the movements of the stomach are +similar to churning. Every time you take a full breath, or when you +cachinnate well, the diaphragm descends and gives the stomach an extra +squeeze and shakes it. Frequent laughing sets the stomach to dancing, +hurrying up the digestive process. The heart beats faster, and sends the +blood bounding through the body. "There is not," says Dr. Green, "one +remotest corner or little inlet of the minute blood-vessels of the human +body that does not feel some wavelet from the convulsions occasioned by +a good hearty laugh." In medical terms, it stimulates the vasomotor +centers, and the spasmodic contraction of the blood-vessels causes the +blood to flow quickly. Laughter accelerates the respiration, and gives +warmth and glow to the whole system. It brightens the eye, increases the +perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the +least-used lung cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or +balance which we call health, which results from the harmonious action +of all the functions of the body. This delicate poise, which may be +destroyed by a sleepless night, a piece of bad news, by grief or +anxiety, is often wholly restored by a good hearty laugh. + +There is, therefore, sound sense in the caption,--"Cheerfulness as a +Life Power,"--relating as it does to the physical life, as well as the +mental and moral; and what we may call + + THE LAUGH CURE + +is based upon principles recognized as sound by the medical +profession--so literally true is the Hebrew proverb that "a merry heart +doeth good like a medicine." + +"Mirth is God's medicine," said Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes; "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." Elsewhere he says: +"If you are making choice of a physician be sure you get one with a +cheerful and serene countenance." + +Is not a jolly physician of greater service than his pills? Dr. Marshall +Hall frequently prescribed "cheerfulness" for his patients, saying that +it is better than anything to be obtained at the apothecary's. + +In Western New York, Dr. Burdick was known as the "Laughing Doctor." He +always presented the happiest kind of a face; and his good humor was +contagious. He dealt sparingly in drugs, yet was very successful. + +The London "Lancet," the most eminent medical journal in the world, +gives the following scientific testimony to the value of jovialty:-- + +"This power of 'good spirits' is a matter of high moment to the sick and +weakly. To the former, it may mean the ability to survive; to the +latter, the possibility of outliving, or living in spite of, a disease. +It is, therefore, of the greatest importance to cultivate the highest +and most buoyant frame of mind which the conditions will admit. The same +energy which takes the form of mental activity is vital to the work of +the organism. Mental influences affect the system; and a joyous spirit +not only relieves pain, but increases the momentum of life in the body." + +Dr. Ray, superintendent of Butler Hospital for the Insane, says in one +of his reports, "A hearty laugh is more desirable for mental health than +any exercise of the reasoning faculties." + +Grief, anxiety, and fear are great enemies of human life. A depressed, +sour, melancholy soul, a life which has ceased to believe in its own +sacredness, its own power, its own mission, a life which sinks into +querulous egotism or vegetating aimlessness, has become crippled and +useless. We should fight against every influence which tends to depress +the mind, as we would against a temptation to crime. It is undoubtedly +true that, as a rule, the mind has power to lengthen the period of +youthful and mature strength and beauty, preserving and renewing +physical life by a stalwart mental health. + +I read the other day of a man in a neighboring city who was given up to +die; his relatives were sent for, and they watched at his bedside. But +an old acquaintance, who called to see him, assured him smilingly that +he was all right and would soon be well. He talked in such a strain that +the sick man was forced to laugh; and the effort so roused his system +that he rallied, and he was soon well again. + +Was it not Shakespere who said that a light heart lives long? + +The San Francisco "Argonaut" says that a woman in Milpites, a victim of +almost crushing sorrow, despondency, indigestion, insomnia, and kindred +ills, determined to throw off the gloom which was making life so heavy a +burden to her, and established a rule that she would laugh at least +three times a day, whether occasion was presented or not; so she trained +herself to laugh heartily at the least provocation, and would retire to +her room and make merry by herself. She was soon in excellent health and +buoyant spirits; her home became a sunny, cheerful abode. + +It was said, by one who knew this woman well, and who wrote an account +of the case for a popular magazine, that at first her husband and +children were amused at her, and while they respected her determination +because of the griefs she bore, they did not enter into the spirit of +the plan. "But after awhile," said this woman to me, with a smile, only +yesterday, "the funny part of the idea struck my husband, and he began +to laugh every time we spoke of it. And when he came home, he would ask +me if I had had my 'regular laughs;' and he would laugh when he asked +the question, and again when I answered it. My children, then very +young, thought 'mamma's notion very queer,' but they laughed at it just +the same. Gradually, my children told other children, and they told +their parents. My husband spoke of it to our friends, and I rarely met +one of them but he or she would laugh and ask me, 'How many of your +laughs have you had to-day?' Naturally, they laughed when they asked, +and of course that set me laughing. When I formed this apparently +strange habit I was weighed down with sorrow, and my rule simply lifted +me out of it. I had suffered the most acute indigestion; for years I +have not known what it is. Headaches were a daily dread; for over six +years I have not had a single pain in the head. My home seems different +to me, and I feel a thousand times more interest in its work. My husband +is a changed man. My children are called 'the girls who are always +laughing,' and, altogether, my rule has proved an inspiration which has +worked wonders." + +The queen of fashion, however, says that we must never laugh out loud; +but since the same tyrannical mistress kills people by corsets, indulges +in cosmetics, and is out all night at dancing parties, and in China +pinches up the women's feet, I place much less confidence in her views +upon the laugh cure for human woes. Yet in all civilized countries it is +a fundamental principle of refined manners not to be ill-timed and +unreasonably noisy and boisterous in mirth. One who is wise will never +violate the proprieties of well-bred people. + +"Yet," says a wholesome writer upon health, "we should do something more +than to simply cultivate a cheerful, hopeful spirit,--we should +cultivate a spirit of mirthfulness that is not only easily pleased and +smiling, but that indulges in hearty, hilarious laughter; and if this +faculty is not well marked in our organization we should cultivate it, +being well assured that hearty, body-shaking laughter will do us good." + +Ordinary good looks depend on one's sense of humor,--"a merry heart +maketh a cheerful countenance." Joyfulness keeps the heart and face +young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody +around us, and puts us into closer touch with what is best and brightest +in our lot in life. + +Physiology tells the story. The great sympathetic nerves are closely +allied; and when one set carries bad news to the head, the nerves +reaching the stomach are affected, indigestion comes on, and one's +countenance becomes doleful. Laugh when you can; it is + + A CHEAP MEDICINE. + +Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. The eminent surgeon +Chavasse says that we ought to begin with the babies and train children +to habits of mirth:-- + +"Encourage your child to be merry and laugh aloud; a good hearty laugh +expands the chest and makes the blood bound merrily along. Commend me to +a good laugh,--not to a little snickering laugh, but to one that will +sound right through the house. It will not only do your child good, but +will be a benefit to all who hear, and be an important means of driving +the blues away from a dwelling. Merriment is very catching, and spreads +in a remarkable manner, few being able to resist its contagion. A hearty +laugh is delightful harmony; indeed, it is the best of all music." +"Children without hilarity," says an eminent author, "will never amount +to much. Trees without blossoms will never bear fruit." + +Hufeland, physician to the King of Prussia, commends the ancient custom +of jesters at the king's table, whose quips and cranks would keep the +company in a roar. + +Did not Lycurgus set up the god of laughter in the Spartan eating-halls? +There is no table sauce like laughter at meals. It is the great enemy of +dyspepsia. + + +How wise are the words of the acute Chamfort, that the most completely +lost of all days is the one in which we have not laughed! + +"A crown, for making the king laugh," was one of the items of expense +which the historian Hume found in a manuscript of King Edward II. + +"It is a good thing to laugh, at any rate," said Dryden, the poet, "and +if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness." + +"I live," said Laurence Sterne, one of the greatest of English +humorists, "in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of +ill health and other evils by mirth; I am persuaded that, every time a +man smiles,--but much more so when he laughs,--it adds something to his +fragment of life." + +"Give me an honest laugher," said Sir Walter Scott, and he was himself +one of the happiest men in the world, with a kind word and pleasant +smile for every one, and everybody loved him. + +"How much lies in laughter!" exclaimed the critic Carlyle. "It is the +cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an +everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others 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 cachinnation, as if they were laughing +through wool. Of none such comes good." + +"The power to laugh, to cease work and begin to frolic and make merry in +forgetfulness of all the conflict of life," says Campbell Morgan, "is a +divine bestowment upon man." + +Happy, then, is the man, who may well laugh to himself over his good +luck, who can answer the old question, "How old are you?" by Sambo's +reply:-- + +"If you reckon by the years, sah, I'se twenty-five; but if you goes by +the fun I's 'ad, I guess I's a hundred." + + WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH? + + _From the "Independent"_ + + "Why don't you laugh, young man, when troubles come, + Instead of sitting 'round so sour and glum? + You cannot have all play, + And sunshine every day; + When troubles come, I say, why don't you laugh? + + "Why don't you laugh? 'T will ever help to soothe + The aches and pains. No road in life is smooth; + There's many an unseen bump, + And many a hidden stump + O'er which you'll have to jump. Why don't you laugh? + + "Why don't you laugh? Don't let your spirits wilt; + Don't sit and cry because the milk you've spilt; + If you would mend it now, + Pray let me tell you how: + Just milk another cow! Why don't you laugh? + + "Why don't you laugh, and make us all laugh, too, + And keep us mortals all from getting blue? + A laugh will always win; + If you can't laugh, just grin,-- + Come on, let's all join in! Why don't you laugh?" + + + + +II. THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS. + + +Prince Wolkonsky, during a visit to this country, declared that +"Business is the alpha and omega of American life. There is no pleasure, +no joy, no satisfaction. There is no standard except that of profit. +There is no other country where they speak of a man as worth so many +dollars. In other countries they live to enjoy life; here they exist for +business." A Boston merchant corroborated this statement by saying he +was anxious all day about making money, and worried all night for fear +he should lose what he had made. + +"In the United States," a distinguished traveler once said, "there is +everywhere comfort, but no joy. The ambition of getting more and +fretting over what is lost absorb life." + +"Every man we meet looks as if he'd gone out to borrow trouble, with +plenty of it on hand," said a French lady, upon arriving in New York. + +"The Americans are the best-fed, the best-clad, and the best-housed +people in the world," says another witness, "but they are the most +anxious; they hug possible calamity to their breasts." + +"I question if care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the +faces of any other population," says Emerson; "old age begins in the +nursery." + +How quickly we Americans exhaust life! With what panting haste we pursue +everything! Every man you meet seems to be late for an appointment. +Hurry is stamped in the wrinkles of the national face. We are men of +action; we go faster and faster as the years go by, speeding our +machinery to the utmost. Bent forms, prematurely gray hair, restlessness +and discontent, are characteristic of our age and people. We earn our +bread, but cannot digest it; and our over-stimulated nerves soon become +irritated, and touchiness follows,--so fatal to a business man, and so +annoying in society. + +"It is not work that kills men," says Beecher; "it is worry. Work is +healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is +rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but +friction." + +It is not so much the great sorrows, the great burdens, the great +hardships, the great calamities, that cloud over the sunshine of life, +as the little petty vexations, insignificant anxieties and fear, the +little daily dyings, which render our lives unhappy, and destroy our +mental elasticity, without advancing our life-work one inch. "Anxiety +never yet bridged any chasm." + +"What," asks Dr. George W. Jacoby, in an "Evening Post" interview, "is +the ultimate physical effect of worry? Why, the same as that of a fatal +bullet-wound or sword-thrust. Worry kills as surely, though not so +quickly, as ever gun or dagger did, and more people have died in the +last century from sheer worry than have been killed in battle." + +Dr. Jacoby is one of the foremost of American brain doctors. "The +investigations of the neurologists," he says, "have laid bare no secret +of Nature in recent years more startling and interesting than the +discovery that worry kills." This is the final, up-to-date word. "Not +only is it known," resumes the great neurologist, counting off his +words, as it were, on his finger-tips, "that worry kills, but the most +minute details of its murderous methods are familiar to modern +scientists. It is a common belief of those who have made a special study +of the science of brain diseases that hundreds of deaths attributed to +other causes each year are due simply to worry. In plain, untechnical +language, worry works its irreparable injury through certain cells of +the brain life. The insidious inroads upon the system can be best +likened to the constant falling of drops of water in one spot. In the +brain it is the insistent, never-lost idea, the single, constant +thought, centered upon one subject, which in the course of time destroys +the brain cells. The healthy brain can cope with occasional worry; it is +the iteration and reiteration of disquieting thoughts which the cells of +the brain cannot successfully combat. + +"The mechanical effect of worry is much the same as if the skull were +laid bare and the brain exposed to the action of a little hammer beating +continually upon it day after day, until the membranes are disintegrated +and the normal functions disabled. The maddening thought that will not +be downed, the haunting, ever-present idea that is not or cannot be +banished by a supreme effort of the will, is the theoretical hammer +which diminishes the vitality of the sensitive nerve organisms, the +minuteness of which makes them visible to the eye only under a powerful +microscope. The 'worry,' the thought, the single idea grows upon one as +time goes on, until the worry victim cannot throw it off. Through this, +one set or area of cells is affected. The cells are intimately +connected, joined together by little fibres, and they in turn are in +close relationship with the cells of the other parts of the brain. + +"Worry is itself a species of monomania. No mental attitude is more +disastrous to personal achievement, personal happiness, and personal +usefulness in the world, than worry and its twin brother, despondency. +The remedy for the evil lies in training the will to cast off cares and +seek a change of occupation, when the first warning is sounded by Nature +in intellectual lassitude. Relaxation is the certain foe of worry, and +'don't fret' one of the healthiest of maxims." + +In a life of constant worrying, we are as much behind the times as if we +were to go back to use the first steam engines that wasted ninety per +cent. of the energy of the coal, instead of having an electric dynamo +that utilizes ninety per cent. of the power. Some people waste a large +percentage of their energy in fretting and stewing, in useless anxiety, +in scolding, in complaining about the weather and the perversity of +inanimate things. Others convert nearly all of their energy into power +and moral sunshine. He who has learned the true art of living will not +waste his energies in friction, which accomplishes nothing, but merely +grinds out the machinery of life. + +It must be relegated to the debating societies to determine which is the +worse--A Nervous Man or + + A WORRYING WOMAN. + +"I'm awfully worried this morning," said one woman. "What is it?" "Why, +I thought of something to worry about last night, and now I can't +remember it." + +A famous actress once said: "Worry is the foe of all beauty." She might +have added: "It is the foe to all health." + +"It seems so heartless in me, if I do not worry about my children," said +one mother. + +Women nurse their troubles, as they do their babies. "Troubles grow +larger," said Lady Holland, "by nursing." + +The White Knight who carried about a mousetrap, lest he be troubled with +mice upon his journeys, was not unlike those who anticipate their +burdens. + +"He grieves," says Seneca, "more than is necessary, who grieves before +it is necessary." + +"My children," said a dying man, "during my long life I have had a great +many troubles, most of which never happened." A prominent business man +in Philadelphia said that his father worried for twenty-five years over +an anticipated misfortune which never arrived. + +We try to grasp too much of life at once; since we think of it as a +whole, instead of living one day at a time. Life is a mosaic, and each +tiny piece must be cut and set with skill, first one piece, then +another. + +A clock would be of no use as a time-keeper if it should become +discouraged and come to a standstill by calculating its work a year +ahead, as the clock did in Jane Taylor's fable. It is not the troubles +of to-day, but those of to-morrow and next week and next year, that +whiten our heads, wrinkle our faces, and bring us to a standstill. + +"There is such a thing," said Uncle Eben, "as too much foresight. People +get to figuring what might happen year after next, and let the fire go +out and catch their death of cold, right where they are." + +Nervous prostration is seldom the result of present trouble or work, but +of work and trouble anticipated. Mental exhaustion comes to those who +look ahead, and climb mountains before reaching them. Resolutely build a +wall about to-day, and live within the inclosure. The past may have been +hard, sad, or wrong,--but it is over. + +Why not take a turn about? Instead of worrying over unforeseen +misfortune, set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen +blessings of all your coming days. "I find the gayest castles in the air +that were ever piled," says Emerson, "far better for comfort and for use +than the dungeons in the air that are daily dug and caverned out by +grumbling, discontented people." + +What is this world but as you take it? Thackeray calls the world a +looking-glass that gives back the reflection of one's own face. "Frown +at it, and it will look sourly upon you; laugh at it, and it is a jolly +companion." + +"There is no use in talking," said a woman. "Every time I move, I vow +I'll never move again. Such neighbors as I get in with! Seems as though +they grow worse and worse." "Indeed?" replied her caller; "perhaps you +take the worst neighbor with you when you move." + +"In the sudden thunder-storm of Independence Day," says a news +correspondent, "we were struck by the contrast between two women, each +of whom had had some trying experience with the weather. One came +through the rain and hail to take refuge at the railway station, under +the swaying and uncertain shelter of an escorting man's umbrella. Her +skirts were soaked to the knees, her pink ribbons were limp, the purple +of the flowers on her hat ran in streaks down the white silk. And yet, +though she was a poor girl and her holiday finery must have been +relatively costly, she made the best of it with a smile and cheerful +words. The other was well sheltered; but she took the disappointment of +her hopes and the possibility of a little spattering from a leaky window +with frowns and fault-finding." + + "Cries little Miss Fret, + In a very great pet: + 'I hate this warm weather; it's horrid to tan! + It scorches my nose, + And it blisters my toes, + And wherever I go I must carry a fan.' + + "Chirps little Miss Laugh: + 'Why, I couldn't tell half + The fun I am having this bright summer day! + I sing through the hours, + I cull pretty flowers, + And ride like a queen on the sweet-smelling hay.'" + +Happily a new era has of late opened for our worried housekeepers, who +spend their time in "the half-frantic dusting of corners, spasmodic +sweeping, impatient snatching or pushing aside obstacles in the room, +hurrying and skurrying upstairs and down cellar." "It is not," says +Prentice Mulford, "the work that exhausts them,--it is the mental +condition they are in that makes so many old and haggard at forty." All +that is needful now to ease up their burdens is to go to + + OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE. + +A newspaper correspondent, Annie Laurie, has told us all about the new +kind of American girls just added to our country:-- + +"They are as straight as an arrow, and walk as queens walk in fairy +stories; they have great braids of sleek, black hair, soft brown eyes, +and gleaming white teeth; they can swim and ride and sing; and they are +brown with a skin that shines like bronze ... There isn't a worried +woman in Hawaii. The women there can't worry. They don't know how. They +eat and sing and laugh, and see the sun and the moon set, and possess +their souls in smiling peace. + +"If a Hawaii woman has a good dinner, she laughs and invites her friends +to eat it with her; if she hasn't a good dinner, she laughs and goes to +sleep,--and forgets to be hungry. She doesn't have to worry about what +the people in the downstairs flat will think if they don't see the +butcher's boy arrive on time. If she can earn the money, she buys a +nice, new, glorified Mother Hubbard; and, if she can't get it, she +throws the old one into the surf and washes it out, puts a new wreath of +fresh flowers in her hair, and starts out to enjoy the morning and the +breezes thereof. + +"They are not earnest workers; they haven't the slightest idea that they +were put upon earth to reform the universe,--they're just happy. They +run across great stretches of clear, white sand, washed with resplendent +purple waves, and, when the little brown babies roll in the surf, their +brown mothers run after them, laughing and splashing like a lot of +children. Or, perhaps we see them in gay cavalcades mounted upon +garlanded ponies, adorned by white jasmine wreaths with roses and pinks. +And here in this paradise of laughter and light hearts and gentle music, +there's absolutely nothing to do but to care for the children and old +people and to swim or ride. You couldn't start a 'reform circle' to save +your life; there isn't a jail in the place, nor a tenement quarter, and +there are no outdoor poor. There isn't a woman's club in Honolulu,--not +a club. There was a culture circle once for a few days; a Boston woman +who went there for her health organized it, but it interfered with +afternoon nap-time, so nobody came." + +When, hereafter, we talk about worrying women, we must take into +account our Hawaiian sisters, if we will average up the amount of worry +_per capita_, in our nation. + + A WEATHER BREEDER. + +It is probably quite within bounds to say that one out of three of our +American farming population, women and men, never enjoy a beautiful day +without first reminding you that "It is one of those infernal weather +breeders." + +Habitual fretters see more trouble than others. They are never so well +as their neighbors. The weather never suits them. The climate is trying. +The winds are too high or too low; it is too hot or too cold, too damp +or too dry. The roads are either muddy or dusty. + +"I met Mr. N. one wet morning," says Dr. John Todd; "and, bound as I was +to make the best of it, I ventured: + +"'Good morning. This rain will be fine for your grass crop.' + +'Yes, perhaps,' he replied, 'but it is very bad for corn; I don't think +we'll have half a crop.' + +"A few days later, I met him again. 'This is a fine sun for corn, Mr. +N.' + +"'Yes,' said he, 'but it's awful for rye; rye wants cold weather.' + +"One cool morning soon after, I said: 'This is a capital day for rye.' + +"'Yes,' he said, 'but it is the worst kind of weather for corn and +grass; they want heat to bring them forward.'" + +There are a vast number of fidgety, nervous, and eccentric people who +live only to expect new disappointments or to recount their old ones. + +"Impatient people," said Spurgeon, "water their miseries, and hoe up +their comforts." + +"Let's see," said a neighbor to a farmer, whose wagon was loaded down +with potatoes, "weren't we talking together last August?" "I believe +so." "At that time, you said corn was all burnt up." "Yes." "And +potatoes were baking in the ground." "Yes." "And that your district +could not possibly expect more than half a crop." "I remember." "Well, +here you are with your wagon loaded down. Things didn't turn out so +badly, after all,--eh?" "Well, no-o," said the farmer, as he raked his +fingers through his hair, "but I tell you my geese suffered awfully for +want of a mud-hole to paddle in." + +What is a pessimist but "a man who looks on the sun only as a thing that +casts a shadow"? + +In Pepys's "Diary" we learn the difference between "eyes shut and ears +open," and "ears shut and eyes open." In going from John o' Groat's +House to Land's End, a blind man would hear that the country was going +to destruction, but a deaf man with eyes open could see great +prosperity. + +"I dare no more fret than curse or swear," said John Wesley. + +"A discontented mortal is no more a man than discord is music." + + "Why should a man whose blood is warm within + Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? + Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice + By being peevish?" + +Who are the "lemon squeezers of society"? They are people who predict +evil, extinguish hope, and see only the worst side,--"people whose very +look curdles the milk and sets your teeth on edge." They are often +worthy people who think that pleasure is wrong; people, said an old +divine, who lead us heavenward and stick pins into us all the way. They +say depressing things and do disheartening things; they chill +prayer-meetings, discourage charitable institutions, injure commerce, +and kill churches; they are blowing out lights when they ought to be +kindling them. + +A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one jolts +over every pebble; with mirth, he is like a chariot with springs, riding +over the roughest roads and scarcely feeling anything but a pleasant +rocking motion. + +"Difficulties melt away before the man who carries about a cheerful +spirit and persistently refuses to be discouraged, while they accumulate +before the one who is always groaning over his hard luck and scanning +the horizon for clouds not yet in sight." + +"To one man," says Schopenhauer, "the world is barren, dull, and +superficial; to another, rich, interesting, and full of meaning." If one +loves beauty and looks for it, he will see it wherever he goes. If there +is music in his soul, he will hear it everywhere; every object in nature +will sing to him. Two men who live in the same house and do the same +work may not live in the same world. Although they are under the same +roof, one may see only deformity and ugliness; to him the world is out +of joint, everything is cross-grained and out of sorts: the other is +surrounded with beauty and harmony; everybody is kind to him; nobody +wishes him harm. These men see the same objects, but they do not look +through the same glasses; one looks through a smoked glass which drapes +the whole world in mourning, the other looks through rose-colored lenses +which tint everything with loveliness and touch it with beauty. + +Take two persons just home from a vacation. "One has positively seen +nothing, and has always been robbed; the landlady was a harpy, the +bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was tough. The other has always +found the coziest nooks, the cheapest houses, the best landladies, the +finest views, and the best dinners." + + "WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?" + +This is the question a farmer's boy asked of his father. + +"Well, John," replied his father, "you know I can't give ye the +dictionary meanin' of that word any more 'n I can of a great many +others. But I've got a kind of an idee what it means. Probably you don't +remember your Uncle Henry; but I guess if there ever was an optimist, he +was one. Things was always comin' out right with Henry, and especially +anything hard that he had to do; it wa' n't a-goin' to be hard,--'t was +jest kind of solid-pleasant. + +"Take hoein' corn, now. If anything ever tuckered me out, 'twas hoein' +corn in the hot sun. But in the field, 'long about the time I begun to +lag back a little, Henry he'd look up an' say:-- + +"'Good, Jim! When we get these two rows hoed, an' eighteen more, the +piece'll be half done.' An' he'd say it in such a kind of a cheerful way +that I couldn't 'a' ben any more tickled if the piece had been all +done,--an' the rest would go light enough. + +"But the worst thing we had to do--hoein corn was a picnic to it--was +pickin' stones. There was no end to that on our old farm, if we wanted +to raise anything. When we wa'n't hurried and pressed with somethin' +else, there was always pickin' stones to do; and there wa'n't a plowin' +but what brought up a fresh crop, an' seems as if the pickin' had all to +be done over again. + +"Well, you'd' a' thought, to hear Henry, that there wa'n't any fun in +the world like pickin' stones. He looked at it in a different way from +anybody I ever see. Once, when the corn was all hoed, and the grass +wa'n't fit to cut yet, an' I'd got all laid out to go fishin', and +father he up and set us to pickin' stones up on the west piece, an' I +was about ready to cry, Henry he says:-- + +"'Come on, Jim. I know where there's lots of nuggets.' + +"An' what do you s'pose, now? That boy had a kind of a game that that +there field was what he called a plasser mining field; and he got me +into it, and I could 'a' sworn I was in Californy all day,--I had such a +good time. + +"'Only,' says Henry, after we'd got through the day's work, 'the way you +get rich with these nuggets is to get rid of 'em, instead of to get +'em.' + +"That somehow didn't strike my fancy, but we'd had play instead of work, +anyway, an' a great lot of stones had been rooted out of that field. + +"An', as I said before, I can't give ye any dictionary definition of +optimism; but if your Uncle Henry wa'n't an optimist, I don't know what +one is." + +At life's outset, says one, a cheerful optimistic temperament is worth +everything. A cheerful man, who always "feels first-rate," who always +looks on the bright side, who is ever ready to snatch victory from +defeat, is the successful man. + +Everybody avoids the company of those who are always grumbling, who are +full of "ifs" and "buts," and "I told you so's." We like the man who +always looks toward the sun, whether it shines or not. It is the +cheerful, hopeful man we go to for sympathy and assistance; not the +carping, gloomy critic,--who always thinks it is going to rain, and that +we are going to have a terribly hot summer, or a fearful thunder-storm, +or who is forever complaining of hard times and his hard lot. It is the +bright, cheerful, hopeful, contented man who makes his way, who is +respected and admired. + +Gloom and depression not only take much out of life, but detract greatly +from the chances of winning success. It is the bright and cheerful +spirit that wins the final triumph. + + LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE. + +"I see our brother, who has just sat down, lives on Grumbling street," +said a keen-witted Yorkshireman. "I lived there myself for some time, +and never enjoyed good health. The air was bad, the house bad, the water +bad; the birds never came and sang in the street; and I was gloomy and +sad enough. But I 'flitted.' I got into Thanksgiving avenue; and ever +since then I have had good health, and so have all my family. The air is +pure, the house good; the sun shines on it all day; the birds are always +singing; and I am happy as I can live. Now, I recommend our brother to +'flit.' There are plenty of houses to let on Thanksgiving avenue; and he +will find himself a new man if he will only come; and I shall be right +glad to have him for a neighbor." + +This world was not intended for a "vale of tears," but as a sweet Vale +of Content. Travelers are told by the Icelanders, who live amid the cold +and desolation of almost perpetual winter, that "Iceland is the best +land the sun shines upon." "In the long Arctic night, the Eskimo is +blithe, and carolsome, far from the approach of the white man; while +amid the glorious scenery and Eden-like climate of Central America, the +native languages have a dozen words for pain and misery and sorrow, for +one with any cheerful signification." + +When a Persian king was directed by his wise men to wear the shirt of a +contented man, the only contented man in the kingdom had no shirt. The +most contented man in Boston does not live on Commonwealth avenue or do +business on State street: he is poor and blind, and he peddles needles +and thread, buttons and sewing-room supplies, about the streets of +Boston from house to house. Dr. Minot J. Savage used to pity this man +very much, and once in venturing to talk with him about his condition, +he was utterly amazed to find that the man was perfectly happy. He said +that he had a faithful wife, and a business by which he earned +sufficient for his wants; and, if he were to complain of his lot, he +should feel mean and contemptible. Surely, if there are any "solid men" +in Boston, he is one. + +Content is the magic lamp, which, according to the beautiful picture +painted for us by Goethe, transforms the rude fisherman's hut into a +palace of silver; the logs, the floors, the roof, the furniture, +everything being changed and gleaming with new light. + + "My crown is in my heart, not on my head; + Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, + Nor to be seen; my crown is called content; + A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy." + + + + +III. OILING YOUR BUSINESS MACHINERY. + + +Business is king. We often say that cotton is king, or corn is king, but +with greater propriety we may say that the king is that great machine +which is kept in motion by the Law of Supply and Demand: the destinies +of all mankind are ruled by it. + +"Were the question asked," says Stearns, "what is at this moment the +strongest power in operation for controlling, regulating, and inciting +the actions of men, what has most at its disposal the condition and +destinies of the world, we must answer at once, it is business, in its +various ranks and departments; of which commerce, foreign and domestic, +is the most appropriate representation. In all prosperous and advancing +communities,--advancing in arts, knowledge, literature, and social +refinement,--business is king. Other influences in society may be +equally indispensable, and some may think far more dignified, but +_Business is King_. The statesman and the scholar, the nobleman and the +prince, equally with the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer, +pursue their several objects only by leave granted and means furnished +by this potentate." + +Oil is better than sand for keeping this vast machinery in good running +condition. Do not shovel grit or gravel stones upon the bearings. A tiny +copper shaving in a wheel box, or a scratch on a journal, may set a +railway train on fire. The running of the business world is damaged by +whatever creates friction. + +Anxiety mars one's work. Nobody can do his best when, fevered by worry. +One may rush, and always be in great haste, and may talk about being +busy, fuming and sweating as if he were doing ten men's duties; and yet +some quiet person alongside, who is moving leisurely and without anxious +haste, is probably accomplishing twice as much, and doing it better. +Fluster unfits one for good work. + +Have you not sometimes seen a business manager whose stiffness would +serve as "a good example to a poker?" He acts toward his employees as +the father of Frederick the Great did toward his subjects, caning them +on the streets, and shouting, "I wish to be loved and not feared." +"Growl, Spitfire and Brothers," says Talmage, "wonder why they fail, +while Messrs. Merriman and Warmheart succeed." + +There is no investment a business man can make that will pay him a +greater per cent, than patience and amiability. Good humor will sell the +most goods. + +John Wanamaker's clerks have been heard to say: "We can work better for +a week after a pleasant 'Good morning' from Mr. Wanamaker." + +This kindly disposition and cheerful manner, and a desire to create a +pleasant feeling and diffuse good cheer among those who work for him, +have had a great deal to do with the great merchant's remarkable +success. On the other hand, a man who easily finds fault, and is never +generous-spirited, who never commends the work of subordinates when he +can do so justly, who is unwilling to brighten their hours, fails to +secure the best of service. "Why not try love's way?" It will pay +better, and be better. + +A habit of cheerfulness, enabling one to transmute apparent misfortunes +into real blessings, is a fortune to a young man or young woman just +crossing the threshold of active life. There is nothing but ill fortune +in a habit of grumbling, which "requires no talent, no self-denial, no +brains, no character." Grumbling only makes an employee more +uncomfortable, and may cause his dismissal. No one would or should wish +to make him do grudgingly what so many others would be glad to do in a +cheerful spirit. + +If you dislike your position, complain to no one, least of all to your +employer. Fill the place as it was never filled before. Crowd it to +overflowing. Make yourself more competent for it. Show that you are +abundantly worthy of better things. Express yourself in this manner as +freely as you please, for it is the only way that will count. + +No one ever found the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure +to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you +are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you +can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and +didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth +away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs that others leave +undone,--they are the true peacemakers, and worth a regiment of +grumblers. + +"Oh, what a sunny, winsome face she has!" said a Christian Endeavorer, +in reporting of a clerk whom he saw in a Bay City store. "The customers +flocked about her like bees about a honey-bush in full bloom." + + SINGING AT YOUR WORK. + +"Give us, therefore,"--let us cry with Carlyle,--"oh, give us the man +who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it +better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue +whilst 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, +graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright." + +"It is a good sign," says another writer, "when girlish voices carol +over the steaming dish-pan or the mending-basket, when the broom moves +rhythmically, and the duster flourishes in time to some brisk melody. We +are sure that the dishes shine more brightly, and that the sweeping and +dusting and mending are more satisfactory because of this running +accompaniment of song. Father smiles when he hears his girl singing +about her work, and mother's tired face brightens at the sound. Brothers +and sisters, without realizing it, perhaps, catch the spirit of the +cheerful worker." + +There are singing milkers in Switzerland; a milkmaid or man gets better +wages if gifted with a good voice, for a cow will yield one-fifth more +milk when soothed by a pleasing melody. + +It was said by Buffon that even sheep fatten better to the sound of +music. And when field-hands are singing, as you sometimes hear them in +the old country, you may be sure the labor is lightened. + +It is Mrs. Howitt who has told us of the musical bells of the farm teams +in a rural district in England:--"It was no regular tune, but a +delicious melody in that soft, sunshiny air, which was filled at the +same time with the song of birds. Angela had heard all kinds of music in +London, but this was unlike anything she had heard before, so soft, and +sweet, and gladsome. On it came, ringing, ringing as softly as flowing +water. The boys and grandfather knew what it meant. Then it came in +sight,--the farm team going to the mill with sacks of corn to be ground, +each horse with a little string of bells to its harness. On they came, +the handsome, well-cared-for creatures, nodding their heads as they +stepped along; and at every step the cheerful and cheering melody rang +out. + +"'Do all horses down here have bells?' asked Angela. + +"'By no means,' replied her grandfather. 'They cost something; but if we +can make labor easier to a horse by giving him a little music, which he +loves, he is less worn by his work, and that is a saving worth thinking +of. A horse is a generous, noble-spirited animal, and not without +intellect, either; and he is capable of much enjoyment from music.'" + +A spirit of song, if not the singing itself, is a constant delight to +us. "It is like passing sweet meadows alive with bobolinks." + +"Some men," says Beecher, "move through life as a band of music moves +down the street, flinging out pleasures on every side, through the air, +to every one far and near who can listen; others fill the air with harsh +clang and clangor. Many men go through life carrying their tongue, their +temper, their whole disposition so that wherever they go, others dread +them. Some men fill the air with their presence and sweetness, as +orchards in October days fill the air with the perfume of ripe fruit." + + GOOD HUMOR. + +"Health and good humor," said Massillon, "are to the human body like +sunshine to vegetation." + +The late Charles A. Dana fairly bubbled over with the enjoyment of his +work, and was, up to his last illness, at his office every day. A +Cabinet officer once said to him: "Well, Mr. Dana, I don't see how you +stand this infernal grind." + +"Grind?" said Mr. Dana. "You never were more mistaken. I have nothing +but fun." + +"Bully" was a favorite word with him; a slang word used to express +uncommon pleasure, such as had been afforded by a trip abroad, or by a +run to Cuba or Mexico, or by the perusal of something especially +pleasing in the "Sun's" columns. + +"One of my neighbors is a very ill-tempered man," said Nathan +Rothschild. "He tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine +close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first, 'Grunt, grunt,' then +'Squeak, squeak.' But this does me no harm. I am always in good humor." + +Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at the "Tribune" +office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a little +seven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley sat, with his head close down to +his paper, scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began by +asking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said the +editor quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate +visitor then began using his tongue, with no reference to the rules of +propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued to +write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with +no change of features, and without paying the slightest attention to the +visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most impassioned +scolding ever poured out in an editor's office, the angry man became +disgusted, and abruptly turned to walk out of the room. Then, for the +first time, Mr. Greeley quickly looked up, rose from his chair, and, +slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in a pleasant tone of +voice said: "Don't go, friend; sit down, sit down, and free your mind; +it will do you good,--you will feel better for it. Besides, it helps me +to think what I am to write about. Don't go." + +"One good hearty laugh," says Talmage, "is like a bomb-shell exploding +in the right place, and spleen and discontent like a gun that kicks over +the man shooting it off." + +"Every one," says Lubbock, "likes a man who can enjoy a laugh at his own +expense,--and justly so, for it shows good humor and good sense. If you +laugh at yourself, other people will not laugh at you." + +People differ very much in their sense of humor. As some are deaf to +certain sounds and blind to certain colors, so there are those who seem +deaf and blind to certain pleasures. What makes me laugh until I almost +go into convulsions moves them not at all. + +Is it not worth while to make an effort to see the funny side of our +petty annoyances? How could the two boys but laugh, after they had +contended long over the possession of a box found by the wayside, when +they agreed to divide its contents, and found nothing in it? + +The ability to get on with scolding, irritating people is a great art in +doing business. To preserve serenity amid petty trials is a happy gift. + +A sunny temper is also conducive to health. A medical authority of +highest repute affirms that "excessive labor, exposure to wet and cold, +deprivation of sufficient quantities of necessary and wholesome food, +habitual bad lodging, sloth, and intemperance are all deadly enemies to +human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent and ungoverned +passions;" that men and women have frequently lived to an advanced age +in spite of these; but that instances are very rare in which people of +irascible tempers live to extreme old age. + +Poultney Bigelow, in "Harper's Magazine," in relating the story of +Jameson's raid upon the Boers of South Africa, says that the triumphant +Boers fell on their knees, thanking God for their victory; and that they +prayed for their enemies, and treated their prisoners with the utmost +kindness. Our foreign missionary books relate similar anecdotes, it +being a characteristic feature of their childlike piety for new converts +to take literally the words of our Lord,--"Love your enemies." + +It is not true that the devil has his tail in everything. A stalwart +confidence in God, and faith in the happy outcome of life, will do more +to lubricate the creaking machinery of our daily affairs than anything +else. + + "LE DIABLE EST MORT." + +"_Courage, ami, le diable est mort!_" "Courage, friend, the devil is +dead!" was Denys's constant countersign, which he would give to +everybody. "They don't understand it," he would say, "but it wakes them +up. I carry the good news from city to city, to uplift men's hearts." +Once he came across a child who had broken a pitcher. "_Courage, amie, +le diable est mort!_" said he, which was such cheering news that she +ceased crying, and ran home to tell it to her grandma. + +Give me the man who, like Emerson, sees longevity in his cause, and who +believes there is a remedy for every wrong, a satisfaction for every +longing soul; the man who believes the best of everybody, and who sees +beauty and grace where others see ugliness and deformity. Give me the +man who believes in the ultimate triumph of truth over error, of harmony +over discord, of love over hate, of purity over vice, of light over +darkness, of life over death. Such men are the true nation-builders. + +Jay Cooke, many times a millionaire at the age of fifty-one, at +fifty-two practically penniless, went to work again and built another +fortune. The last of his three thousand creditors was paid, and the +promise of the great financier was fulfilled. To a visitor who once +asked him how he regained his fortune, Mr. Cooke replied, "That is +simple enough: by never changing the temperament I derived from my +father and mother. From my earliest experience in life I have always +been of a hopeful temperament, never living in a cloud; I have always +had a reasonable philosophy to think that men and times are better than +harsh criticism would suppose. I believed that this American world of +ours is full of wealth, and that it was only necessary to go to work and +find it. That is the secret of my success in life. Always look on the +sunny side." + +"Everything has gone," said a New York business man in despair, when he +reached home. But when he came to himself he found that his wife and his +children and the promises of God were left to him. Suffering, it was +said by Aristotle, becomes beautiful when any one bears great calamities +with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of +mind. + +When Garrison was locked up in the Boston city jail he said he had two +delightful companions,--a good conscience and a cheerful mind. + + "To live as always seeing + The invisible Source of things, + Is the blessedest state of being, + For the quietude it brings." + +"Away with those fellows who go howling through life," wrote Beccher, +"and all the while passing for birds of paradise! He that cannot laugh +and be gay should look to himself. He should fast and pray until his +face breaks forth into light." + +Martin Luther has told us that he was once sorely discouraged and vexed +at himself, the world, and the church, and at the small success he then +seemed to be having; and he fell into a despondency which affected all +his household. His good wife could not charm it away by cheerful speech +or acts. At length she hit upon this happy device, which proved +effectual. She appeared before him in deep mourning. + +"Who is dead?" asked Luther. + +"Oh, do you not know, Martin? God in heaven is dead." + +"How can you talk such nonsense, Käthe? How can God die? Why, He is +immortal, and will live through all eternity." + +"Is that really true?" persisted she, as if she could hardly credit his +assertion that God still lived. + +"How can you doubt it? So surely as there is a God in heaven," asserted +the aroused theologian, "so sure is it that He can never die." + +"And yet," said she demurely, in a tone which made him look up at her, +"though you do not doubt there is a God, you become hopeless and +discouraged as if there were none. It seemed to me you acted as if God +were dead." + +The spell was broken; Luther heartily laughed at his wife's lesson, and +her ingenious way of presenting it. "I observed," he remarked, "what a +wise woman my wife was, who mastered my sadness." + +Jean Paul Richter's dream of "No God" is one of the most somber things +in all literature,--"tempestuous chaos, no healing hand, no Infinite +Father. I awoke. My soul wept for joy that it could again worship the +Infinite Father.... And when I arose, from all nature I heard flowing +sweet, peaceful tones, as from evening bells." + + + + +IV. TAKING YOUR FUN EVERY DAY AS YOU DO YOUR WORK. + + +Ten things are necessary for happiness in this life, the first being a +good digestion, and the other nine,--money; so at least it is said by +our modern philosophers. Yet the author of "A Gentle Life" speaks more +truly in saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of +superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support of +life. + +He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness, not from +ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him. The man who has +mastered the secret will not wait for ideal surroundings; he will not +wait until next year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he can +travel abroad, until he can afford to surround himself with works of the +great masters; but he will make the most out of life to-day, where he +is. + + "Why thus longing, thus forever sighing, + For the far-off, unattained and dim, + While the beautiful, all round thee lying, + Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? + + "Happy the man, and happy he alone, + He who can call to-day his own; + He who, secure within himself, can say: + 'To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day!'" + +Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will +never find it. + +It is after business hours, not in them, that men break down. Men must, +like Philip Armour, turn the key on business when they leave it, and at +once unlock the doors of some wholesome recreation. Dr. Lyman Beecher +used to divert himself with a violin. He had a regular system of what he +called "unwinding," thus relieving the great strain put upon him. + +"A man," says Dr. Johnson, "should spend part of his time with the +laughers." + +Humor was Lincoln's life-preserver, as it has been of thousands of +others. "If it were not for this," he used to say, "I should die." His +jests and quaint stories lighted the gloom of dark hours of national +peril. + +"Next to virtue," said Agnes Strickland, "the fun in this world is what +we can least spare." + +"When the harness is off," said Judge Haliburton, "a critter likes to +kick up his heels." + +"I have fun from morning till night," said the editor Charles A. Dana to +a friend who was growing prematurely old. "Do you read novels, and play +billiards, and walk a great deal?" + +Gladstone early formed a habit of looking on the bright side of things, +and never lost a moment's sleep by worrying about public business. + +There are many out-of-door sports, and the very presence of nature is to +many a great joy. How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, +all nature smiles with us,--the air seems more balmy, the sky more +clear, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, +the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly, and the sun, +moon, and stars all appear more beautiful. "It is a grand thing to +live,--to open the eyes in the morning and look out upon the world, to +drink in the pure air and enjoy the sweet sunshine, to feel the pulse +bound, and the being thrill with the consciousness of strength and power +in every nerve; it is a good thing simply to be alive, and it is a good +world we live in, in spite of the abuse we are fond of giving it." + + "I love to hear the bee sing amid the blossoms sunny; + To me his drowsy melody is sweeter than his honey: + For, while the shades are shifting + Along the path to noon, + My happy brain goes drifting + To dreamland on his tune. + + "I love to hear the wind blow amid the blushing petals, + And when a fragile flower falls, to watch it as it settles; + And view each leaflet falling + Upon the emerald turf, + With idle mind recalling + The bubbles on the surf. + + "I love to lie upon the grass, and let my glances wander + Earthward and skyward there; while peacefully I ponder + How much of purest pleasure + Earth holds for his delight + Who takes life's cup to measure + Naught but its blessings bright." + +Upon every side of us are to be found what one has happily called-- + + UNWORKED JOY MINES. + +And he who goes "prospecting" to see what he can daily discover is a +wise man, training his eye to see beauty in everything and everywhere. + +"One ought, every day," says Goethe, "at least to hear a little song, +read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak +a few reasonable words." And if this be good for one's self, why not try +the song, the poem, the picture, and the good words, on some one else? + +Shall music and poetry die out of you while you are struggling for that +which can never enrich the character, nor add to the soul's worth? Shall +a disciplined imagination fill the mind with beautiful pictures? He who +has intellectual resources to fall back upon will not lack for daily +recreation most wholesome. + +It was a remark of Archbishop Whately that we ought not only to +cultivate the cornfields of the mind, but the pleasure-grounds also. A +well-balanced life is a cheerful life; a happy union of fine qualities +and unruffled temper, a clear judgment, and well-proportioned faculties. +In a corner of his desk, Lincoln kept a copy of the latest humorous +work; and it was frequently his habit, when fatigued, annoyed, or +depressed, to take this up, and read a chapter with great relief. Clean, +sensible wit, or sheer nonsense,--anything to provoke mirth and make a +man jollier,--this, too, is a gift from Heaven. + +In the world of books, what is grand and inspiring may easily become a +part of every man's life. A fondness for good literature, for good +fiction, for travel, for history, and for biography,--what is better +than this? + + THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD. + +This title best fits Victoria, the true queen of the world, but it fits +her best because she is the best type of a noble wife, the queen of her +husband's heart, and of a queen mother whose children rise up and call +her blessed. + +"I noticed," said Franklin, "a mechanic, among a number of others, at +work on a house a little way from my office, who always appeared to be +in a merry humor; he had a kind word and smile for every one he met. +Let the day be ever so cold, gloomy, or sunless, a happy smile danced on +his cheerful countenance. Meeting him one morning, I asked him to tell +me the secret of his constant flow of spirits. + +"'It is no secret, doctor,' he replied. 'I have one of the best of +wives; and, when I go to work, she always has a kind word of +encouragement for me; and, when I go home, she meets me with a smile and +a kiss; and then tea is sure to be ready, and she has done so many +little things through the day to please me that I cannot find it in my +heart to speak an unkind word to anybody.'" + +Some of the happiest homes I have ever been in, ideal homes, where +intelligence, peace, and harmony dwell, have been homes of poor people. +No rich carpets covered the floors; there were no costly paintings on +the walls, no piano, no library, no works of art. But there were +contented minds, devoted and unselfish lives, each contributing as much +as possible to the happiness of all, and endeavoring to compensate by +intelligence and kindness for the poverty of their surroundings. "One +cheerful, bright, and contented spirit in a household will uplift the +tone of all the rest. The keynote of the home is in the hand of the +resolutely cheerful member of the family, and he or she will set the +pitch for the rest." + +"Young men," it is said, "are apt to be overbearing, imperious, brusque +in their manner; they need that suavity of manner, and urbanity of +demeanor, gracefulness of expression and delicacy of manner, which can +only be gained by association with the female character, which possesses +the delicate instinct, ready judgment, acute perceptions, wonderful +intuition. The blending of the male and female characteristics produces +the grandest character in each." + +The woman who has what Helen Hunt so aptly called "a genius for +affection,"--she, indeed, is queen of the home. "I have often had +occasion," said Washington Irving, "to remark the fortitude with which +woman sustains the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those +disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the +dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give +such intrepidity and elevation to their character that at times it +approaches sublimity." + +If a wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the +cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place her husband can find refuge in,--a +retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world,--then God help +the poor man, for he is virtually homeless. "Home-keeping hearts," said +Longfellow, "are happiest." What is a good wife, a good mother? Is she +not a gift out of heaven, sacred and delicate, with affections so great +that no measuring line short of that of the infinite God can tell their +bound; fashioned to refine and soothe and lift and irradiate home and +society and the world; of such value that no one can appreciate it, +unless his mother lived long enough to let him understand it, or unless, +in some great crisis of life, when all else failed him, he had a wife to +reënforce him with a faith in God that nothing could disturb? + +Nothing can be more delightful than an anecdote of Joseph H. Choate, of +New York, our Minister at the Court of St. James. Upon being asked, at a +dinner-party, who he would prefer to be if he could not be himself, he +hesitated a moment, apparently running over in his mind the great ones +on earth, when his eyes rested on Mrs. Choate at the other end of the +table, who was watching him with great interest in her face, and +suddenly replied, "If I could not be myself, I should like to be Mrs. +Choate's second husband." + +"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the +bones." It is the little disputes, little fault-findings, little +insinuations, little reflections, sharp criticisms, fretfulness and +impatience, little unkindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad +temper, that create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family. +How much it would add to the glory of the homes of the world if that +might be said of every one which Rogers said of Lord Holland's sunshiny +face: "He always comes to breakfast like a man upon whom some sudden +good fortune has fallen"! + +The value of pleasant words every day, as you go along, is well depicted +by Aunt Jerusha in what she said to our genial friend of "Zion's +Herald":-- + +"If folks could have their funerals when they are alive and well and +struggling along, what a help it would be"! she sighed, upon returning +from a funeral, wondering how poor Mrs. Brown would have felt if she +could have heard what the minister said. "Poor soul, she never dreamed +they set so much by her! + +"Mis' Brown got discouraged. Ye see, Deacon Brown, he'd got a way of +blaming everything on to her. I don't suppose the deacon meant +it,--'twas just his way,--but it's awful wearing. When things wore out +or broke, he acted just as if Mis' Brown did it herself on purpose; and +they all caught it, like the measles or the whooping-cough. + +"And the minister a-telling how the deacon brought his young wife here +when 't wa'n't nothing but a wilderness, and how patiently she bore +hardship, and what a good wife she'd been! Now the minister wouldn't +have known anything about that if the deacon hadn't told him. Dear! +Dear! If he'd only told Mis' Brown herself what he thought, I do believe +he might have saved the funeral. + +"And when the minister said how the children would miss their mother, +seemed as though they couldn't stand it, poor things! + +"Well, I guess it is true enough,--Mis' Brown was always doing for some +of them. When they was singing about sweet rest in heaven, I couldn't +help thinking that that was something Mis' Brown would have to get used +to, for she never had none of it here. + +"She'd have been awful pleased with the flowers. They was pretty, and no +mistake. Ye see, the deacon wa'n't never willing for her to have a +flower-bed. He said 't was enough prettier sight to see good cabbages +a-growing; but Mis' Brown always kind of hankered after sweet-smelling +things, like roses and such. + +"What did you say, Levi? 'Most time for supper? Well, land's sake, so it +is! I must have got to meditating. I've been a-thinking, Levi, you +needn't tell the minister anything about me. If the pancakes and pumpkin +pies are good, you just say so as we go along. It ain't best to keep +everything laid up for funerals." + +_It is the grand secret of a happy home to express the affection you +really have._ + +"He is the happiest," it was said by Goethe, "be he king or peasant, who +finds peace in his home." There are indeed many serious, too +serious-minded fathers and mothers who do not wish to advertise their +children to all the neighbors as "the laughing family." If this be so, +yet, at the very least, these solemn parents may read the Bible. Where +it is said, "provoke not your children to wrath," it means literally, +"do not irritate your children;" "do not rub them up the wrong way." + +Children ought never to get the impression that they live in a hopeless, +cheerless, cold world; but the household cheerfulness should transform +their lives like sunlight, making their hearts glad with little things, +rejoicing upon small occasion. + +"How beautiful would our home-life be if every little child at the +bed-time hour could look into the faces of the older ones and say: +'We've had such sweet times to-day.'" + +"To love, and to be loved," says Sydney Smith, "is the greatest +happiness of existence." + + + + +V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK. + + +Dining one day with Baron James Rothschild, Eugene Delacroix, the famous +French artist, confessed that, during some time past, he had vainly +sought for a head to serve as a model for that of a beggar in a picture +which he was painting; and that, as he gazed at his host's features, the +idea suddenly occurred to him that the very head he desired was before +him. Rothschild, being a great lover of art, readily consented to sit as +the beggar. The next day, at the studio, Delacroix placed a tunic around +the baron's shoulders, put a stout staff in his hand, and made him pose +as if he were resting on the steps of an ancient Roman temple. In this +attitude he was found by one of the artist's favorite pupils, in a brief +absence of the master from the room. The youth naturally concluded that +the beggar had just been brought in, and with a sympathetic look quietly +slipped a piece of money into his hand. Rothschild thanked him simply, +pocketed the money, and the student passed out. Rothschild then inquired +of the master, and found that the young man had talent, but very slender +means. Soon after, the youth received a letter stating that charity +bears interest, and that the accumulated interest on the amount he had +given to one he supposed to be a beggar was represented by the sum of +ten thousand francs, which was awaiting his claim at the Rothschild +office. + +This illustrates well the art of cheerful amusement even if one has +great business cares,--the entertainment of the artist, the personation +of a beggar, and an act of beneficence toward a worthy student. + +It illustrates, too, what was said by Wilhelm von Humboldt, that "it is +worthy of special remark that when we are not too anxious about +happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and +unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself." We carry +each day nobly, doing the duty or enjoying the privilege of the moment, +without thinking whether or not it will make us happy. This is quite in +accord with the saying of George Herbert, "The consciousness of duty +performed gives us music at midnight." + +Are not buoyant spirits like water sparkling when it runs? "_I have +found my greatest happiness in labor_," said Gladstone. "I early formed +a habit of industry, and it has been its own reward. The young are apt +to think that rest means a cessation from all effort, but I have found +the most perfect rest in changing effort. If brain-weary over books and +study, go out into the blessed sunlight and the pure air, and give +heartfelt exercise to the body. The brain will soon become calm and +rested. The efforts of Nature are ceaseless. Even in our sleep the heart +throbs on. I try to live close to Nature, and to imitate her in my +labors. The compensation is sound sleep, a wholesome digestion, and +powers that are kept at their best; and this, I take it, is the chief +reward of industry." + +"Owing to ingrained habits," said Horace Mann, "work has always been to +me what water is to a fish. I have wondered a thousand times to hear +people say, 'I don't like this business,' or 'I wish I could exchange it +for that;' for with me, when I have had anything to do, I do not +remember ever to have demurred, but have always set about it like a +fatalist, and it was as sure to be done as the sun was to set." + +"_One's personal enjoyment is a very small thing, but one's personal +usefulness is a very important thing." Those only are happy who have +their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness_. "The +most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures," says La Bruyère, +"consists in promoting the pleasures of others." And Hawthorne has said +that the inward pleasure of imparting pleasure is the choicest of all. + +"Oh, it is great," said Carlyle, "and there is no other greatness,--to +make some nook of God's creation more fruitful, better, more worthy of +God,--to make some human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier, more +blessed, less accursed!" The gladness of service, of having some +honorable share in the world's work, what is better than this? + +"The Lord must love the common people," said Lincoln, "for he made so +many of them, and so few of the other kind." To extend to all the cup of +joy is indeed angelic business, and there is nothing that makes one more +beautiful than to be engaged in it. + +"The high desire that others may be blest savors of heaven." + +The memory of those who spend their days in hanging sweet pictures of +faith and trust in the galleries of sunless lives shall never perish +from the earth. + + DOING GOOD BY STEALTH, AND HAVING IT FOUND OUT BY ACCIDENT. + +"This," said Charles Lamb, "is the greatest pleasure I know." "Money +never yet made a man happy," said Franklin; "and there is nothing in its +nature to produce happiness." To do good with it, makes life a delight +to the giver. How happy, then, was the life of Jean Ingelow, since what +she received from the sale of a hundred thousand copies of her poems, +and fifty thousand of her prose works, she spent largely in charity; one +unique charity being a "copyright" dinner three times a week to twelve +poor persons just discharged from the neighboring hospitals! Nor was any +one made happier by it than the poet. + +John Buskin inherited a million dollars. "With this money he set about +doing good," says a writer in the "Arena." "Poor young men and women who +were struggling to get an education were helped, homes for working men +and women were established, and model apartment houses were erected. He +also promoted a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This +land was used for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again +from the state in which they had fallen through cruel social conditions +and their own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General +Booth his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in +aiding poor artists, and has done much to encourage artistic taste among +the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings +by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in the public schools of London. +By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides all +the income from his books. But the calls of the poor, and his plans +looking toward educating and ennobling the lives of working men, giving +more sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all +the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him $1,500 +a year on which to live." + +Our own Peter Cooper, in his last days, was one of the happiest men in +America; his beneficence shone in his countenance. + +Let the man who has the blues take a map and census table of the world, +and estimate how many millions there are who would gladly exchange lots +with him, and let him begin upon some practicable plan to do all the +good he can to as many as he can, and he will forget to be despondent; +and he need not stop short at praying for them without first giving +every dollar he can, without troubling the Lord about that. Let him +scatter his flowers as he goes along, since he will never go over the +same road again. + +No man in England had a better time than did Du Maurier on that cold day +when he took the hat of an old soldier on Hampstead road, and sent him +away to the soup kitchen in Euston to get warm. The artist chalked on a +blackboard such portraits as he commonly made for "Punch," and soon +gathered a great quantity of small coins for the grateful soldier; who, +however, at once rubbed out Du Maurier's pictures and put on "the +faithful dog," and a battle scene, as more artistic. + +"Chinese Gordon," after serving faithfully and valiantly in the great +Chinese rebellion, and receiving the highest honors of the Chinese +Empire, returned to England, caring little for the praise thus heaped on +him. He took some position at Gravesend, just below London, where he +filled his house with boys from the streets, whom he taught and made men +of, and then secured them places on ships,--following them all over the +world with letters of advice and encouragement. + + HIS HEAD IN A HOLE. + +"I was appointed to lecture in a town in Great Britain six miles from +the railway," said John B. Gough, "and a man drove me in a fly from the +station to the town. I noticed that he sat leaning forward in an +awkward manner, with his face close to the glass of the window. Soon he +folded a handkerchief and tied it round his neck. I asked him if he was +cold. "No, sir." Then he placed the handkerchief round his face. I asked +him if he had the toothache. "No, sir," was the reply. Still he sat +leaning forward. At last I said, "Will you please tell me why you sit +leaning forward that way with a handkerchief round your neck if you are +not cold and have no toothache?" He said very quietly, "The window of +the carriage is broke, and the wind is cold, and I am trying to keep it +from you." I said, in surprise, "You are not putting your face to that +broken pane to keep the wind from me, are you?" "Yes, sir, I am." "Why +do you do that?" "God bless you, sir! I owe everything I have in the +world to you." "But I never saw you before." "No, sir; but I have seen +you. I was a ballad-singer once. I used to go round with a half-starved +baby in my arms for charity, and a draggled wife at my heels half the +time, with her eyes blackened; and I went to hear you in Edinburgh, and +_you told me I was a man_; and when I went out of that house I said, 'By +the help of God, I'll be a man;' and now I've a happy wife and a +comfortable home. God bless you, sir! I would stick my head in any hole +under the heavens if it would do you any good." + + "Let's find the sunny side of men, + Or be believers in it; + A light there is in every soul + That takes the pains to win it. + Oh! there's a slumbering good in all, + And we perchance may wake it; + Our hands contain the magic wand: + This life is what we make it." + +He indeed is getting the most out of life who does most to elevate +mankind. How happy were those Little Sisters of the Poor at Tours, who +took scissors to divide their last remnant of bedclothing with an old +woman who came to them at night, craving hospitality! And how happy was +that American school-teacher who gave up the best room in the house, +which she had engaged long before the season opened, at a mountain +sanitarium, during the late war, taking instead of it the poorest room +in the house, that she might give good quarters to a soldier just out of +his camp hospital! + +"Teach self-denial," said Walter Scott, "and make its practice +pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than +ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer." + +Yet how many there are, ready to make some great sacrifice, who neglect +those little acts of kindness which make so many lives brighter and +happier. + +"I say, Jim, it's the first time I ever had anybody ask my parding, and +it kind o' took me off my feet." A young lady had knocked him down in +hastily turning a corner. She stopped and said to the ragged +crossing-boy: "I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very sorry I +ran against you." He took off the piece of a cap he had on his skull, +made a low bow, and said with a broad smile: "You have my parding, Miss, +and welcome; and the next time you run agin me, you can knock me clean +down and I won't say a word." + +One of the greatest mistakes of life is to save our smiles and pleasant +words and sympathy for those of "our set," or for those not now with us, +and for other times than the present. + +"If a word or two will render a man happy," said a Frenchman, "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." + +Sydney Smith recommends us to make at least one person happy every day: +"Take ten years, and you will make thirty-six hundred and fifty persons +happy; or brighten a small town by your contribution to the fund of +general joy." One who is cheerful is preeminently useful. + +Dr. Raffles once said: "I have made it a rule never to be with a person +ten minutes without trying to make him happier." It was a remark of Dr. +Dwight, that "one who makes a little child happier for half an hour is a +fellow-worker with God." + +A little boy said to his mother: "I couldn't make little sister happy, +nohow I could fix it. But I made myself happy trying to make her happy." +"I make Jim happy, and he laughs," said another boy, speaking of his +invalid brother; "and that makes me happy, and I laugh." + +There was once a king who loved his little boy very much, and took a +great deal of pains to please him. So he gave him a pony to ride, +beautiful rooms to live in, pictures, books, toys without number, +teachers, companions, and everything that money could buy or ingenuity +devise; but for all this, the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown +wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have. +At length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl on the boy's +face, and said to the king: "I can make your son happy, and turn his +frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a great price for telling him +this secret." "All right," said the king; "whatever you ask I will +give." The magician took the boy into a private room. He wrote something +with a white substance on a piece of paper. He gave the boy a candle, +and told him to light it and hold it under the paper, and then see what +he could read. Then the magician went away. The boy did as he had been +told, and the white letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed +these words: "Do a kindness to some one every day." The prince followed +the advice, and became the happiest boy in the realm. + +"Happiness," says one writer, "is a mosaic, composed of many smaller +stones." It is the little acts of kindness, the little courtesies, the +disposition to be accommodating, to be helpful, to be sympathetic, to be +unselfish, to be careful not to wound the feelings, not to expose the +sore spots, to be charitable of the weaknesses of others, to be +considerate,--these are the little things which, added up at night, are +found to be the secret of a happy day. How much greater are all these +than one great act of noteworthy goodness once a year! Our lives are +made up of trifles; emergencies rarely occur. "Little things, +unimportant events, experiences so small as to scarcely leave a trace +behind, make up the sum-total of life." And the one great thing in life +is to do a little good to every one we meet. Ready sympathy, a quick +eye, and a little tact, are all that are needed. + +This point is happily illustrated by this report of an incident upon a +train from Providence to Boston. A lady was caring for her father, whose +mental faculties were weakened by age. He imagined that some imperative +duty called on him to leave the swift-moving train, and his daughter +could not quiet him. Just then she noticed a large man watching them +over the top of his paper. As soon as he caught her eye, he rose and +crossed quickly to her. + +"I beg your pardon, you are in trouble. May I help you?" + +She explained the situation to him. + +"What is your father's name?" he asked. + +She told him; and then with an encouraging smile, she spoke to her +venerable father who was sitting immediately in front of her. The next +moment the large man turned over the seat, and leaning toward the +troubled old man, he addressed him by name, shook hands with him +cordially, and engaged him in a conversation so interesting and so +cleverly arranged to keep his mind occupied that the old gentleman +forgot his need to leave the train, and did not think of it again until +they were in Boston. There the stranger put the lady and her charge into +a carriage, received her assurance that she felt perfectly safe, and was +about to close the carriage door, when she remembered that she had felt +so safe in the keeping of this noble-looking man that she had not even +asked his name. Hastily putting her hand against the door, she said: +"Pardon me, but you have rendered me such service, may I not know whom I +am thanking?" The big man smiled as he turned away, and answered:-- + + "PHILLIPS BROOKS." + +"What a gift it is," said Beecher, who was the great preacher of +cheerfulness, "to make all men better and happier without knowing it! We +do not suppose that flowers know how sweet they are. These roses and +carnations have made me happy for a day. Yet they stand huddled together +in my pitcher, without seeming to know my thoughts of them, or the +gracious work they are doing. And how much more is it, to have a +disposition that carries with it involuntarily sweetness, calmness, +courage, hope, and happiness. Yet this is the portion of good nature in +a large-minded, strong-natured man. When it has made him happy, it has +scarcely begun its office. God sends a natural heart-singer--a man whose +nature is large and luminous, and who, by his very carriage and +spontaneous actions, calms, cheers, and helps his fellows. God bless +him, for he blesses everybody!" This is just what Mr. Beecher would have +said about Phillips Brooks. + +And what better can be said than to compare the heart's good cheer to a +floral offering? _Are not flowers appropriate gifts to persons of all +ages, in any conceivable circumstances in which they are placed? So the +heart's good cheer and deeds of kindness are always acceptable to +children and youth, to busy men and women, to the aged, and to a world +of invalids._ + +"Thus live and die, O man immortal," says Dr. Chalmers. "Live for +something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue, which the +storms of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and +mercy, on the hearts of those who come in contact with you, and you will +never be forgotten. Good deeds will shine as brightly on earth as the +stars of heaven." + +What is needed to round out human happiness is a well-balanced life. Not +ease, not pleasure, not happiness, but a man, Nature is after. "There +is," says Robert Waters, "no success without honor; no happiness without +a clear conscience; no use in living at all if only for one's self. It +is not at all necessary for you to make a fortune, but it is necessary, +absolutely necessary, that you should become a fair-dealing, honorable, +useful man, radiating goodness and cheerfulness wherever you go, and +making your life a blessing." + +"When a man does not find repose in himself," says a French proverb, "it +is vain for him to seek it elsewhere." Happy is he who has no sense of +discord with the harmony of the universe, who is open to the voices of +nature and of the spiritual realm, and who sees the light that never was +on sea or land. Such a life can but give expression to its inward +harmony. Every pure and healthy thought, every noble aspiration for the +good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better +life, every lofty purpose and unselfish endeavor, makes the human spirit +stronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. It is this alone that +gives a self-centered confidence in one's heaven-aided powers, and a +high-minded cheerfulness, like that of a celestial spirit. It is this +which an old writer has called the paradise of a good conscience. + + "I count this thing to be grandly true, + That a noble deed is a step toward God; + Lifting the soul from the common clod + To a purer air and a broader view. + + "We rise by the things that are under our feet; + By what we have mastered of good or gain; + By the pride deposed and the passion slain, + And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet." + +"My body must walk the earth," said an ancient poet, "but I can put +wings on my soul, and plumes to my hardest thought." The splendors and +symphonies and the ecstacies of a higher world are with us now in the +rudimentary organs of eye and ear and heart. Much we have to do, much +we have to love, much we have to hope for; and our "joy is the grace we +say to God." "When I think upon God," said Haydn to Carpani, "my heart +is so full of joy that the notes leap from my pen." + +Says Gibbons:-- + + "Our lives are songs: + God writes the words, + And we set them to music at leisure; + And the song is sad, or the song is glad, + As we choose to fashion the measure. + + "We must write the song + Whatever the words, + Whatever its rhyme or meter; + And if it is sad, we must make it glad, + And if sweet, we must make it sweeter." + + + + +VI. "LOOKING PLEASANT"--SOMETHING TO BE WORKED FROM THE INSIDE. + + +Acting on a sudden impulse, an elderly woman, the widow of a soldier who +had been killed in the Civil War, went into a photographer's to have her +picture taken. She was seated before the camera wearing the same stern, +hard, forbidding look that had made her an object of fear to the +children living in the neighborhood, when the photographer, thrusting +his head out from the black cloth, said suddenly, "Brighten the eyes a +little." + +She tried, but the dull and heavy look still lingered. + +"Look a little pleasanter," said the photographer, in an unimpassioned +but confident and commanding voice. + +"See here," the woman retorted sharply, "if you think that an old woman +who is dull can look bright, that one who feels cross can become +pleasant every time she is told to, you don't know anything about human +nature. It takes something from the outside to brighten the eye and +illuminate the face." + +"Oh, no, it doesn't! _It's something to be worked from the inside._ Try +it again," said the photographer good-naturedly. + +Something in his manner inspired faith, and she tried again, this time +with better success. + +"That's good! That's fine! You look twenty years younger," exclaimed the +artist, as he caught the transient glow that illuminated the faded face. + +She went home with a queer feeling in her heart. It was the first +compliment she had received since her husband had passed away, and it +left a pleasant memory behind. When she reached her little cottage, she +looked long in the glass and said, "There may be something in it. But +I'll wait and see the picture." + +When the picture came, it was like a resurrection. The face seemed alive +with the lost fires of youth. She gazed long and earnestly, then said in +a clear, firm voice, "If I could do it once, I can do it again." + +Approaching the little mirror above her bureau, she said, "Brighten up, +Catherine," and the old light flashed up once more. + +"Look a little pleasanter!" she commanded; and a calm and radiant smile +diffused itself over the face. + +Her neighbors, as the writer of this story has said, soon remarked the +change that had come over her face: "Why, Mrs. A., you are getting +young. How do you manage it?" + +"_It is almost all done from the inside. You just brighten up inside and +feel pleasant._" + + "Fate served me meanly, but I looked at her and laughed, + That none might know how bitter was the cup I quaffed. + Along came Joy and paused beside me where I sat, + Saying, 'I came to see what you were laughing at.'" + +_Every emotion tends to sculpture the body into beauty or into +ugliness._ Worrying, fretting, unbridled passions, petulance, +discontent, every dishonest act, every falsehood, every feeling of envy, +jealousy, fear,--each has its effect on the system, and acts +deleteriously like a poison or a deformer of the body. Professor James +of Harvard, an expert in the mental sciences, says, "Every small stroke +of virtue or vice leaves its ever so little scar. Nothing we ever do is, +in strict literalness, wiped out." _The way to be beautiful without is +to be beautiful within._ + + + + +WORTH FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. + + +It is related that Dwight L. Moody once offered to his Northfield pupils +a prize of five hundred dollars for the best thought. This took the +prize: "Men grumble because God put thorns with roses; wouldn't it be +better to thank God that he put roses with thorns?" + +We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we +find it, including the thorns. "It is," says Fontenelle, "a great +obstacle to happiness to expect too much." This is what happens in real +life. Watch Edison. He makes the most expensive experiments throughout a +long period of time, and he expects to make them, and he never worries +because he does not succeed the first time. + +"I cannot but think," says Sir John Lubbock, "that the world would be +better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of happiness +as well as on the happiness of duty." + +Oliver Wendell Holmes, in advanced years, acknowledged his debt of +gratitude to the nurse of his childhood, who studiously taught him to +ignore unpleasant incidents. If he stubbed his toe, or skinned his knee, +or bumped his nose, his nurse would never permit his mind to dwell upon +the temporary pain, but claimed his attention for some pretty object, or +charming story, or happy reminiscence. To her, he said, he was largely +indebted for the sunshine of a long life. It is a lesson which is easily +mastered in childhood, but seldom to be learned in middle life, and +never in old age. + +"When I was a boy," says another author, "I was consoled for cutting my +finger by having my attention called to the fact that I had not broken +my arm; and when I got a cinder in my eye, I was expected to feel more +comfortable because my cousin had lost his eye by an accident." + +"We should brave trouble," says Beecher, "as the New England boy braves +winter. The school is a mile away over the hill, yet he lingers not by +the fire; but, with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to +face the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where the snow lies +in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and +cower down by the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? +No; he buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses +the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect and fearless, with strong +heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on to his place at school." + +Children should be taught the habit of finding pleasure everywhere; and +to see the bright side of everything. "Serenity of mind comes easy to +some, and hard to others. It can be taught and learned. We ought to have +teachers who are able to educate us in this department of our natures +quite as much as in music or art. Think of a school or classes for +training men and women to carry themselves serenely amid all the trials +that beset them!" + + "Joy is the mainspring in the whole + Of endless Nature's calm rotation. + Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll + In the great timepiece of Creation." + SCHILLER. + + THE "DON'T WORRY" SOCIETY + +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." + + A PLEASURE BOOK. + +"She is an aged woman, but her face is serene and peaceful, though +trouble has not passed her by. She seems utterly above the little +worries and vexations which torment the average woman and leave lines of +care. The Fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her happiness; +and the beautiful old face shone with joy. + +"'My dear,' she said, 'I keep a Pleasure Book.' + +"'A what?' + +"'A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there is no day so dark and +gloomy that it does not contain some ray of light, and I have made it +one business of my life to write down the little things which mean so +much to a woman. I have a book marked for every day of every year since +I left school. It is but a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a +friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in +the field, a letter, a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into my +Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I read a few pages to +see what a happy, blessed woman I am. You may see my treasures if you +will.' + +"Slowly the peevish, discontented woman turned over the book her friend +brought her, reading a little here and there. One day's entries ran +thus: 'Had a pleasant letter from mother. Saw a beautiful lily in a +window. Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw such a bright, happy +girl on the street. Husband brought some roses in the evening.' + +"Bits of verse and lines from her daily reading have gone into the +Pleasure Book of this world-wise woman, until its pages are a storehouse +of truth and beauty.[1] + +"'Have you found a pleasure for every day?' the Fretful Woman asked. + +"'For every day,' the low voice answered; 'I had to make my theory come +true, you know.'" + +The Fretful Woman ought to have stopped there, but did not; and she +found that page where it was written--"He died with his hand in mine, +and my name upon his lips." Below were the lines from Lowell:-- + + "Lone watcher on the mountain height: + It is right precious to behold + The first long surf of climbing light + Flood all the thirsty eat with gold; + + "Yet God deems not thine aeried sight + More worthy than our twilight dim, + For meek obedience, too, is light, + And following that is finding Him." + +In one of the battles of the Crimea, a cannon-ball struck inside the +fort, crashing through a beautiful garden; but from the ugly chasm there +burst forth a spring of water which is still flowing. And how beautiful +it is, if our strange earthly sorrows become a blessing to others, +through our determination to live and to do for those who need our help. +Life is not given for mourning, but for unselfish service. + +"Cheerfulness," says Ruskin, "is as natural to the heart of a man in +strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual +gloom there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe +labor, or erring habits of life." It is an erring habit of life if we +are not first of all cheerful. We are thrown into a morbid habit through +circumstances utterly beyond our control, yet this fact does not change +our duty toward God and toward man,--our duty to be cheerful. We are +human; but it is our high privilege to lead a divine life, to accept the +joy which our Lord bequeathed to his disciples. + +Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man's habits are well +set, about all he can do is to sit by and observe which way he is going. +Regret it as he may, how helpless is a weak man, bound by the mighty +cable of habit; twisted from tiny threads which he thought were +absolutely within his control. Yet a habit of happy thought would +transform his life into harmony and beauty. Is not the will almost +omnipotent to determine habits before they become all-powerful? What +contributes more to health or happiness than a vigorous will? A habit of +directing a firm and steady will upon those things which tend to produce +harmony of thought will bring happiness and contentment; the will, +rightly drilled,--and divinely guided,--can drive out all discordant +thoughts, and usher in the reign of perpetual harmony. It is impossible +to overestimate the importance of forming a habit of cheerfulness early +in life. The serene optimist is one whose mind has dwelt so long upon +the sunny side of life that he has acquired a habit of cheerfulness. + + "Talk happiness. The world is sad enough + Without your woes. No path is wholly rough; + Look for the places that are smooth and clear, + And speak of those who rest the weary ear + Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain + Of human discontent and grief and pain. + + "Talk faith. The world is better off without + Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt. + If you have faith in God, or man, or self, + Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf + Of silence all your thoughts till faith shall come; + No one will grieve because your lips are dumb. + + "Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale + Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. + You cannot charm, or interest, or please, + By harping on that minor chord, disease. + Say you are well, or all is well with you. + And God shall hear your words and make them true."[2] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] For this Pleasure-Book illustration I am indebted to "The Woman's +Home Companion." + +[2] The three metrical pieces cited in this chapter are by ELLA WHEELER +WILCOX, who has gladdened the world by so much literary sunlight. + + + + +VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN. + + +"There's the dearest little old gentleman," says James Buckham, "who +goes into town every morning on the 8.30 train. I don't know his name, +and yet I know him better than anybody else in town. He just radiates +cheerfulness as far as you can see him. There is always a smile on his +face, and I never heard him open his mouth except to say something kind, +courteous, or good natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and +he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint of presumption +or familiarity. If the weather is fine, his jolly compliments make it +seem finer; and if it is raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it +is as good as a rainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 train knows +the sunshine-man; it's his train. You just hurry up a little, and I'll +show you the sunshine-man this morning. It's foggy and cold, but if one +look at him doesn't cheer you up so that you'll want to whistle, then +I'm no judge of human nature." + +"Good morning, sir!" said Mr. Jolliboy in going to the same train. + +"Why, sir, I don't know you," replied Mr. Neversmile. + +"I didn't say you did, sir. Good morning, sir!" + +"The inborn geniality of some people," says Whipple, "amounts to +genius." "How in our troubled lives," asks J. Freeman Clarke, "could we +do without these fair, sunny natures, into which on their creation-day +God allowed nothing sour, acrid, or bitter to enter, but made them a +perpetual solace and comfort by their cheerfulness?" There are those +whose very presence carries sunshine with them wherever they go; a +sunshine which means pity for the poor, sympathy for the suffering, help +for the unfortunate, and benignity toward all. Everybody loves the sunny +soul. His very face is a passport anywhere. All doors fly open to him. +He disarms prejudice and envy, for he bears good will to everybody. He +is as welcome in every household as the sunshine. + +"He was quiet, cheerful, genial," says Carlyle in his "Reminiscences" +concerning Edward Irving's sunny helpfulness. "His soul unruffled, clear +as a mirror, honestly loving and loved, Irving's voice was to me one of +blessedness and new hope." + +And to William Wilberforce the poet Southey paid this tribute: "I never +saw any other man who seemed to enjoy such perpetual serenity and +sunshine of spirit." + +"I resolved," said Tom Hood, "that, like the sun, so long as my day +lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything." + +When Goldsmith was in Flanders he discovered the happiest man he had +ever seen. At his toil, from morning till night, he was full of song and +laughter. Yet this sunny-hearted being was a slave, maimed, deformed, +and wearing a chain. How well he illustrated that saying which bids us, +if there is no bright side, to polish up the dark one! "Mirth is like +the flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and +glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the soul, +filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity." It is cheerfulness +that has the staying quality, like the sunshine changing a world of +gloom into a paradise of beauty. + +The first prize at a flower-show was taken by a pale, sickly little +girl, who lived in a close, dark court in the east of London. The judges +asked how she could grow it in such a dingy and sunless place. She +replied that a little ray of sunlight came into the court; as soon as it +appeared in the morning, she put her flower beneath it, and, as it +moved, moved the flower, so that she kept it in the sunlight all day. + +"Water, air, and sunshine, the three greatest hygienic agents, are free, +and within the reach of all." "Twelve years ago," says Walt Whitman, "I +came to Camden to die. But every day I went into the country, and bathed +in the sunshine, lived with the birds and squirrels, and played in the +water with the fishes. I received my health from Nature." + +"It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick," said +Florence Nightingale, "that second only to their need of fresh air, is +their need of light; that, after a close room, what most hurts them is a +dark room; and that it is not only light, but direct sunshine they +want." + +"Sunlight," says Dr. L. W. Curtis, in "Health Culture," "has much to do +in keeping air in a healthy condition. No plant can grow in the dark, +neither can man remain healthy in a dark, ill-ventilated room. When the +first asylum for the blind was erected in Massachusetts, the committee +decided to save expense by not having any windows. They reasoned that, +as the patients could not see, there was no need of any light. It was +built without windows, but ventilation was well provided for, and the +poor sightless patients were domiciled in the house. But things did not +go well: one after another began to sicken, and great languor fell upon +them; they felt distressed and restless, craving something, they hardly +knew what. After two had died and all were ill, the committee decided to +have windows. The sunlight poured in, and the white faces recovered +their color; their flagging energies and depressed spirits revived, and +health was restored." + +The sun, making all living things to grow, exerts its happiest influence +in cheering the mind of man and making his heart glad, and if a man has +sunshine in his soul he will go on his way rejoicing; content to look +forward if under a cloud, not bating one jot of heart or hope if for a +moment cast down; honoring his occupation, whatever it be; rendering +even rags respectable by the way he wears them; and not only happy +himself, but giving happiness to others. + +How a man's face shines when illuminated by a great moral motive! and +his manner, too, is touched with the grace of light. + +"Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches," said Emerson, +"and to make knowledge valuable you must have the cheerfulness of +wisdom." + +"Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness," said Carlyle; "altogether +past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently +useful must be uniformly joyous,--a spirit all sunshine, graceful from +very gladness, beautiful because bright." + +"The cheerful man carries with him perpetually, in his presence and +personality, an influence that acts upon others as summer warmth on the +fields and forests. It wakes up and calls out the best that is in them. +It makes them stronger, braver, and happier. Such a man makes a little +spot of this world a lighter, brighter, warmer place for other people to +live in. To meet him in the morning is to get inspiration which makes +all the day's struggles and tasks easier. His hearty handshake puts a +thrill of new vigor into your veins. After talking with him for a few +minutes, you feel an exhilaration of spirits, a quickening of energy, a +renewal of zest and interest in living, and are ready for any duty or +service." + +"Great hearts there are among men," says Hillis, of Plymouth pulpit; +"they carry a volume of manhood; their presence is sunshine; their +coming changes our climate; they oil the bearings of life; their shadow +always falls behind them; they make right living easy. Blessed are the +happiness-makers: they represent the best forces in civilization!" + +If refined manners reprove us a little for ill-timed laughter, a smiling +face kindled by a smiling heart is always in order. Who can ever forget +Emerson's smile? It was a perpetual benediction upon all who knew him. A +smile is said to be to the human countenance what sunshine is to the +landscape. Or a smile is called the rainbow of the face. + +"This is a dark world to many people," says a suggestive modern writer, +"a world of chills, a world of fogs, a world of wet blankets. +Nine-tenths of the men we meet need encouragement. Your work is so +urgent that you have no time to stop and speak to the people, but every +day you meet scores, perhaps hundreds and thousands of persons, upon +whom you might have direct and immediate influence. 'How? How?' you +cry out. We answer: By the grace of physiognomy. There is nothing more +catching than a face with a lantern behind it, shining clear through. We +have no admiration for a face with a dry smile, meaning no more than the +grin of a false face. But a smile written by the hand of God, as an +index finger or table of contents, to whole volumes of good feeling +within, is a benediction. You say: 'My face is hard and lacking in +mobility, and my benignant feelings are not observable in the facial +proportions.' We do not believe you. Freshness and geniality of the soul +are so subtle and pervading that they will, at some eye or mouth corner, +leak out. Set behind your face a feeling of gratitude to God and +kindliness toward man, and you will every day preach a sermon long as +the streets you walk, a sermon with as many heads as the number of +people you meet, and differing from other sermons in the fact that the +longer it is the better. The reason that there are so many sour faces, +so many frowning faces, so many dull faces, is because men consent to be +acrid and petulant, and stupid. The way to improve your face is to +improve your disposition. Attractiveness of physiognomy does not depend +on regularity of features. We know persons whose brows are shaggy, eyes +oblique, noses ominously longitudinal, and mouths straggling along in +unusual and unexpected directions; and yet they are men and women of so +much soul that we love to look upon them, and their faces are sweet +evangels." + +It was N. P. Willis, I think, who added to the beatitudes--"Blessed are +the joy-makers." "And this is why all the world loves little children, +who are always ready to have 'a sunshine party,'--little children +bubbling over with fun, as a bobolink with song. + +"How well we remember it all!--the long gone years of our own childhood, +and the households of joyous children we have known in later years. +Joy-makers are the children still,--some of them in unending scenes of +light. I saw but yesterday this epitaph at Mount Auburn,--'She was so +pleasant': sunny-hearted in life, and now alive forever more in light +supernal. + +"How can we then but rejoice with joy unspeakable, as the children of +immortality; living habitually above the gloom and damps of earth, and +leading lives of ministration; bestowing everywhere sweetness and +light,--radiating upon the earth something of the beauty of the unseen +world." + +What is a sunny temper but "a talisman more powerful than wealth, more +precious than rubies"? What is it but "an aroma whose fragrance fills +the air with the odors of Paradise"? + +"I am so full of happiness," said a little child, "that I could not be +any happier unless I could grow." And she bade "Good morning" to her +sweet singing bird, and "Good morning" to the sun; then she asked her +mother's permission, and softly, reverently, gladly bade "Good morning +to God,"--and why should she not? + +Was it not Goethe who represented a journey that followed the sunshine +round the world, forever bathed in light? And Longfellow sang: + + "'T is always morning somewhere; and above + The awakening continents, from shore to shore, + Somewhere the birds are singing evermore." + + "The darkness past, we mount the radiant skies, + And changeless day is ours; we hear the songs + Of higher spheres, the light divine our eyes + Behold and sunlight robes of countless throngs + Who dwell in light; we seek, with joyous quest, + God's service sweet to wipe all tears away, + And list we every hour, with eager zest, + For high command to toils that God has blest: + So fill we full our endless sunshine day." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by +Orison Swett Marden + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER *** + +***** This file should be named 18394-8.txt or 18394-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/3/9/18394/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/18394-8.zip b/18394-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2efc102 --- /dev/null +++ b/18394-8.zip diff --git a/18394-h.zip b/18394-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2642245 --- /dev/null +++ b/18394-h.zip diff --git a/18394-h/18394-h.htm b/18394-h/18394-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df93443 --- /dev/null +++ b/18394-h/18394-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2792 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by Orison Swett Marden. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + table {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + h1,h2,h3 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + hr.full {width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.major {width:75%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width:30%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .caption {font-size: 80%;} + .footnotes {margin-top: 1em; border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 90%;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .center {text-align: center;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by Orison Swett Marden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cheerfulness as a Life Power + +Author: Orison Swett Marden + +Release Date: May 15, 2006 [EBook #18394] +[Last updated: May 25, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<table width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Title Page" border="1"> + <col style="width:80%;" /> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <p style="margin-top: 5em"></p> + <span style="font-size: 200%">CHEERFULNESS</span><br /> + <br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 150%">AS A LIFE POWER</span><br /> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 90%">BY</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 100%;">ORISON SWETT MARDEN</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 70%">Author of "Pushing to the Front," "The Secret of</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 70%">Achievement," etc.; and Editor of "Success."</span><br /> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 70%">TENTH THOUSAND</span><br /> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 90%">NEW YORK</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 90%">THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 80%">PUBLISHERS</span><br /><br /><br /> + </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<p style="text-align: center; font-size: 85%; font-variant: small-caps"> +Copyright, 1899<br /> +<span class="smcap">By Orison Swett Marden</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h2><a name="A_FOREWORD" id="A_FOREWORD"></a>A FOREWORD.</h2> + +<div style="margin-left:12%;margin-right:12%"> +<p>The soul-consuming and friction-wearing tendency of this hurrying, +grasping, competing age is the excuse for this booklet. Is it not an +absolute necessity to get rid of all irritants, of everything which +worries and frets, and which brings discord into so many lives? +Cheerfulness has a wonderful lubricating power. It lengthens the life of +human machinery, as lubricants lengthen the life of inert machinery. +Life's delicate bearings should not be carelessly ground away for mere +lack of oil. What is needed is a habit of cheerfulness, to enjoy every +day as we go along; not to fret and stew all the week, and then expect +to make up for it Sunday or on some holiday. It is not a question of +mirth so much as of cheerfulness; not alone that which accompanies +laughter, but serenity,—a calm, sweet soul-contentment and inward +peace. Are there not multitudes of people who have the "blues," who yet +wish well to their neighbors? They would say kind words and make the +world happier—but they "haven't the time." To lead them to look on the +sunny side of things, and to take a little time every day to speak +pleasant words, is the message of the hour.</p> + +<p style="text-align:right; font-variant:small-caps">The Author.</p> + +<p>In the preparation of these pages, amid the daily demands of +journalistic work, the author has been assisted by Mr. E. P. Tenney, of +Cambridge.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> +<table width="75%" cellpadding="2" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width:5%;" /> +<col style="width:80%;" /> +<col style="width:15%;" /> +<tr><td align="left">I.</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">What Vanderbilt paid for Twelve Laughs</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_007">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> The Laugh Cure</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_009">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> A Cheap Medicine</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_013">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Why don't you Laugh?</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_014">14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">II.</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Cure for Americanitis</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_016">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> A Worrying Woman</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_019">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Our Hawaiian Paradise</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_022">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> A Weather Breeder</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_024">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> "What is an Optimist?</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_027">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Living up Thanksgiving Avenue</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_029">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">III.</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Oiling your Business Machinery</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_031">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Singing at your Work</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_033">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Good Humor</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_035">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> "Le Diable est Mort"</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_038">38</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">IV.</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Taking your Fun Every Day as you do your Work</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_042">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Unworked Joy Mines</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_044">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> The Queen of the World</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_045">45</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">V.</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Finding what you do not seek</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_051">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Charles Lamb</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_053">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> John B. Gough</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_055">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Phillips Brooks</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_060">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VI.</td><td align="left">"<span class="smcap">Looking Pleasant"—A Thing to be worked from the Inside</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_064">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> Worth Five Hundred Dollars</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_066">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> The "Don't Worry" Society</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_067">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"><span class="smcap"> A Pleasure Book</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_069">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">VII.</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Sunshine-Man</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#TC_073">73</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +<h2>CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER.</h2> +</div> + + +<h4><a name="TC_007" id="TC_007"></a>I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS.</h4> + +<p>William K. Vanderbilt, when he last visited Constantinople, one day +invited Coquelin the elder, so celebrated for his powers as a mimic, who +happened to be in the city at the time, to give a private recital on +board his yacht, lying in the Bosphorus. Coquelin spoke three of his +monologues. A few days afterwards Coquelin received the following +memorandum from the millionaire:—</p> + +<p>"You have brought tears to our eyes and laughter to our hearts. Since +all philosophers are agreed that laughing is preferable to weeping, your +account with me stands thus:—</p> + +<table summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"For tears, six times</td><td align="right">$600</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"For laughter, twelve times</td><td align="right">2,400</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right">————</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right">$3,000</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Kindly acknowledge receipt of enclosed check."</p> + +<p>"I find nonsense singularly refreshing," said Talleyrand. There is good +philosophy in the saying, "Laugh and grow fat." If everybody knew the +power of laughter as a health tonic and life prolonger the tinge of +sadness which now clouds the American face would largely +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>disappear, and +many physicians would find their occupation gone.</p> + +<p>The power of laughter was given us to serve a wise purpose in our +economy. It is Nature's device for exercising the internal organs and +giving us pleasure at the same time.</p> + +<p>Laughter begins in the lungs and diaphragm, setting the liver, stomach, +and other internal organs into a quick, jelly-like vibration, which +gives a pleasant sensation and exercise, almost equal to that of +horseback riding. During digestion, the movements of the stomach are +similar to churning. Every time you take a full breath, or when you +cachinnate well, the diaphragm descends and gives the stomach an extra +squeeze and shakes it. Frequent laughing sets the stomach to dancing, +hurrying up the digestive process. The heart beats faster, and sends the +blood bounding through the body. "There is not," says Dr. Green, "one +remotest corner or little inlet of the minute blood-vessels of the human +body that does not feel some wavelet from the convulsions occasioned by +a good hearty laugh." In medical terms, it stimulates the vasomotor +centers, and the spasmodic contraction of the blood-vessels causes the +blood to flow quickly. Laughter accelerates the respiration, and gives +warmth and glow to the whole system. It brightens the eye, increases the +perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the +least-used lung cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or +balance which we call health, which results from the harmonious action +of all the functions of the body. This delicate poise, which may be +destroyed by a sleepless night, a piece of bad news, by grief or +anxiety, is often wholly restored by a good hearty laugh.</p> + +<p>There is, therefore, sound sense in the caption,—"Cheerfulness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> as a +Life Power,"—relating as it does to the physical life, as well as the +mental and moral; and what we may call</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_009" id="TC_009"></a>THE LAUGH CURE</p> + +<p>is based upon principles recognized as sound by the medical +profession—so literally true is the Hebrew proverb that "a merry heart +doeth good like a medicine."</p> + +<p>"Mirth is God's medicine," said Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes; "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." Elsewhere he says: +"If you are making choice of a physician be sure you get one with a +cheerful and serene countenance."</p> + +<p>Is not a jolly physician of greater service than his pills? Dr. Marshall +Hall frequently prescribed "cheerfulness" for his patients, saying that +it is better than anything to be obtained at the apothecary's.</p> + +<p>In Western New York, Dr. Burdick was known as the "Laughing Doctor." He +always presented the happiest kind of a face; and his good humor was +contagious. He dealt sparingly in drugs, yet was very successful.</p> + +<p>The London "Lancet," the most eminent medical journal in the world, +gives the following scientific testimony to the value of jovialty:—</p> + +<p>"This power of 'good spirits' is a matter of high moment to the sick and +weakly. To the former, it may mean the ability to survive; to the +latter, the possibility of outliving, or living in spite of, a disease. +It is, therefore, of the greatest importance to cultivate the highest +and most buoyant frame of mind which the conditions will admit. The same +energy which takes the form of mental activity is vital to the work of +the organism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Mental influences affect the system; and a joyous spirit +not only relieves pain, but increases the momentum of life in the body."</p> + +<p>Dr. Ray, superintendent of Butler Hospital for the Insane, says in one +of his reports, "A hearty laugh is more desirable for mental health than +any exercise of the reasoning faculties."</p> + +<p>Grief, anxiety, and fear are great enemies of human life. A depressed, +sour, melancholy soul, a life which has ceased to believe in its own +sacredness, its own power, its own mission, a life which sinks into +querulous egotism or vegetating aimlessness, has become crippled and +useless. We should fight against every influence which tends to depress +the mind, as we would against a temptation to crime. It is undoubtedly +true that, as a rule, the mind has power to lengthen the period of +youthful and mature strength and beauty, preserving and renewing +physical life by a stalwart mental health.</p> + +<p>I read the other day of a man in a neighboring city who was given up to +die; his relatives were sent for, and they watched at his bedside. But +an old acquaintance, who called to see him, assured him smilingly that +he was all right and would soon be well. He talked in such a strain that +the sick man was forced to laugh; and the effort so roused his system +that he rallied, and he was soon well again.</p> + +<p>Was it not Shakespere who said that a light heart lives long?</p> + +<p>The San Francisco "Argonaut" says that a woman in Milpites, a victim of +almost crushing sorrow, despondency, indigestion, insomnia, and kindred +ills, determined to throw off the gloom which was making life so heavy a +burden to her, and established a rule that she would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> laugh at least +three times a day, whether occasion was presented or not; so she trained +herself to laugh heartily at the least provocation, and would retire to +her room and make merry by herself. She was soon in excellent health and +buoyant spirits; her home became a sunny, cheerful abode.</p> + +<p>It was said, by one who knew this woman well, and who wrote an account +of the case for a popular magazine, that at first her husband and +children were amused at her, and while they respected her determination +because of the griefs she bore, they did not enter into the spirit of +the plan. "But after awhile," said this woman to me, with a smile, only +yesterday, "the funny part of the idea struck my husband, and he began +to laugh every time we spoke of it. And when he came home, he would ask +me if I had had my 'regular laughs;' and he would laugh when he asked +the question, and again when I answered it. My children, then very +young, thought 'mamma's notion very queer,' but they laughed at it just +the same. Gradually, my children told other children, and they told +their parents. My husband spoke of it to our friends, and I rarely met +one of them but he or she would laugh and ask me, 'How many of your +laughs have you had to-day?' Naturally, they laughed when they asked, +and of course that set me laughing. When I formed this apparently +strange habit I was weighed down with sorrow, and my rule simply lifted +me out of it. I had suffered the most acute indigestion; for years I +have not known what it is. Headaches were a daily dread; for over six +years I have not had a single pain in the head. My home seems different +to me, and I feel a thousand times more interest in its work. My husband +is a changed man. My children are called 'the girls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> who are always +laughing,' and, altogether, my rule has proved an inspiration which has +worked wonders."</p> + +<p>The queen of fashion, however, says that we must never laugh out loud; +but since the same tyrannical mistress kills people by corsets, indulges +in cosmetics, and is out all night at dancing parties, and in China +pinches up the women's feet, I place much less confidence in her views +upon the laugh cure for human woes. Yet in all civilized countries it is +a fundamental principle of refined manners not to be ill-timed and +unreasonably noisy and boisterous in mirth. One who is wise will never +violate the proprieties of well-bred people.</p> + +<p>"Yet," says a wholesome writer upon health, "we should do something more +than to simply cultivate a cheerful, hopeful spirit,—we should +cultivate a spirit of mirthfulness that is not only easily pleased and +smiling, but that indulges in hearty, hilarious laughter; and if this +faculty is not well marked in our organization we should cultivate it, +being well assured that hearty, body-shaking laughter will do us good."</p> + +<p>Ordinary good looks depend on one's sense of humor,—"a merry heart +maketh a cheerful countenance." Joyfulness keeps the heart and face +young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody +around us, and puts us into closer touch with what is best and brightest +in our lot in life.</p> + +<p>Physiology tells the story. The great sympathetic nerves are closely +allied; and when one set carries bad news to the head, the nerves +reaching the stomach are affected, indigestion comes on, and one's +countenance becomes doleful. Laugh when you can; it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_013" id="TC_013"></a>A CHEAP MEDICINE.</p> + +<p>Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. The eminent surgeon +Chavasse says that we ought to begin with the babies and train children +to habits of mirth:—</p> + +<p>"Encourage your child to be merry and laugh aloud; a good hearty laugh +expands the chest and makes the blood bound merrily along. Commend me to +a good laugh,—not to a little snickering laugh, but to one that will +sound right through the house. It will not only do your child good, but +will be a benefit to all who hear, and be an important means of driving +the blues away from a dwelling. Merriment is very catching, and spreads +in a remarkable manner, few being able to resist its contagion. A hearty +laugh is delightful harmony; indeed, it is the best of all music." +"Children without hilarity," says an eminent author, "will never amount +to much. Trees without blossoms will never bear fruit."</p> + +<p>Hufeland, physician to the King of Prussia, commends the ancient custom +of jesters at the king's table, whose quips and cranks would keep the +company in a roar.</p> + +<p>Did not Lycurgus set up the god of laughter in the Spartan eating-halls? +There is no table sauce like laughter at meals. It is the great enemy of +dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>How wise are the words of the acute Chamfort, that the most completely +lost of all days is the one in which we have not laughed!</p> + +<p>"A crown, for making the king laugh," was one of the items of expense +which the historian Hume found in a manuscript of King Edward II.</p> + +<p>"It is a good thing to laugh, at any rate," said Dryden, the poet, "and +if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I live," said Laurence Sterne, one of the greatest of English +humorists, "in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of +ill health and other evils by mirth; I am persuaded that, every time a +man smiles,—but much more so when he laughs,—it adds something to his +fragment of life."</p> + +<p>"Give me an honest laugher," said Sir Walter Scott, and he was himself +one of the happiest men in the world, with a kind word and pleasant +smile for every one, and everybody loved him.</p> + +<p>"How much lies in laughter!" exclaimed the critic Carlyle. "It is the +cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an +everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others 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 cachinnation, as if they were laughing +through wool. Of none such comes good."</p> + +<p>"The power to laugh, to cease work and begin to frolic and make merry in +forgetfulness of all the conflict of life," says Campbell Morgan, "is a +divine bestowment upon man."</p> + +<p>Happy, then, is the man, who may well laugh to himself over his good +luck, who can answer the old question, "How old are you?" by Sambo's +reply:—</p> + +<p>"If you reckon by the years, sah, I'se twenty-five; but if you goes by +the fun I's 'ad, I guess I's a hundred."</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_014" id="TC_014"></a>WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH?<br /> +<i>From the "Independent."</i></p> + +<p style="margin-left:4em"> +"Why don't you laugh, young man, when troubles come,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>Instead of sitting 'round so sour and glum?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">You cannot have all play,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And sunshine every day;</span><br /> +When troubles come, I say, why don't you laugh?<br /> +<br /> +"Why don't you laugh? 'T will ever help to soothe<br /> +The aches and pains. No road in life is smooth;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">There's many an unseen bump,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And many a hidden stump</span><br /> +O'er which you'll have to jump. Why don't you laugh?<br /> +<br /> +"Why don't you laugh? Don't let your spirits wilt;<br /> +Don't sit and cry because the milk you've spilt;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">If you would mend it now,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Pray let me tell you how:</span><br /> +Just milk another cow! Why don't you laugh?<br /> +<br /> +"Why don't you laugh, and make us all laugh, too,<br /> +And keep us mortals all from getting blue?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">A laugh will always win;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">If you can't laugh, just grin,—</span><br /> +Come on, let's all join in! Why don't you laugh?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<h4><a name="TC_016" id="TC_016"></a>II. THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS.</h4> + +<p>Prince Wolkonsky, during a visit to this country, declared that +"Business is the alpha and omega of American life. There is no pleasure, +no joy, no satisfaction. There is no standard except that of profit. +There is no other country where they speak of a man as worth so many +dollars. In other countries they live to enjoy life; here they exist for +business." A Boston merchant corroborated this statement by saying he +was anxious all day about making money, and worried all night for fear +he should lose what he had made.</p> + +<p>"In the United States," a distinguished traveler once said, "there is +everywhere comfort, but no joy. The ambition of getting more and +fretting over what is lost absorb life."</p> + +<p>"Every man we meet looks as if he'd gone out to borrow trouble, with +plenty of it on hand," said a French lady, upon arriving in New York.</p> + +<p>"The Americans are the best-fed, the best-clad, and the best-housed +people in the world," says another witness, "but they are the most +anxious; they hug possible calamity to their breasts."</p> + +<p>"I question if care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the +faces of any other population," says Emerson; "old age begins in the +nursery."</p> + +<p>How quickly we Americans exhaust life! With what panting haste we pursue +everything! Every man you meet seems to be late for an appointment. +Hurry is stamped in the wrinkles of the national face. We are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> men of +action; we go faster and faster as the years go by, speeding our +machinery to the utmost. Bent forms, prematurely gray hair, restlessness +and discontent, are characteristic of our age and people. We earn our +bread, but cannot digest it; and our over-stimulated nerves soon become +irritated, and touchiness follows,—so fatal to a business man, and so +annoying in society.</p> + +<p>"It is not work that kills men," says Beecher; "it is worry. Work is +healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is +rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but +friction."</p> + +<p>It is not so much the great sorrows, the great burdens, the great +hardships, the great calamities, that cloud over the sunshine of life, +as the little petty vexations, insignificant anxieties and fear, the +little daily dyings, which render our lives unhappy, and destroy our +mental elasticity, without advancing our life-work one inch. "Anxiety +never yet bridged any chasm."</p> + +<p>"What," asks Dr. George W. Jacoby, in an "Evening Post" interview, "is +the ultimate physical effect of worry? Why, the same as that of a fatal +bullet-wound or sword-thrust. Worry kills as surely, though not so +quickly, as ever gun or dagger did, and more people have died in the +last century from sheer worry than have been killed in battle."</p> + +<p>Dr. Jacoby is one of the foremost of American brain doctors. "The +investigations of the neurologists," he says, "have laid bare no secret +of Nature in recent years more startling and interesting than the +discovery that worry kills." This is the final, up-to-date word. "Not +only is it known," resumes the great neurologist, counting off his +words, as it were, on his finger-tips, "that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> worry kills, but the most +minute details of its murderous methods are familiar to modern +scientists. It is a common belief of those who have made a special study +of the science of brain diseases that hundreds of deaths attributed to +other causes each year are due simply to worry. In plain, untechnical +language, worry works its irreparable injury through certain cells of +the brain life. The insidious inroads upon the system can be best +likened to the constant falling of drops of water in one spot. In the +brain it is the insistent, never-lost idea, the single, constant +thought, centered upon one subject, which in the course of time destroys +the brain cells. The healthy brain can cope with occasional worry; it is +the iteration and reiteration of disquieting thoughts which the cells of +the brain cannot successfully combat.</p> + +<p>"The mechanical effect of worry is much the same as if the skull were +laid bare and the brain exposed to the action of a little hammer beating +continually upon it day after day, until the membranes are disintegrated +and the normal functions disabled. The maddening thought that will not +be downed, the haunting, ever-present idea that is not or cannot be +banished by a supreme effort of the will, is the theoretical hammer +which diminishes the vitality of the sensitive nerve organisms, the +minuteness of which makes them visible to the eye only under a powerful +microscope. The 'worry,' the thought, the single idea grows upon one as +time goes on, until the worry victim cannot throw it off. Through this, +one set or area of cells is affected. The cells are intimately +connected, joined together by little fibres, and they in turn are in +close relationship with the cells of the other parts of the brain.</p> + +<p>"Worry is itself a species of monomania. No mental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> attitude is more +disastrous to personal achievement, personal happiness, and personal +usefulness in the world, than worry and its twin brother, despondency. +The remedy for the evil lies in training the will to cast off cares and +seek a change of occupation, when the first warning is sounded by Nature +in intellectual lassitude. Relaxation is the certain foe of worry, and +'don't fret' one of the healthiest of maxims."</p> + +<p>In a life of constant worrying, we are as much behind the times as if we +were to go back to use the first steam engines that wasted ninety per +cent. of the energy of the coal, instead of having an electric dynamo +that utilizes ninety per cent. of the power. Some people waste a large +percentage of their energy in fretting and stewing, in useless anxiety, +in scolding, in complaining about the weather and the perversity of +inanimate things. Others convert nearly all of their energy into power +and moral sunshine. He who has learned the true art of living will not +waste his energies in friction, which accomplishes nothing, but merely +grinds out the machinery of life.</p> + +<p>It must be relegated to the debating societies to determine which is the +worse—A Nervous Man or</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_019" id="TC_019"></a>A WORRYING WOMAN.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully worried this morning," said one woman. "What is it?" "Why, +I thought of something to worry about last night, and now I can't +remember it."</p> + +<p>A famous actress once said: "Worry is the foe of all beauty." She might +have added: "It is the foe to all health."</p> + +<p>"It seems so heartless in me, if I do not worry about my children," said +one mother.</p> + +<p>Women nurse their troubles, as they do their babies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> "Troubles grow +larger," said Lady Holland, "by nursing."</p> + +<p>The White Knight who carried about a mousetrap, lest he be troubled with +mice upon his journeys, was not unlike those who anticipate their +burdens.</p> + +<p>"He grieves," says Seneca, "more than is necessary, who grieves before +it is necessary."</p> + +<p>"My children," said a dying man, "during my long life I have had a great +many troubles, most of which never happened." A prominent business man +in Philadelphia said that his father worried for twenty-five years over +an anticipated misfortune which never arrived.</p> + +<p>We try to grasp too much of life at once; since we think of it as a +whole, instead of living one day at a time. Life is a mosaic, and each +tiny piece must be cut and set with skill, first one piece, then +another.</p> + +<p>A clock would be of no use as a time-keeper if it should become +discouraged and come to a standstill by calculating its work a year +ahead, as the clock did in Jane Taylor's fable. It is not the troubles +of to-day, but those of to-morrow and next week and next year, that +whiten our heads, wrinkle our faces, and bring us to a standstill.</p> + +<p>"There is such a thing," said Uncle Eben, "as too much foresight. People +get to figuring what might happen year after next, and let the fire go +out and catch their death of cold, right where they are."</p> + +<p>Nervous prostration is seldom the result of present trouble or work, but +of work and trouble anticipated. Mental exhaustion comes to those who +look ahead, and climb mountains before reaching them. Resolutely build a +wall about to-day, and live within the inclosure. The past may have been +hard, sad, or wrong,—but it is over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>Why not take a turn about? Instead of worrying over unforeseen +misfortune, set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen +blessings of all your coming days. "I find the gayest castles in the air +that were ever piled," says Emerson, "far better for comfort and for use +than the dungeons in the air that are daily dug and caverned out by +grumbling, discontented people."</p> + +<p>What is this world but as you take it? Thackeray calls the world a +looking-glass that gives back the reflection of one's own face. "Frown +at it, and it will look sourly upon you; laugh at it, and it is a jolly +companion."</p> + +<p>"There is no use in talking," said a woman. "Every time I move, I vow +I'll never move again. Such neighbors as I get in with! Seems as though +they grow worse and worse." "Indeed?" replied her caller; "perhaps you +take the worst neighbor with you when you move."</p> + +<p>"In the sudden thunder-storm of Independence Day," says a news +correspondent, "we were struck by the contrast between two women, each +of whom had had some trying experience with the weather. One came +through the rain and hail to take refuge at the railway station, under +the swaying and uncertain shelter of an escorting man's umbrella. Her +skirts were soaked to the knees, her pink ribbons were limp, the purple +of the flowers on her hat ran in streaks down the white silk. And yet, +though she was a poor girl and her holiday finery must have been +relatively costly, she made the best of it with a smile and cheerful +words. The other was well sheltered; but she took the disappointment of +her hopes and the possibility of a little spattering from a leaky window +with frowns and fault-finding."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Cries little Miss Fret,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">In a very great pet:</span><br /> +'I hate this warm weather; it's horrid to tan!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">It scorches my nose,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And it blisters my toes,</span><br /> +And wherever I go I must carry a fan.'<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Chirps little Miss Laugh:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">'Why, I couldn't tell half</span><br /> +The fun I am having this bright summer day!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I sing through the hours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I cull pretty flowers,</span><br /> +And ride like a queen on the sweet-smelling hay.'"<br /> +</p> + +<p>Happily a new era has of late opened for our worried housekeepers, who +spend their time in "the half-frantic dusting of corners, spasmodic +sweeping, impatient snatching or pushing aside obstacles in the room, +hurrying and skurrying upstairs and down cellar." "It is not," says +Prentice Mulford, "the work that exhausts them,—it is the mental +condition they are in that makes so many old and haggard at forty." All +that is needful now to ease up their burdens is to go to</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_022" id="TC_022"></a>OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE.</p> + +<p>A newspaper correspondent, Annie Laurie, has told us all about the new +kind of American girls just added to our country:—</p> + +<p>"They are as straight as an arrow, and walk as queens walk in fairy +stories; they have great braids of sleek, black hair, soft brown eyes, +and gleaming white teeth; they can swim and ride and sing; and they are +brown with a skin that shines like bronze ... There isn't a worried +woman in Hawaii. The women there can't worry. They don't know how. They +eat and sing and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> laugh, and see the sun and the moon set, and possess +their souls in smiling peace.</p> + +<p>"If a Hawaii woman has a good dinner, she laughs and invites her friends +to eat it with her; if she hasn't a good dinner, she laughs and goes to +sleep,—and forgets to be hungry. She doesn't have to worry about what +the people in the downstairs flat will think if they don't see the +butcher's boy arrive on time. If she can earn the money, she buys a +nice, new, glorified Mother Hubbard; and, if she can't get it, she +throws the old one into the surf and washes it out, puts a new wreath of +fresh flowers in her hair, and starts out to enjoy the morning and the +breezes thereof.</p> + +<p>"They are not earnest workers; they haven't the slightest idea that they +were put upon earth to reform the universe,—they're just happy. They +run across great stretches of clear, white sand, washed with resplendent +purple waves, and, when the little brown babies roll in the surf, their +brown mothers run after them, laughing and splashing like a lot of +children. Or, perhaps we see them in gay cavalcades mounted upon +garlanded ponies, adorned by white jasmine wreaths with roses and pinks. +And here in this paradise of laughter and light hearts and gentle music, +there's absolutely nothing to do but to care for the children and old +people and to swim or ride. You couldn't start a 'reform circle' to save +your life; there isn't a jail in the place, nor a tenement quarter, and +there are no outdoor poor. There isn't a woman's club in Honolulu,—not +a club. There was a culture circle once for a few days; a Boston woman +who went there for her health organized it, but it interfered with +afternoon nap-time, so nobody came."</p> + +<p>When, hereafter, we talk about worrying women, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> must take into +account our Hawaiian sisters, if we will average up the amount of worry +<i>per capita</i>, in our nation.</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_024" id="TC_024"></a>A WEATHER BREEDER.</p> + +<p>It is probably quite within bounds to say that one out of three of our +American farming population, women and men, never enjoy a beautiful day +without first reminding you that "It is one of those infernal weather +breeders."</p> + +<p>Habitual fretters see more trouble than others. They are never so well +as their neighbors. The weather never suits them. The climate is trying. +The winds are too high or too low; it is too hot or too cold, too damp +or too dry. The roads are either muddy or dusty.</p> + +<p>"I met Mr. N. one wet morning," says Dr. John Todd; "and, bound as I was +to make the best of it, I ventured:</p> + +<p>"'Good morning. This rain will be fine for your grass crop.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, perhaps,' he replied, 'but it is very bad for corn; I don't think +we'll have half a crop.'</p> + +<p>"A few days later, I met him again. 'This is a fine sun for corn, Mr. +N.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' said he, 'but it's awful for rye; rye wants cold weather.'</p> + +<p>"One cool morning soon after, I said: 'This is a capital day for rye.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' he said, 'but it is the worst kind of weather for corn and +grass; they want heat to bring them forward.'"</p> + +<p>There are a vast number of fidgety, nervous, and eccentric people who +live only to expect new disappointments or to recount their old ones.</p> + +<p>"Impatient people," said Spurgeon, "water their miseries, and hoe up +their comforts."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let's see," said a neighbor to a farmer, whose wagon was loaded down +with potatoes, "weren't we talking together last August?" "I believe +so." "At that time, you said corn was all burnt up." "Yes." "And +potatoes were baking in the ground." "Yes." "And that your district +could not possibly expect more than half a crop." "I remember." "Well, +here you are with your wagon loaded down. Things didn't turn out so +badly, after all,—eh?" "Well, no-o," said the farmer, as he raked his +fingers through his hair, "but I tell you my geese suffered awfully for +want of a mud-hole to paddle in."</p> + +<p>What is a pessimist but "a man who looks on the sun only as a thing that +casts a shadow"?</p> + +<p>In Pepys's "Diary" we learn the difference between "eyes shut and ears +open," and "ears shut and eyes open." In going from John o' Groat's +House to Land's End, a blind man would hear that the country was going +to destruction, but a deaf man with eyes open could see great +prosperity.</p> + +<p>"I dare no more fret than curse or swear," said John Wesley.</p> + +<p>"A discontented mortal is no more a man than discord is music."</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Why should a man whose blood is warm within<br /> +Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?<br /> +Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice<br /> +By being peevish?"<br /> +</p> + +<p>Who are the "lemon squeezers of society"? They are people who predict +evil, extinguish hope, and see only the worst side,—"people whose very +look curdles the milk and sets your teeth on edge." They are often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +worthy people who think that pleasure is wrong; people, said an old +divine, who lead us heavenward and stick pins into us all the way. They +say depressing things and do disheartening things; they chill +prayer-meetings, discourage charitable institutions, injure commerce, +and kill churches; they are blowing out lights when they ought to be +kindling them.</p> + +<p>A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one jolts +over every pebble; with mirth, he is like a chariot with springs, riding +over the roughest roads and scarcely feeling anything but a pleasant +rocking motion.</p> + +<p>"Difficulties melt away before the man who carries about a cheerful +spirit and persistently refuses to be discouraged, while they accumulate +before the one who is always groaning over his hard luck and scanning +the horizon for clouds not yet in sight."</p> + +<p>"To one man," says Schopenhauer, "the world is barren, dull, and +superficial; to another, rich, interesting, and full of meaning." If one +loves beauty and looks for it, he will see it wherever he goes. If there +is music in his soul, he will hear it everywhere; every object in nature +will sing to him. Two men who live in the same house and do the same +work may not live in the same world. Although they are under the same +roof, one may see only deformity and ugliness; to him the world is out +of joint, everything is cross-grained and out of sorts: the other is +surrounded with beauty and harmony; everybody is kind to him; nobody +wishes him harm. These men see the same objects, but they do not look +through the same glasses; one looks through a smoked glass which drapes +the whole world in mourning, the other looks through rose-colored lenses +which tint everything with loveliness and touch it with beauty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>Take two persons just home from a vacation. "One has positively seen +nothing, and has always been robbed; the landlady was a harpy, the +bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was tough. The other has always +found the coziest nooks, the cheapest houses, the best landladies, the +finest views, and the best dinners."</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_027" id="TC_027"></a>"WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?"</p> + +<p>This is the question a farmer's boy asked of his father.</p> + +<p>"Well, John," replied his father, "you know I can't give ye the +dictionary meanin' of that word any more 'n I can of a great many +others. But I've got a kind of an idee what it means. Probably you don't +remember your Uncle Henry; but I guess if there ever was an optimist, he +was one. Things was always comin' out right with Henry, and especially +anything hard that he had to do; it wa' n't a-goin' to be hard,—'t was +jest kind of solid-pleasant.</p> + +<p>"Take hoein' corn, now. If anything ever tuckered me out, 'twas hoein' +corn in the hot sun. But in the field, 'long about the time I begun to +lag back a little, Henry he'd look up an' say:—</p> + +<p>"'Good, Jim! When we get these two rows hoed, an' eighteen more, the +piece'll be half done.' An' he'd say it in such a kind of a cheerful way +that I couldn't 'a' ben any more tickled if the piece had been all +done,—an' the rest would go light enough.</p> + +<p>"But the worst thing we had to do—hoein corn was a picnic to it—was +pickin' stones. There was no end to that on our old farm, if we wanted +to raise anything. When we wa'n't hurried and pressed with somethin' +else, there was always pickin' stones to do; and there wa'n't a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> plowin' +but what brought up a fresh crop, an' seems as if the pickin' had all to +be done over again.</p> + +<p>"Well, you'd' a' thought, to hear Henry, that there wa'n't any fun in +the world like pickin' stones. He looked at it in a different way from +anybody I ever see. Once, when the corn was all hoed, and the grass +wa'n't fit to cut yet, an' I'd got all laid out to go fishin', and +father he up and set us to pickin' stones up on the west piece, an' I +was about ready to cry, Henry he says:—</p> + +<p>"'Come on, Jim. I know where there's lots of nuggets.'</p> + +<p>"An' what do you s'pose, now? That boy had a kind of a game that that +there field was what he called a plasser mining field; and he got me +into it, and I could 'a' sworn I was in Californy all day,—I had such a +good time.</p> + +<p>"'Only,' says Henry, after we'd got through the day's work, 'the way you +get rich with these nuggets is to get rid of 'em, instead of to get +'em.'</p> + +<p>"That somehow didn't strike my fancy, but we'd had play instead of work, +anyway, an' a great lot of stones had been rooted out of that field.</p> + +<p>"An', as I said before, I can't give ye any dictionary definition of +optimism; but if your Uncle Henry wa'n't an optimist, I don't know what +one is."</p> + +<p>At life's outset, says one, a cheerful optimistic temperament is worth +everything. A cheerful man, who always "feels first-rate," who always +looks on the bright side, who is ever ready to snatch victory from +defeat, is the successful man.</p> + +<p>Everybody avoids the company of those who are always grumbling, who are +full of "ifs" and "buts," and "I told you so's." We like the man who +always looks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> toward the sun, whether it shines or not. It is the +cheerful, hopeful man we go to for sympathy and assistance; not the +carping, gloomy critic,—who always thinks it is going to rain, and that +we are going to have a terribly hot summer, or a fearful thunder-storm, +or who is forever complaining of hard times and his hard lot. It is the +bright, cheerful, hopeful, contented man who makes his way, who is +respected and admired.</p> + +<p>Gloom and depression not only take much out of life, but detract greatly +from the chances of winning success. It is the bright and cheerful +spirit that wins the final triumph.</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_029" id="TC_029"></a>LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE.</p> + +<p>"I see our brother, who has just sat down, lives on Grumbling street," +said a keen-witted Yorkshireman. "I lived there myself for some time, +and never enjoyed good health. The air was bad, the house bad, the water +bad; the birds never came and sang in the street; and I was gloomy and +sad enough. But I 'flitted.' I got into Thanksgiving avenue; and ever +since then I have had good health, and so have all my family. The air is +pure, the house good; the sun shines on it all day; the birds are always +singing; and I am happy as I can live. Now, I recommend our brother to +'flit.' There are plenty of houses to let on Thanksgiving avenue; and he +will find himself a new man if he will only come; and I shall be right +glad to have him for a neighbor."</p> + +<p>This world was not intended for a "vale of tears," but as a sweet Vale +of Content. Travelers are told by the Icelanders, who live amid the cold +and desolation of almost perpetual winter, that "Iceland is the best +land the sun shines upon." "In the long Arctic night, the Es<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>kimo is +blithe, and carolsome, far from the approach of the white man; while +amid the glorious scenery and Eden-like climate of Central America, the +native languages have a dozen words for pain and misery and sorrow, for +one with any cheerful signification."</p> + +<p>When a Persian king was directed by his wise men to wear the shirt of a +contented man, the only contented man in the kingdom had no shirt. The +most contented man in Boston does not live on Commonwealth avenue or do +business on State street: he is poor and blind, and he peddles needles +and thread, buttons and sewing-room supplies, about the streets of +Boston from house to house. Dr. Minot J. Savage used to pity this man +very much, and once in venturing to talk with him about his condition, +he was utterly amazed to find that the man was perfectly happy. He said +that he had a faithful wife, and a business by which he earned +sufficient for his wants; and, if he were to complain of his lot, he +should feel mean and contemptible. Surely, if there are any "solid men" +in Boston, he is one.</p> + +<p>Content is the magic lamp, which, according to the beautiful picture +painted for us by Goethe, transforms the rude fisherman's hut into a +palace of silver; the logs, the floors, the roof, the furniture, +everything being changed and gleaming with new light.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"My crown is in my heart, not on my head;<br /> +Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,<br /> +Nor to be seen; my crown is called content;<br /> +A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy."<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4><a name="TC_031" id="TC_031"></a>III. OILING YOUR BUSINESS MACHINERY.</h4> + +<p>Business is king. We often say that cotton is king, or corn is king, but +with greater propriety we may say that the king is that great machine +which is kept in motion by the Law of Supply and Demand: the destinies +of all mankind are ruled by it.</p> + +<p>"Were the question asked," says Stearns, "what is at this moment the +strongest power in operation for controlling, regulating, and inciting +the actions of men, what has most at its disposal the condition and +destinies of the world, we must answer at once, it is business, in its +various ranks and departments; of which commerce, foreign and domestic, +is the most appropriate representation. In all prosperous and advancing +communities,—advancing in arts, knowledge, literature, and social +refinement, —business is king. Other influences in society may be +equally indispensable, and some may think far more dignified, but +<i>Business is King</i>. The statesman and the scholar, the nobleman and the +prince, equally with the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer, +pursue their several objects only by leave granted and means furnished +by this potentate."</p> + +<p>Oil is better than sand for keeping this vast machinery in good running +condition. Do not shovel grit or gravel stones upon the bearings. A tiny +copper shaving in a wheel box, or a scratch on a journal, may set a +railway train on fire. The running of the business world is damaged by +whatever creates friction.</p> + +<p>Anxiety mars one's work. Nobody can do his best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> when, fevered by worry. +One may rush, and always be in great haste, and may talk about being +busy, fuming and sweating as if he were doing ten men's duties; and yet +some quiet person alongside, who is moving leisurely and without anxious +haste, is probably accomplishing twice as much, and doing it better. +Fluster unfits one for good work.</p> + +<p>Have you not sometimes seen a business manager whose stiffness would +serve as "a good example to a poker?" He acts toward his employees as +the father of Frederick the Great did toward his subjects, caning them +on the streets, and shouting, "I wish to be loved and not feared." +"Growl, Spitfire and Brothers," says Talmage, "wonder why they fail, +while Messrs. Merriman and Warmheart succeed."</p> + +<p>There is no investment a business man can make that will pay him a +greater per cent, than patience and amiability. Good humor will sell the +most goods.</p> + +<p>John Wanamaker's clerks have been heard to say: "We can work better for +a week after a pleasant 'Good morning' from Mr. Wanamaker."</p> + +<p>This kindly disposition and cheerful manner, and a desire to create a +pleasant feeling and diffuse good cheer among those who work for him, +have had a great deal to do with the great merchant's remarkable +success. On the other hand, a man who easily finds fault, and is never +generous-spirited, who never commends the work of subordinates when he +can do so justly, who is unwilling to brighten their hours, fails to +secure the best of service. "Why not try love's way?" It will pay +better, and be better.</p> + +<p>A habit of cheerfulness, enabling one to transmute apparent misfortunes +into real blessings, is a fortune to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> a young man or young woman just +crossing the threshold of active life. There is nothing but ill fortune +in a habit of grumbling, which "requires no talent, no self-denial, no +brains, no character." Grumbling only makes an employee more +uncomfortable, and may cause his dismissal. No one would or should wish +to make him do grudgingly what so many others would be glad to do in a +cheerful spirit.</p> + +<p>If you dislike your position, complain to no one, least of all to your +employer. Fill the place as it was never filled before. Crowd it to +overflowing. Make yourself more competent for it. Show that you are +abundantly worthy of better things. Express yourself in this manner as +freely as you please, for it is the only way that will count.</p> + +<p>No one ever found the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure +to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you +are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you +can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and +didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth +away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs that others leave +undone,—they are the true peacemakers, and worth a regiment of +grumblers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a sunny, winsome face she has!" said a Christian Endeavorer, +in reporting of a clerk whom he saw in a Bay City store. "The customers +flocked about her like bees about a honey-bush in full bloom."</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_033" id="TC_033"></a>SINGING AT YOUR WORK.</p> + +<p>"Give us, therefore,"—let us cry with Carlyle,—"oh, give us the man +who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it +better, he will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue +whilst 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, +graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."</p> + +<p>"It is a good sign," says another writer, "when girlish voices carol +over the steaming dish-pan or the mending-basket, when the broom moves +rhythmically, and the duster flourishes in time to some brisk melody. We +are sure that the dishes shine more brightly, and that the sweeping and +dusting and mending are more satisfactory because of this running +accompaniment of song. Father smiles when he hears his girl singing +about her work, and mother's tired face brightens at the sound. Brothers +and sisters, without realizing it, perhaps, catch the spirit of the +cheerful worker."</p> + +<p>There are singing milkers in Switzerland; a milkmaid or man gets better +wages if gifted with a good voice, for a cow will yield one-fifth more +milk when soothed by a pleasing melody.</p> + +<p>It was said by Buffon that even sheep fatten better to the sound of +music. And when field-hands are singing, as you sometimes hear them in +the old country, you may be sure the labor is lightened.</p> + +<p>It is Mrs. Howitt who has told us of the musical bells of the farm teams +in a rural district in England:—"It was no regular tune, but a +delicious melody in that soft, sunshiny air, which was filled at the +same time with the song of birds. Angela had heard all kinds of music in +London, but this was unlike anything she had heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> before, so soft, and +sweet, and gladsome. On it came, ringing, ringing as softly as flowing +water. The boys and grandfather knew what it meant. Then it came in +sight,—the farm team going to the mill with sacks of corn to be ground, +each horse with a little string of bells to its harness. On they came, +the handsome, well-cared-for creatures, nodding their heads as they +stepped along; and at every step the cheerful and cheering melody rang +out.</p> + +<p>"'Do all horses down here have bells?' asked Angela.</p> + +<p>"'By no means,' replied her grandfather. 'They cost something; but if we +can make labor easier to a horse by giving him a little music, which he +loves, he is less worn by his work, and that is a saving worth thinking +of. A horse is a generous, noble-spirited animal, and not without +intellect, either; and he is capable of much enjoyment from music.'"</p> + +<p>A spirit of song, if not the singing itself, is a constant delight to +us. "It is like passing sweet meadows alive with bobolinks."</p> + +<p>"Some men," says Beecher, "move through life as a band of music moves +down the street, flinging out pleasures on every side, through the air, +to every one far and near who can listen; others fill the air with harsh +clang and clangor. Many men go through life carrying their tongue, their +temper, their whole disposition so that wherever they go, others dread +them. Some men fill the air with their presence and sweetness, as +orchards in October days fill the air with the perfume of ripe fruit."</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_035" id="TC_035"></a>GOOD HUMOR.</p> + +<p>"Health and good humor," said Massillon, "are to the human body like +sunshine to vegetation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>The late Charles A. Dana fairly bubbled over with the enjoyment of his +work, and was, up to his last illness, at his office every day. A +Cabinet officer once said to him: "Well, Mr. Dana, I don't see how you +stand this infernal grind."</p> + +<p>"Grind?" said Mr. Dana. "You never were more mistaken. I have nothing +but fun."</p> + +<p>"Bully" was a favorite word with him; a slang word used to express +uncommon pleasure, such as had been afforded by a trip abroad, or by a +run to Cuba or Mexico, or by the perusal of something especially +pleasing in the "Sun's" columns.</p> + +<p>"One of my neighbors is a very ill-tempered man," said Nathan +Rothschild. "He tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine +close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first, 'Grunt, grunt,' then +'Squeak, squeak.' But this does me no harm. I am always in good humor."</p> + +<p>Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at the "Tribune" +office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a little +seven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley sat, with his head close down to +his paper, scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began by +asking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said the +editor quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate +visitor then began using his tongue, with no reference to the rules of +propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued to +write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with +no change of features, and without paying the slightest attention to the +visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most impassioned +scolding ever poured out in an editor's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> office, the angry man became +disgusted, and abruptly turned to walk out of the room. Then, for the +first time, Mr. Greeley quickly looked up, rose from his chair, and, +slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in a pleasant tone of +voice said: "Don't go, friend; sit down, sit down, and free your mind; +it will do you good,—you will feel better for it. Besides, it helps me +to think what I am to write about. Don't go."</p> + +<p>"One good hearty laugh," says Talmage, "is like a bomb-shell exploding +in the right place, and spleen and discontent like a gun that kicks over +the man shooting it off."</p> + +<p>"Every one," says Lubbock, "likes a man who can enjoy a laugh at his own +expense,—and justly so, for it shows good humor and good sense. If you +laugh at yourself, other people will not laugh at you."</p> + +<p>People differ very much in their sense of humor. As some are deaf to +certain sounds and blind to certain colors, so there are those who seem +deaf and blind to certain pleasures. What makes me laugh until I almost +go into convulsions moves them not at all.</p> + +<p>Is it not worth while to make an effort to see the funny side of our +petty annoyances? How could the two boys but laugh, after they had +contended long over the possession of a box found by the wayside, when +they agreed to divide its contents, and found nothing in it?</p> + +<p>The ability to get on with scolding, irritating people is a great art in +doing business. To preserve serenity amid petty trials is a happy gift.</p> + +<p>A sunny temper is also conducive to health. A medical authority of +highest repute affirms that "excessive labor, exposure to wet and cold, +deprivation of sufficient quantities of necessary and wholesome food, +habitual bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> lodging, sloth, and intemperance are all deadly enemies to +human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent and ungoverned +passions;" that men and women have frequently lived to an advanced age +in spite of these; but that instances are very rare in which people of +irascible tempers live to extreme old age.</p> + +<p>Poultney Bigelow, in "Harper's Magazine," in relating the story of +Jameson's raid upon the Boers of South Africa, says that the triumphant +Boers fell on their knees, thanking God for their victory; and that they +prayed for their enemies, and treated their prisoners with the utmost +kindness. Our foreign missionary books relate similar anecdotes, it +being a characteristic feature of their childlike piety for new converts +to take literally the words of our Lord,—"Love your enemies."</p> + +<p>It is not true that the devil has his tail in everything. A stalwart +confidence in God, and faith in the happy outcome of life, will do more +to lubricate the creaking machinery of our daily affairs than anything +else.</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_038" id="TC_038"></a>"LE DIABLE EST MORT."</p> + +<p>"<i>Courage, ami, le diable est mort!</i>" "Courage, friend, the devil is +dead!" was Denys's constant countersign, which he would give to +everybody. "They don't understand it," he would say, "but it wakes them +up. I carry the good news from city to city, to uplift men's hearts." +Once he came across a child who had broken a pitcher. "<i>Courage, amie, +le diable est mort!</i>" said he, which was such cheering news that she +ceased crying, and ran home to tell it to her grandma.</p> + +<p>Give me the man who, like Emerson, sees longevity in his cause, and who +believes there is a remedy for every wrong, a satisfaction for every +longing soul; the man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> who believes the best of everybody, and who sees +beauty and grace where others see ugliness and deformity. Give me the +man who believes in the ultimate triumph of truth over error, of harmony +over discord, of love over hate, of purity over vice, of light over +darkness, of life over death. Such men are the true nation-builders.</p> + +<p>Jay Cooke, many times a millionaire at the age of fifty-one, at +fifty-two practically penniless, went to work again and built another +fortune. The last of his three thousand creditors was paid, and the +promise of the great financier was fulfilled. To a visitor who once +asked him how he regained his fortune, Mr. Cooke replied, "That is +simple enough: by never changing the temperament I derived from my +father and mother. From my earliest experience in life I have always +been of a hopeful temperament, never living in a cloud; I have always +had a reasonable philosophy to think that men and times are better than +harsh criticism would suppose. I believed that this American world of +ours is full of wealth, and that it was only necessary to go to work and +find it. That is the secret of my success in life. Always look on the +sunny side."</p> + +<p>"Everything has gone," said a New York business man in despair, when he +reached home. But when he came to himself he found that his wife and his +children and the promises of God were left to him. Suffering, it was +said by Aristotle, becomes beautiful when any one bears great calamities +with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of +mind.</p> + +<p>When Garrison was locked up in the Boston city jail he said he had two +delightful companions,—a good conscience and a cheerful mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"To live as always seeing<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The invisible Source of things,</span><br /> +Is the blessedest state of being,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the quietude it brings."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Away with those fellows who go howling through life," wrote Beccher, +"and all the while passing for birds of paradise! He that cannot laugh +and be gay should look to himself. He should fast and pray until his +face breaks forth into light."</p> + +<p>Martin Luther has told us that he was once sorely discouraged and vexed +at himself, the world, and the church, and at the small success he then +seemed to be having; and he fell into a despondency which affected all +his household. His good wife could not charm it away by cheerful speech +or acts. At length she hit upon this happy device, which proved +effectual. She appeared before him in deep mourning.</p> + +<p>"Who is dead?" asked Luther.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you not know, Martin? God in heaven is dead."</p> + +<p>"How can you talk such nonsense, Käthe? How can God die? Why, He is +immortal, and will live through all eternity."</p> + +<p>"Is that really true?" persisted she, as if she could hardly credit his +assertion that God still lived.</p> + +<p>"How can you doubt it? So surely as there is a God in heaven," asserted +the aroused theologian, "so sure is it that He can never die."</p> + +<p>"And yet," said she demurely, in a tone which made him look up at her, +"though you do not doubt there is a God, you become hopeless and +discouraged as if there were none. It seemed to me you acted as if God +were dead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>The spell was broken; Luther heartily laughed at his wife's lesson, and +her ingenious way of presenting it. "I observed," he remarked, "what a +wise woman my wife was, who mastered my sadness."</p> + +<p>Jean Paul Richter's dream of "No God" is one of the most somber things +in all literature,—"tempestuous chaos, no healing hand, no Infinite +Father. I awoke. My soul wept for joy that it could again worship the +Infinite Father.... And when I arose, from all</p> + +<p>nature I heard flowing sweet, peaceful tones, as from evening bells."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4><a name="TC_042" id="TC_042"></a>IV. TAKING YOUR FUN EVERY DAY AS YOU DO YOUR WORK.</h4> + +<p>Ten things are necessary for happiness in this life, the first being a +good digestion, and the other nine,—money; so at least it is said by +our modern philosophers. Yet the author of "A Gentle Life" speaks more +truly in saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of +superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support of +life.</p> + +<p>He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness, not from +ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him. The man who has +mastered the secret will not wait for ideal surroundings; he will not +wait until next year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he can +travel abroad, until he can afford to surround himself with works of the +great masters; but he will make the most out of life to-day, where he +is.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Why thus longing, thus forever sighing,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the far-off, unattained and dim,</span><br /> +While the beautiful, all round thee lying,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?</span><br /> +<br /> +"Happy the man, and happy he alone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who can call to-day his own;</span><br /> +He who, secure within himself, can say:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day!'"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will +never find it.</p> + +<p>It is after business hours, not in them, that men break<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> down. Men must, +like Philip Armour, turn the key on business when they leave it, and at +once unlock the doors of some wholesome recreation. Dr. Lyman Beecher +used to divert himself with a violin. He had a regular system of what he +called "unwinding," thus relieving the great strain put upon him.</p> + +<p>"A man," says Dr. Johnson, "should spend part of his time with the +laughers."</p> + +<p>Humor was Lincoln's life-preserver, as it has been of thousands of +others. "If it were not for this," he used to say, "I should die." His +jests and quaint stories lighted the gloom of dark hours of national +peril.</p> + +<p>"Next to virtue," said Agnes Strickland, "the fun in this world is what +we can least spare."</p> + +<p>"When the harness is off," said Judge Haliburton, "a critter likes to +kick up his heels."</p> + +<p>"I have fun from morning till night," said the editor Charles A. Dana to +a friend who was growing prematurely old. "Do you read novels, and play +billiards, and walk a great deal?"</p> + +<p>Gladstone early formed a habit of looking on the bright side of things, +and never lost a moment's sleep by worrying about public business.</p> + +<p>There are many out-of-door sports, and the very presence of nature is to +many a great joy. How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, +all nature smiles with us,—the air seems more balmy, the sky more +clear, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, +the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly, and the sun, +moon, and stars all appear more beautiful. "It is a grand thing to +live,—to open the eyes in the morning and look out upon the world, to +drink in the pure air and enjoy the sweet sunshine, to feel the pulse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +bound, and the being thrill with the consciousness of strength and power +in every nerve; it is a good thing simply to be alive, and it is a good +world we live in, in spite of the abuse we are fond of giving it."</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"I love to hear the bee sing amid the blossoms sunny;<br /> +To me his drowsy melody is sweeter than his honey:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For, while the shades are shifting</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Along the path to noon,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My happy brain goes drifting</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To dreamland on his tune.</span><br /> +<br /> +"I love to hear the wind blow amid the blushing petals,<br /> +And when a fragile flower falls, to watch it as it settles;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And view each leaflet falling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upon the emerald turf,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With idle mind recalling</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The bubbles on the surf.</span><br /> +<br /> +"I love to lie upon the grass, and let my glances wander<br /> +Earthward and skyward there; while peacefully I ponder<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How much of purest pleasure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Earth holds for his delight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who takes life's cup to measure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Naught but its blessings bright."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Upon every side of us are to be found what one has happily called—</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_044" id="TC_044"></a>UNWORKED JOY MINES.</p> + +<p>And he who goes "prospecting" to see what he can daily discover is a +wise man, training his eye to see beauty in everything and everywhere.</p> + +<p>"One ought, every day," says Goethe, "at least to hear a little song, +read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak +a few reasonable words." And if this be good for one's self, why not try +the song, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> poem, the picture, and the good words, on some one else?</p> + +<p>Shall music and poetry die out of you while you are struggling for that +which can never enrich the character, nor add to the soul's worth? Shall +a disciplined imagination fill the mind with beautiful pictures? He who +has intellectual resources to fall back upon will not lack for daily +recreation most wholesome.</p> + +<p>It was a remark of Archbishop Whately that we ought not only to +cultivate the cornfields of the mind, but the pleasure-grounds also. A +well-balanced life is a cheerful life; a happy union of fine qualities +and unruffled temper, a clear judgment, and well-proportioned faculties. +In a corner of his desk, Lincoln kept a copy of the latest humorous +work; and it was frequently his habit, when fatigued, annoyed, or +depressed, to take this up, and read a chapter with great relief. Clean, +sensible wit, or sheer nonsense,—anything to provoke mirth and make a +man jollier,—this, too, is a gift from Heaven.</p> + +<p>In the world of books, what is grand and inspiring may easily become a +part of every man's life. A fondness for good literature, for good +fiction, for travel, for history, and for biography,—what is better +than this?</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_045" id="TC_045"></a>THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD.</p> + +<p>This title best fits Victoria, the true queen of the world, but it fits +her best because she is the best type of a noble wife, the queen of her +husband's heart, and of a queen mother whose children rise up and call +her blessed.</p> + +<p>"I noticed," said Franklin, "a mechanic, among a number of others, at +work on a house a little way from my office, who always appeared to be +in a merry humor;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> he had a kind word and smile for every one he met. +Let the day be ever so cold, gloomy, or sunless, a happy smile danced on +his cheerful countenance. Meeting him one morning, I asked him to tell +me the secret of his constant flow of spirits.</p> + +<p>"'It is no secret, doctor,' he replied. 'I have one of the best of +wives; and, when I go to work, she always has a kind word of +encouragement for me; and, when I go home, she meets me with a smile and +a kiss; and then tea is sure to be ready, and she has done so many +little things through the day to please me that I cannot find it in my +heart to speak an unkind word to anybody.'"</p> + +<p>Some of the happiest homes I have ever been in, ideal homes, where +intelligence, peace, and harmony dwell, have been homes of poor people. +No rich carpets covered the floors; there were no costly paintings on +the walls, no piano, no library, no works of art. But there were +contented minds, devoted and unselfish lives, each contributing as much +as possible to the happiness of all, and endeavoring to compensate by +intelligence and kindness for the poverty of their surroundings. "One +cheerful, bright, and contented spirit in a household will uplift the +tone of all the rest. The keynote of the home is in the hand of the +resolutely cheerful member of the family, and he or she will set the +pitch for the rest."</p> + +<p>"Young men," it is said, "are apt to be overbearing, imperious, brusque +in their manner; they need that suavity of manner, and urbanity of +demeanor, gracefulness of expression and delicacy of manner, which can +only be gained by association with the female character, which possesses +the delicate instinct, ready judgment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> acute perceptions, wonderful +intuition. The blending of the male and female characteristics produces +the grandest character in each."</p> + +<p>The woman who has what Helen Hunt so aptly called "a genius for +affection,"—she, indeed, is queen of the home. "I have often had +occasion," said Washington Irving, "to remark the fortitude with which +woman sustains the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those +disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the +dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give +such intrepidity and elevation to their character that at times it +approaches sublimity."</p> + +<p>If a wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the +cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place her husband can find refuge in,—a +retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world,—then God help +the poor man, for he is virtually homeless. "Home-keeping hearts," said +Longfellow, "are happiest." What is a good wife, a good mother? Is she +not a gift out of heaven, sacred and delicate, with affections so great +that no measuring line short of that of the infinite God can tell their +bound; fashioned to refine and soothe and lift and irradiate home and +society and the world; of such value that no one can appreciate it, +unless his mother lived long enough to let him understand it, or unless, +in some great crisis of life, when all else failed him, he had a wife to +reënforce him with a faith in God that nothing could disturb?</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more delightful than an anecdote of Joseph H. Choate, of +New York, our Minister at the Court of St. James. Upon being asked, at a +dinner-party, who he would prefer to be if he could not be him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>self, he +hesitated a moment, apparently running over in his mind the great ones +on earth, when his eyes rested on Mrs. Choate at the other end of the +table, who was watching him with great interest in her face, and +suddenly replied, "If I could not be myself, I should like to be Mrs. +Choate's second husband."</p> + +<p>"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the +bones." It is the little disputes, little fault-findings, little +insinuations, little reflections, sharp criticisms, fretfulness and +impatience, little unkindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad +temper, that create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family. +How much it would add to the glory of the homes of the world if that +might be said of every one which Rogers said of Lord Holland's sunshiny +face: "He always comes to breakfast like a man upon whom some sudden +good fortune has fallen"!</p> + +<p>The value of pleasant words every day, as you go along, is well depicted +by Aunt Jerusha in what she said to our genial friend of "Zion's +Herald":—</p> + +<p>"If folks could have their funerals when they are alive and well and +struggling along, what a help it would be"! she sighed, upon returning +from a funeral, wondering how poor Mrs. Brown would have felt if she +could have heard what the minister said. "Poor soul, she never dreamed +they set so much by her!</p> + +<p>"Mis' Brown got discouraged. Ye see, Deacon Brown, he'd got a way of +blaming everything on to her. I don't suppose the deacon meant +it,—'twas just his way,—but it's awful wearing. When things wore out +or broke, he acted just as if Mis' Brown did it herself on purpose; and +they all caught it, like the measles or the whooping-cough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And the minister a-telling how the deacon brought his young wife here +when 't wa'n't nothing but a wilderness, and how patiently she bore +hardship, and what a good wife she'd been! Now the minister wouldn't +have known anything about that if the deacon hadn't told him. Dear! +Dear! If he'd only told Mis' Brown herself what he thought, I do believe +he might have saved the funeral.</p> + +<p>"And when the minister said how the children would miss their mother, +seemed as though they couldn't stand it, poor things!</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess it is true enough,—Mis' Brown was always doing for some +of them. When they was singing about sweet rest in heaven, I couldn't +help thinking that that was something Mis' Brown would have to get used +to, for she never had none of it here.</p> + +<p>"She'd have been awful pleased with the flowers. They was pretty, and no +mistake. Ye see, the deacon wa'n't never willing for her to have a +flower-bed. He said 't was enough prettier sight to see good cabbages +a-growing; but Mis' Brown always kind of hankered after sweet-smelling +things, like roses and such.</p> + +<p>"What did you say, Levi? 'Most time for supper? Well, land's sake, so it +is! I must have got to meditating. I've been a-thinking, Levi, you +needn't tell the minister anything about me. If the pancakes and pumpkin +pies are good, you just say so as we go along. It ain't best to keep +everything laid up for funerals."</p> + +<p><i>It is the grand secret of a happy home to express the affection you +really have.</i></p> + +<p>"He is the happiest," it was said by Goethe, "be he king or peasant, who +finds peace in his home." There are indeed many serious, too +serious-minded fathers and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> mothers who do not wish to advertise their +children to all the neighbors as "the laughing family." If this be so, +yet, at the very least, these solemn parents may read the Bible. Where +it is said, "provoke not your children to wrath," it means literally, +"do not irritate your children;" "do not rub them up the wrong way."</p> + +<p>Children ought never to get the impression that they live in a hopeless, +cheerless, cold world; but the household cheerfulness should transform +their lives like sunlight, making their hearts glad with little things, +rejoicing upon small occasion.</p> + +<p>"How beautiful would our home-life be if every little child at the +bed-time hour could look into the faces of the older ones and say: +'We've had such sweet times to-day.'"</p> + +<p>"To love, and to be loved," says Sydney Smith, "is the greatest +happiness of existence."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4><a name="TC_051" id="TC_051"></a>V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK.</h4> + +<p>Dining one day with Baron James Rothschild, Eugene Delacroix, the famous +French artist, confessed that, during some time past, he had vainly +sought for a head to serve as a model for that of a beggar in a picture +which he was painting; and that, as he gazed at his host's features, the +idea suddenly occurred to him that the very head he desired was before +him. Rothschild, being a great lover of art, readily consented to sit as +the beggar. The next day, at the studio, Delacroix placed a tunic around +the baron's shoulders, put a stout staff in his hand, and made him pose +as if he were resting on the steps of an ancient Roman temple. In this +attitude he was found by one of the artist's favorite pupils, in a brief +absence of the master from the room. The youth naturally concluded that +the beggar had just been brought in, and with a sympathetic look quietly +slipped a piece of money into his hand. Rothschild thanked him simply, +pocketed the money, and the student passed out. Rothschild then inquired +of the master, and found that the young man had talent, but very slender +means. Soon after, the youth received a letter stating that charity +bears interest, and that the accumulated interest on the amount he had +given to one he supposed to be a beggar was represented by the sum of +ten thousand francs, which was awaiting his claim at the Rothschild +office.</p> + +<p>This illustrates well the art of cheerful amusement even if one has +great business cares,—the entertainment of the artist, the personation +of a beggar, and an act of beneficence toward a worthy student.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>It illustrates, too, what was said by Wilhelm von Humboldt, that "it is +worthy of special remark that when we are not too anxious about +happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and +unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself." We carry +each day nobly, doing the duty or enjoying the privilege of the moment, +without thinking whether or not it will make us happy. This is quite in +accord with the saying of George Herbert, "The consciousness of duty +performed gives us music at midnight."</p> + +<p>Are not buoyant spirits like water sparkling when it runs? "<i>I have +found my greatest happiness in labor</i>," said Gladstone. "I early formed +a habit of industry, and it has been its own reward. The young are apt +to think that rest means a cessation from all effort, but I have found +the most perfect rest in changing effort. If brain-weary over books and +study, go out into the blessed sunlight and the pure air, and give +heartfelt exercise to the body. The brain will soon become calm and +rested. The efforts of Nature are ceaseless. Even in our sleep the heart +throbs on. I try to live close to Nature, and to imitate her in my +labors. The compensation is sound sleep, a wholesome digestion, and +powers that are kept at their best; and this, I take it, is the chief +reward of industry."</p> + +<p>"Owing to ingrained habits," said Horace Mann, "work has always been to +me what water is to a fish. I have wondered a thousand times to hear +people say, 'I don't like this business,' or 'I wish I could exchange it +for that;' for with me, when I have had anything to do, I do not +remember ever to have demurred, but have always set about it like a +fatalist, and it was as sure to be done as the sun was to set."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>One's personal enjoyment is a very small thing, but one's personal +usefulness is a very important thing." Those only are happy who have +their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness</i>. "The +most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures," says La Bruyère, +"consists in promoting the pleasures of others." And Hawthorne has said +that the inward pleasure of imparting pleasure is the choicest of all.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is great," said Carlyle, "and there is no other greatness,—to +make some nook of God's creation more fruitful, better, more worthy of +God,—to make some human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier, more +blessed, less accursed!" The gladness of service, of having some +honorable share in the world's work, what is better than this?</p> + +<p>"The Lord must love the common people," said Lincoln, "for he made so +many of them, and so few of the other kind." To extend to all the cup of +joy is indeed angelic business, and there is nothing that makes one more +beautiful than to be engaged in it.</p> + +<p>"The high desire that others may be blest savors of heaven."</p> + +<p>The memory of those who spend their days in hanging sweet pictures of +faith and trust in the galleries of sunless lives shall never perish +from the earth.</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_053" id="TC_053"></a>DOING GOOD BY STEALTH, AND HAVING IT FOUND OUT BY ACCIDENT.</p> + +<p>"This," said Charles Lamb, "is the greatest pleasure I know." "Money +never yet made a man happy," said Franklin; "and there is nothing in its +nature to produce happiness." To do good with it, makes life a delight +to the giver. How happy, then, was the life of Jean Ingelow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> since what +she received from the sale of a hundred thousand copies of her poems, +and fifty thousand of her prose works, she spent largely in charity; one +unique charity being a "copyright" dinner three times a week to twelve +poor persons just discharged from the neighboring hospitals! Nor was any +one made happier by it than the poet.</p> + +<p>John Buskin inherited a million dollars. "With this money he set about +doing good," says a writer in the "Arena." "Poor young men and women who +were struggling to get an education were helped, homes for working men +and women were established, and model apartment houses were erected. He +also promoted a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This +land was used for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again +from the state in which they had fallen through cruel social conditions +and their own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General +Booth his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in +aiding poor artists, and has done much to encourage artistic taste among +the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings +by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in the public schools of London. +By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides all +the income from his books. But the calls of the poor, and his plans +looking toward educating and ennobling the lives of working men, giving +more sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all +the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him $1,500 +a year on which to live."</p> + +<p>Our own Peter Cooper, in his last days, was one of the happiest men in +America; his beneficence shone in his countenance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>Let the man who has the blues take a map and census table of the world, +and estimate how many millions there are who would gladly exchange lots +with him, and let him begin upon some practicable plan to do all the +good he can to as many as he can, and he will forget to be despondent; +and he need not stop short at praying for them without first giving +every dollar he can, without troubling the Lord about that. Let him +scatter his flowers as he goes along, since he will never go over the +same road again.</p> + +<p>No man in England had a better time than did Du Maurier on that cold day +when he took the hat of an old soldier on Hampstead road, and sent him +away to the soup kitchen in Euston to get warm. The artist chalked on a +blackboard such portraits as he commonly made for "Punch," and soon +gathered a great quantity of small coins for the grateful soldier; who, +however, at once rubbed out Du Maurier's pictures and put on "the +faithful dog," and a battle scene, as more artistic.</p> + +<p>"Chinese Gordon," after serving faithfully and valiantly in the great +Chinese rebellion, and receiving the highest honors of the Chinese +Empire, returned to England, caring little for the praise thus heaped on +him. He took some position at Gravesend, just below London, where he +filled his house with boys from the streets, whom he taught and made men +of, and then secured them places on ships,—following them all over the +world with letters of advice and encouragement.</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_055" id="TC_055"></a>HIS HEAD IN A HOLE.</p> + +<p>"I was appointed to lecture in a town in Great Britain six miles from +the railway," said John B. Gough, "and a man drove me in a fly from the +station<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> to the town. I noticed that he sat leaning forward in an +awkward manner, with his face close to the glass of the window. Soon he +folded a handkerchief and tied it round his neck. I asked him if he was +cold. "No, sir." Then he placed the handkerchief round his face. I asked +him if he had the toothache. "No, sir," was the reply. Still he sat +leaning forward. At last I said, "Will you please tell me why you sit +leaning forward that way with a handkerchief round your neck if you are +not cold and have no toothache?" He said very quietly, "The window of +the carriage is broke, and the wind is cold, and I am trying to keep it +from you." I said, in surprise, "You are not putting your face to that +broken pane to keep the wind from me, are you?" "Yes, sir, I am." "Why +do you do that?" "God bless you, sir! I owe everything I have in the +world to you." "But I never saw you before." "No, sir; but I have seen +you. I was a ballad-singer once. I used to go round with a half-starved +baby in my arms for charity, and a draggled wife at my heels half the +time, with her eyes blackened; and I went to hear you in Edinburgh, and +<i>you told me I was a man</i>; and when I went out of that house I said, 'By +the help of God, I'll be a man;' and now I've a happy wife and a +comfortable home. God bless you, sir! I would stick my head in any hole +under the heavens if it would do you any good."</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Let's find the sunny side of men,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or be believers in it;</span><br /> +A light there is in every soul<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That takes the pains to win it.</span><br /> +Oh! there's a slumbering good in all,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And we perchance may wake it;</span><br /> +Our hands contain the magic wand:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This life is what we make it."</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>He indeed is getting the most out of life who does most to elevate +mankind. How happy were those Little Sisters of the Poor at Tours, who +took scissors to divide their last remnant of bedclothing with an old +woman who came to them at night, craving hospitality! And how happy was +that American school-teacher who gave up the best room in the house, +which she had engaged long before the season opened, at a mountain +sanitarium, during the late war, taking instead of it the poorest room +in the house, that she might give good quarters to a soldier just out of +his camp hospital!</p> + +<p>"Teach self-denial," said Walter Scott, "and make its practice +pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than +ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer."</p> + +<p>Yet how many there are, ready to make some great sacrifice, who neglect +those little acts of kindness which make so many lives brighter and +happier.</p> + +<p>"I say, Jim, it's the first time I ever had anybody ask my parding, and +it kind o' took me off my feet." A young lady had knocked him down in +hastily turning a corner. She stopped and said to the ragged +crossing-boy: "I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very sorry I +ran against you." He took off the piece of a cap he had on his skull, +made a low bow, and said with a broad smile: "You have my parding, Miss, +and welcome; and the next time you run agin me, you can knock me clean +down and I won't say a word."</p> + +<p>One of the greatest mistakes of life is to save our smiles and pleasant +words and sympathy for those of "our set," or for those not now with us, +and for other times than the present.</p> + +<p>"If a word or two will render a man happy," said a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> Frenchman, "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."</p> + +<p>Sydney Smith recommends us to make at least one person happy every day: +"Take ten years, and you will make thirty-six hundred and fifty persons +happy; or brighten a small town by your contribution to the fund of +general joy." One who is cheerful is preeminently useful.</p> + +<p>Dr. Raffles once said: "I have made it a rule never to be with a person +ten minutes without trying to make him happier." It was a remark of Dr. +Dwight, that "one who makes a little child happier for half an hour is a +fellow-worker with God."</p> + +<p>A little boy said to his mother: "I couldn't make little sister happy, +nohow I could fix it. But I made myself happy trying to make her happy." +"I make Jim happy, and he laughs," said another boy, speaking of his +invalid brother; "and that makes me happy, and I laugh."</p> + +<p>There was once a king who loved his little boy very much, and took a +great deal of pains to please him. So he gave him a pony to ride, +beautiful rooms to live in, pictures, books, toys without number, +teachers, companions, and everything that money could buy or ingenuity +devise; but for all this, the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown +wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have. +At length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl on the boy's +face, and said to the king: "I can make your son happy, and turn his +frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a great price for telling him +this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> secret." "All right," said the king; "whatever you ask I will +give." The magician took the boy into a private room. He wrote something +with a white substance on a piece of paper. He gave the boy a candle, +and told him to light it and hold it under the paper, and then see what +he could read. Then the magician went away. The boy did as he had been +told, and the white letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed +these words: "Do a kindness to some one every day." The prince followed +the advice, and became the happiest boy in the realm.</p> + +<p>"Happiness," says one writer, "is a mosaic, composed of many smaller +stones." It is the little acts of kindness, the little courtesies, the +disposition to be accommodating, to be helpful, to be sympathetic, to be +unselfish, to be careful not to wound the feelings, not to expose the +sore spots, to be charitable of the weaknesses of others, to be +considerate,—these are the little things which, added up at night, are +found to be the secret of a happy day. How much greater are all these +than one great act of noteworthy goodness once a year! Our lives are +made up of trifles; emergencies rarely occur. "Little things, +unimportant events, experiences so small as to scarcely leave a trace +behind, make up the sum-total of life." And the one great thing in life +is to do a little good to every one we meet. Ready sympathy, a quick +eye, and a little tact, are all that are needed.</p> + +<p>This point is happily illustrated by this report of an incident upon a +train from Providence to Boston. A lady was caring for her father, whose +mental faculties were weakened by age. He imagined that some imperative +duty called on him to leave the swift-moving train, and his daughter +could not quiet him. Just then she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> noticed a large man watching them +over the top of his paper. As soon as he caught her eye, he rose and +crossed quickly to her.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, you are in trouble. May I help you?"</p> + +<p>She explained the situation to him.</p> + +<p>"What is your father's name?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She told him; and then with an encouraging smile, she spoke to her +venerable father who was sitting immediately in front of her. The next +moment the large man turned over the seat, and leaning toward the +troubled old man, he addressed him by name, shook hands with him +cordially, and engaged him in a conversation so interesting and so +cleverly arranged to keep his mind occupied that the old gentleman +forgot his need to leave the train, and did not think of it again until +they were in Boston. There the stranger put the lady and her charge into +a carriage, received her assurance that she felt perfectly safe, and was +about to close the carriage door, when she remembered that she had felt +so safe in the keeping of this noble-looking man that she had not even +asked his name. Hastily putting her hand against the door, she said: +"Pardon me, but you have rendered me such service, may I not know whom I +am thanking?" The big man smiled as he turned away, and answered:—</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_060" id="TC_060"></a>"PHILLIPS BROOKS."</p> + +<p>"What a gift it is," said Beecher, who was the great preacher of +cheerfulness, "to make all men better and happier without knowing it! We +do not suppose that flowers know how sweet they are. These roses and +carnations have made me happy for a day. Yet they stand huddled together +in my pitcher, without seeming to know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> my thoughts of them, or the +gracious work they are doing. And how much more is it, to have a +disposition that carries with it involuntarily sweetness, calmness, +courage, hope, and happiness. Yet this is the portion of good nature in +a large-minded, strong-natured man. When it has made him happy, it has +scarcely begun its office. God sends a natural heart-singer—a man whose +nature is large and luminous, and who, by his very carriage and +spontaneous actions, calms, cheers, and helps his fellows. God bless +him, for he blesses everybody!" This is just what Mr. Beecher would have +said about Phillips Brooks.</p> + +<p>And what better can be said than to compare the heart's good cheer to a +floral offering? <i>Are not flowers appropriate gifts to persons of all +ages, in any conceivable circumstances in which they are placed? So the +heart's good cheer and deeds of kindness are always acceptable to +children and youth, to busy men and women, to the aged, and to a world +of invalids.</i></p> + +<p>"Thus live and die, O man immortal," says Dr. Chalmers. "Live for +something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue, which the +storms of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and +mercy, on the hearts of those who come in contact with you, and you will +never be forgotten. Good deeds will shine as brightly on earth as the +stars of heaven."</p> + +<p>What is needed to round out human happiness is a well-balanced life. Not +ease, not pleasure, not happiness, but a man, Nature is after. "There +is," says Robert Waters, "no success without honor; no happiness without +a clear conscience; no use in living at all if only for one's self. It +is not at all necessary for you to make a fortune, but it is necessary, +absolutely necessary, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> you should become a fair-dealing, honorable, +useful man, radiating goodness and cheerfulness wherever you go, and +making your life a blessing."</p> + +<p>"When a man does not find repose in himself," says a French proverb, "it +is vain for him to seek it elsewhere." Happy is he who has no sense of +discord with the harmony of the universe, who is open to the voices of +nature and of the spiritual realm, and who sees the light that never was +on sea or land. Such a life can but give expression to its inward +harmony. Every pure and healthy thought, every noble aspiration for the +good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better +life, every lofty purpose and unselfish endeavor, makes the human spirit +stronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. It is this alone that +gives a self-centered confidence in one's heaven-aided powers, and a +high-minded cheerfulness, like that of a celestial spirit. It is this +which an old writer has called the paradise of a good conscience.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"I count this thing to be grandly true,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That a noble deed is a step toward God;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lifting the soul from the common clod</span><br /> +To a purer air and a broader view.<br /> +<br /> +"We rise by the things that are under our feet;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By what we have mastered of good or gain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By the pride deposed and the passion slain,</span><br /> +And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet."<br /> +</p> + +<p>"My body must walk the earth," said an ancient poet, "but I can put +wings on my soul, and plumes to my hardest thought." The splendors and +symphonies and the ecstacies of a higher world are with us now in the +rudimentary organs of eye and ear and heart. Much we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> have to do, much +we have to love, much we have to hope for; and our "joy is the grace we +say to God." "When I think upon God," said Haydn to Carpani, "my heart +is so full of joy that the notes leap from my pen."</p> + +<p>Says Gibbons:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Our lives are songs:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God writes the words,</span><br /> +And we set them to music at leisure;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the song is sad, or the song is glad,</span><br /> +As we choose to fashion the measure.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"We must write the song</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whatever the words,</span><br /> +Whatever its rhyme or meter;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And if it is sad, we must make it glad,</span><br /> +And if sweet, we must make it sweeter."<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4><a name="TC_064" id="TC_064"></a>VI. "LOOKING PLEASANT"—SOMETHING TO BE WORKED FROM THE INSIDE.</h4> + +<p>Acting on a sudden impulse, an elderly woman, the widow of a soldier who +had been killed in the Civil War, went into a photographer's to have her +picture taken. She was seated before the camera wearing the same stern, +hard, forbidding look that had made her an object of fear to the +children living in the neighborhood, when the photographer, thrusting +his head out from the black cloth, said suddenly, "Brighten the eyes a +little."</p> + +<p>She tried, but the dull and heavy look still lingered.</p> + +<p>"Look a little pleasanter," said the photographer, in an unimpassioned +but confident and commanding voice.</p> + +<p>"See here," the woman retorted sharply, "if you think that an old woman +who is dull can look bright, that one who feels cross can become +pleasant every time she is told to, you don't know anything about human +nature. It takes something from the outside to brighten the eye and +illuminate the face."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, it doesn't! <i>It's something to be worked from the inside.</i> Try +it again," said the photographer good-naturedly.</p> + +<p>Something in his manner inspired faith, and she tried again, this time +with better success.</p> + +<p>"That's good! That's fine! You look twenty years younger," exclaimed the +artist, as he caught the transient glow that illuminated the faded face.</p> + +<p>She went home with a queer feeling in her heart. It was the first +compliment she had received since her hus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>band had passed away, and it +left a pleasant memory behind. When she reached her little cottage, she +looked long in the glass and said, "There may be something in it. But +I'll wait and see the picture."</p> + +<p>When the picture came, it was like a resurrection. The face seemed alive +with the lost fires of youth. She gazed long and earnestly, then said in +a clear, firm voice, "If I could do it once, I can do it again."</p> + +<p>Approaching the little mirror above her bureau, she said, "Brighten up, +Catherine," and the old light flashed up once more.</p> + +<p>"Look a little pleasanter!" she commanded; and a calm and radiant smile +diffused itself over the face.</p> + +<p>Her neighbors, as the writer of this story has said, soon remarked the +change that had come over her face: "Why, Mrs. A., you are getting +young. How do you manage it?"</p> + +<p>"<i>It is almost all done from the inside. You just brighten up inside and +feel pleasant.</i>"</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Fate served me meanly, but I looked at her and laughed,<br /> +That none might know how bitter was the cup I quaffed.<br /> +Along came Joy and paused beside me where I sat,<br /> +Saying, 'I came to see what you were laughing at.'"<br /> +</p> + +<p><i>Every emotion tends to sculpture the body into beauty or into +ugliness.</i> Worrying, fretting, unbridled passions, petulance, +discontent, every dishonest act, every falsehood, every feeling of envy, +jealousy, fear,—each has its effect on the system, and acts +deleteriously like a poison or a deformer of the body. Professor James +of Harvard, an expert in the mental sciences, says, "Every small stroke +of virtue or vice leaves its ever so little scar. Nothing we ever do is, +in strict literalness, wiped out." <i>The way to be beautiful without is +to be beautiful within.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_066" id="TC_066"></a>WORTH FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.</p> + +<p>It is related that Dwight L. Moody once offered to his Northfield pupils +a prize of five hundred dollars for the best thought. This took the +prize: "Men grumble because God put thorns with roses; wouldn't it be +better to thank God that he put roses with thorns?"</p> + +<p>We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we +find it, including the thorns. "It is," says Fontenelle, "a great +obstacle to happiness to expect too much." This is what happens in real +life. Watch Edison. He makes the most expensive experiments throughout a +long period of time, and he expects to make them, and he never worries +because he does not succeed the first time.</p> + +<p>"I cannot but think," says Sir John Lubbock, "that the world would be +better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of happiness +as well as on the happiness of duty."</p> + +<p>Oliver Wendell Holmes, in advanced years, acknowledged his debt of +gratitude to the nurse of his childhood, who studiously taught him to +ignore unpleasant incidents. If he stubbed his toe, or skinned his knee, +or bumped his nose, his nurse would never permit his mind to dwell upon +the temporary pain, but claimed his attention for some pretty object, or +charming story, or happy reminiscence. To her, he said, he was largely +indebted for the sunshine of a long life. It is a lesson which is easily +mastered in childhood, but seldom to be learned in middle life, and +never in old age.</p> + +<p>"When I was a boy," says another author, "I was consoled for cutting my +finger by having my attention called to the fact that I had not broken +my arm; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> when I got a cinder in my eye, I was expected to feel more +comfortable because my cousin had lost his eye by an accident."</p> + +<p>"We should brave trouble," says Beecher, "as the New England boy braves +winter. The school is a mile away over the hill, yet he lingers not by +the fire; but, with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to +face the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where the snow lies +in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and +cower down by the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? +No; he buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses +the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect and fearless, with strong +heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on to his place at school."</p> + +<p>Children should be taught the habit of finding pleasure everywhere; and +to see the bright side of everything. "Serenity of mind comes easy to +some, and hard to others. It can be taught and learned. We ought to have +teachers who are able to educate us in this department of our natures +quite as much as in music or art. Think of a school or classes for +training men and women to carry themselves serenely amid all the trials +that beset them!"</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Joy is the mainspring in the whole<br /> +Of endless Nature's calm rotation.<br /> +Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll<br /> +In the great timepiece of Creation."<br /> +<span style="margin-left:10em;font-variant: small-caps;">Schiller</span>.</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_067" id="TC_067"></a>THE "DON'T WORRY" SOCIETY</p> + +<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"'T is easy enough to be pleasant,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When life flows along like a song;</span><br /> +But the man worth while is the one who will smile<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When everything goes dead wrong;</span><br /> +For the test of the heart is trouble,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And it always comes with the years;</span><br /> +And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is the smile that comes through tears."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p style="text-align:center"><a name="TC_069" id="TC_069"></a>A PLEASURE BOOK.</p> + +<p>"She is an aged woman, but her face is serene and peaceful, though +trouble has not passed her by. She seems utterly above the little +worries and vexations which torment the average woman and leave lines of +care. The Fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her happiness; +and the beautiful old face shone with joy.</p> + +<p>"'My dear,' she said, 'I keep a Pleasure Book.'</p> + +<p>"'A what?'</p> + +<p>"'A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there is no day so dark and +gloomy that it does not contain some ray of light, and I have made it +one business of my life to write down the little things which mean so +much to a woman. I have a book marked for every day of every year since +I left school. It is but a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a +friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in +the field, a letter, a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into my +Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I read a few pages to +see what a happy, blessed woman I am. You may see my treasures if you +will.'</p> + +<p>"Slowly the peevish, discontented woman turned over the book her friend +brought her, reading a little here and there. One day's entries ran +thus: 'Had a pleasant letter from mother. Saw a beautiful lily in a +window.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw such a bright, happy +girl on the street. Husband brought some roses in the evening.'</p> + +<p>"Bits of verse and lines from her daily reading have gone into the +Pleasure Book of this world-wise woman, until its pages are a storehouse +of truth and beauty.<span class="fnanchor">1</span></p> + +<p>"'Have you found a pleasure for every day?' the Fretful Woman asked.</p> + +<p>"'For every day,' the low voice answered; 'I had to make my theory come +true, you know.'"</p> + +<p>The Fretful Woman ought to have stopped there, but did not; and she +found that page where it was written—"He died with his hand in mine, +and my name upon his lips." Below were the lines from Lowell:—</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Lone watcher on the mountain height:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is right precious to behold</span><br /> +The first long surf of climbing light<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flood all the thirsty eat with gold;</span><br /> +<br /> +"Yet God deems not thine aeried sight<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More worthy than our twilight dim,</span><br /> +For meek obedience, too, is light,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And following that is finding Him."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In one of the battles of the Crimea, a cannon-ball struck inside the +fort, crashing through a beautiful garden; but from the ugly chasm there +burst forth a spring of water which is still flowing. And how beautiful +it is, if our strange earthly sorrows become a blessing to others, +through our determination to live and to do for those who need our help. +Life is not given for mourning, but for unselfish service.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> +<p>"Cheerfulness," says Ruskin, "is as natural to the heart of a man in +strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual +gloom there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe +labor, or erring habits of life." It is an erring habit of life if we +are not first of all cheerful. We are thrown into a morbid habit through +circumstances utterly beyond our control, yet this fact does not change +our duty toward God and toward man,—our duty to be cheerful. We are +human; but it is our high privilege to lead a divine life, to accept the +joy which our Lord bequeathed to his disciples.</p> + +<p>Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man's habits are well +set, about all he can do is to sit by and observe which way he is going. +Regret it as he may, how helpless is a weak man, bound by the mighty +cable of habit; twisted from tiny threads which he thought were +absolutely within his control. Yet a habit of happy thought would +transform his life into harmony and beauty. Is not the will almost +omnipotent to determine habits before they become all-powerful? What +contributes more to health or happiness than a vigorous will? A habit of +directing a firm and steady will upon those things which tend to produce +harmony of thought will bring happiness and contentment; the will, +rightly drilled,—and divinely guided,—can drive out all discordant +thoughts, and usher in the reign of perpetual harmony. It is impossible +to overestimate the importance of forming a habit of cheerfulness early +in life. The serene optimist is one whose mind has dwelt so long upon +the sunny side of life that he has acquired a habit of cheerfulness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"Talk happiness. The world is sad enough<br /> +Without your woes. No path is wholly rough;<br /> +Look for the places that are smooth and clear,<br /> +And speak of those who rest the weary ear<br /> +Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain<br /> +Of human discontent and grief and pain.<br /> +<br /> +"Talk faith. The world is better off without<br /> +Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.<br /> +If you have faith in God, or man, or self,<br /> +Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf<br /> +Of silence all your thoughts till faith shall come;<br /> +No one will grieve because your lips are dumb.<br /> +<br /> +"Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale<br /> +Of mortal maladies is worn and stale.<br /> +You cannot charm, or interest, or please,<br /> +By harping on that minor chord, disease.<br /> +Say you are well, or all is well with you.<br /> +And God shall hear your words and make them true."<span class="fnanchor">2</span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p class="font-size:80%"> FOOTNOTES:<br /> +<span class="footnote">1. For this Pleasure-Book illustration I am indebted to "The Woman's +Home Companion."</span><br /> +<span class="footnote">2. The three metrical pieces cited in this chapter are by <span class="smcap">Ella Wheeler +Wilcox</span>, who has gladdened the world by so much literary sunlight.</span> +</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="TC_073" id="TC_073"></a>VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN.</h2> + +<p>"There's the dearest little old gentleman," says James Buckham, "who +goes into town every morning on the 8.30 train. I don't know his name, +and yet I know him better than anybody else in town. He just radiates +cheerfulness as far as you can see him. There is always a smile on his +face, and I never heard him open his mouth except to say something kind, +courteous, or good natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and +he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint of presumption +or familiarity. If the weather is fine, his jolly compliments make it +seem finer; and if it is raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it +is as good as a rainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 train knows +the sunshine-man; it's his train. You just hurry up a little, and I'll +show you the sunshine-man this morning. It's foggy and cold, but if one +look at him doesn't cheer you up so that you'll want to whistle, then +I'm no judge of human nature."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, sir!" said Mr. Jolliboy in going to the same train.</p> + +<p>"Why, sir, I don't know you," replied Mr. Neversmile.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say you did, sir. Good morning, sir!"</p> + +<p>"The inborn geniality of some people," says Whipple, "amounts to +genius." "How in our troubled lives," asks J. Freeman Clarke, "could we +do without these fair, sunny natures, into which on their creation-day +God allowed nothing sour, acrid, or bitter to enter, but made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> them a +perpetual solace and comfort by their cheerfulness?" There are those +whose very presence carries sunshine with them wherever they go; a +sunshine which means pity for the poor, sympathy for the suffering, help +for the unfortunate, and benignity toward all. Everybody loves the sunny +soul. His very face is a passport anywhere. All doors fly open to him. +He disarms prejudice and envy, for he bears good will to everybody. He +is as welcome in every household as the sunshine.</p> + +<p>"He was quiet, cheerful, genial," says Carlyle in his "Reminiscences" +concerning Edward Irving's sunny helpfulness. "His soul unruffled, clear +as a mirror, honestly loving and loved, Irving's voice was to me one of +blessedness and new hope."</p> + +<p>And to William Wilberforce the poet Southey paid this tribute: "I never +saw any other man who seemed to enjoy such perpetual serenity and +sunshine of spirit."</p> + +<p>"I resolved," said Tom Hood, "that, like the sun, so long as my day +lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything."</p> + +<p>When Goldsmith was in Flanders he discovered the happiest man he had +ever seen. At his toil, from morning till night, he was full of song and +laughter. Yet this sunny-hearted being was a slave, maimed, deformed, +and wearing a chain. How well he illustrated that saying which bids us, +if there is no bright side, to polish up the dark one! "Mirth is like +the flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and +glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the soul, +filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity." It is cheerfulness +that has the staying quality, like the sunshine changing a world of +gloom into a paradise of beauty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>The first prize at a flower-show was taken by a pale, sickly little +girl, who lived in a close, dark court in the east of London. The judges +asked how she could grow it in such a dingy and sunless place. She +replied that a little ray of sunlight came into the court; as soon as it +appeared in the morning, she put her flower beneath it, and, as it +moved, moved the flower, so that she kept it in the sunlight all day.</p> + +<p>"Water, air, and sunshine, the three greatest hygienic agents, are free, +and within the reach of all." "Twelve years ago," says Walt Whitman, "I +came to Camden to die. But every day I went into the country, and bathed +in the sunshine, lived with the birds and squirrels, and played in the +water with the fishes. I received my health from Nature."</p> + +<p>"It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick," said +Florence Nightingale, "that second only to their need of fresh air, is +their need of light; that, after a close room, what most hurts them is a +dark room; and that it is not only light, but direct sunshine they +want."</p> + +<p>"Sunlight," says Dr. L. W. Curtis, in "Health Culture," "has much to do +in keeping air in a healthy condition. No plant can grow in the dark, +neither can man remain healthy in a dark, ill-ventilated room. When the +first asylum for the blind was erected in Massachusetts, the committee +decided to save expense by not having any windows. They reasoned that, +as the patients could not see, there was no need of any light. It was +built without windows, but ventilation was well provided for, and the +poor sightless patients were domiciled in the house. But things did not +go well: one after another began to sicken, and great languor fell upon +them; they felt distressed and restless, craving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> something, they hardly +knew what. After two had died and all were ill, the committee decided to +have windows. The sunlight poured in, and the white faces recovered +their color; their flagging energies and depressed spirits revived, and +health was restored."</p> + +<p>The sun, making all living things to grow, exerts its happiest influence +in cheering the mind of man and making his heart glad, and if a man has +sunshine in his soul he will go on his way rejoicing; content to look +forward if under a cloud, not bating one jot of heart or hope if for a +moment cast down; honoring his occupation, whatever it be; rendering +even rags respectable by the way he wears them; and not only happy +himself, but giving happiness to others.</p> + +<p>How a man's face shines when illuminated by a great moral motive! and +his manner, too, is touched with the grace of light.</p> + +<p>"Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches," said Emerson, +"and to make knowledge valuable you must have the cheerfulness of +wisdom."</p> + +<p>"Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness," said Carlyle; "altogether +past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently +useful must be uniformly joyous,—a spirit all sunshine, graceful from +very gladness, beautiful because bright."</p> + +<p>"The cheerful man carries with him perpetually, in his presence and +personality, an influence that acts upon others as summer warmth on the +fields and forests. It wakes up and calls out the best that is in them. +It makes them stronger, braver, and happier. Such a man makes a little +spot of this world a lighter, brighter, warmer place for other people to +live in. To meet him in the morning is to get inspiration which makes +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +all the day's struggles and tasks easier. His hearty handshake puts a +thrill of new vigor into your veins. After talking with him for a few +minutes, you feel an exhilaration of spirits, a quickening of energy, a +renewal of zest and interest in living, and are ready for any duty or +service."</p> + +<p>"Great hearts there are among men," says Hillis, of Plymouth pulpit; +"they carry a volume of manhood; their presence is sunshine; their +coming changes our climate; they oil the bearings of life; their shadow +always falls behind them; they make right living easy. Blessed are the +happiness-makers: they represent the best forces in civilization!"</p> + +<p>If refined manners reprove us a little for ill-timed laughter, a smiling +face kindled by a smiling heart is always in order. Who can ever forget +Emerson's smile? It was a perpetual benediction upon all who knew him. A +smile is said to be to the human countenance what sunshine is to the +landscape. Or a smile is called the rainbow of the face.</p> + +<p>"This is a dark world to many people," says a suggestive modern writer, +"a world of chills, a world of fogs, a world of wet blankets. +Nine-tenths of the men we meet need encouragement. Your work is so +urgent that you have no time to stop and speak to the people, but every +day you meet scores, perhaps hundreds and thousands of persons, upon +whom you might have direct and immediate influence. 'How? How?' you +cry out. We answer: By the grace of physiognomy. There is nothing more +catching than a face with a lantern behind it, shining clear through. We +have no admiration for a face with a dry smile, meaning no more than the +grin of a false face. But a smile written by the hand of God, as an +index finger or table of contents, to whole volumes of good feeling +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +within, is a benediction. You say: 'My face is hard and lacking in +mobility, and my benignant feelings are not observable in the facial +proportions.' We do not believe you. Freshness and geniality of the soul +are so subtle and pervading that they will, at some eye or mouth corner, +leak out. Set behind your face a feeling of gratitude to God and +kindliness toward man, and you will every day preach a sermon long as +the streets you walk, a sermon with as many heads as the number of +people you meet, and differing from other sermons in the fact that the +longer it is the better. The reason that there are so many sour faces, +so many frowning faces, so many dull faces, is because men consent to be +acrid and petulant, and stupid. The way to improve your face is to +improve your disposition. Attractiveness of physiognomy does not depend +on regularity of features. We know persons whose brows are shaggy, eyes +oblique, noses ominously longitudinal, and mouths straggling along in +unusual and unexpected directions; and yet they are men and women of so +much soul that we love to look upon them, and their faces are sweet +evangels."</p> + +<p>It was N. P. Willis, I think, who added to the beatitudes—"Blessed are +the joy-makers." "And this is why all the world loves little children, +who are always ready to have 'a sunshine party,'—little children +bubbling over with fun, as a bobolink with song.</p> + +<p>"How well we remember it all!—the long gone years of our own childhood, +and the households of joyous children we have known in later years. +Joy-makers are the children still,—some of them in unending scenes of +light. I saw but yesterday this epitaph at Mount Auburn,—'She was so +pleasant': sunny-hearted in life, and now alive forever more in light +supernal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How can we then but rejoice with joy unspeakable, as the children of +immortality; living habitually above the gloom and damps of earth, and +leading lives of ministration; bestowing everywhere sweetness and +light,—radiating upon the earth something of the beauty of the unseen +world."</p> + +<p>What is a sunny temper but "a talisman more powerful than wealth, more +precious than rubies"? What is it but "an aroma whose fragrance fills +the air with the odors of Paradise"?</p> + +<p>"I am so full of happiness," said a little child, "that I could not be +any happier unless I could grow." And she bade "Good morning" to her +sweet singing bird, and "Good morning" to the sun; then she asked her +mother's permission, and softly, reverently, gladly bade "Good morning +to God,"—and why should she not?</p> + +<p>Was it not Goethe who represented a journey that followed the sunshine +round the world, forever bathed in light? And Longfellow sang:</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 4em"> +"'T is always morning somewhere; and above<br /> +The awakening continents, from shore to shore,<br /> +Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."<br /> +<br /> +"The darkness past, we mount the radiant skies,<br /> +And changeless day is ours; we hear the songs<br /> +Of higher spheres, the light divine our eyes<br /> +Behold and sunlight robes of countless throngs<br /> +Who dwell in light; we seek, with joyous quest,<br /> +God's service sweet to wipe all tears away,<br /> +And list we every hour, with eager zest,<br /> +For high command to toils that God has blest:<br /> +So fill we full our endless sunshine day."<br /> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by +Orison Swett Marden + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER *** + +***** This file should be named 18394-h.htm or 18394-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/3/9/18394/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/18394.txt b/18394.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a33b358 --- /dev/null +++ b/18394.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2710 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by Orison Swett Marden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cheerfulness as a Life Power + +Author: Orison Swett Marden + +Release Date: May 15, 2006 [EBook #18394] +[Last updated: May 25, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER + +BY + +ORISON SWETT MARDEN + +Author of "Pushing to the Front," "The Secret of +Achievement," etc.; and Editor of "Success." + +Tenth Thousand + +New York +Thomas Y. Crowell & Company +Publishers +Copyright, 1899 +By Orison Swett Marden + + + + +A FOREWORD. + + +The soul-consuming and friction-wearing tendency of this hurrying, +grasping, competing age is the excuse for this booklet. Is it not an +absolute necessity to get rid of all irritants, of everything which +worries and frets, and which brings discord into so many lives? +Cheerfulness has a wonderful lubricating power. It lengthens the life of +human machinery, as lubricants lengthen the life of inert machinery. +Life's delicate bearings should not be carelessly ground away for mere +lack of oil. What is needed is a habit of cheerfulness, to enjoy every +day as we go along; not to fret and stew all the week, and then expect +to make up for it Sunday or on some holiday. It is not a question of +mirth so much as of cheerfulness; not alone that which accompanies +laughter, but serenity,--a calm, sweet soul-contentment and inward +peace. Are there not multitudes of people who have the "blues," who yet +wish well to their neighbors? They would say kind words and make the +world happier--but they "haven't the time." To lead them to look on the +sunny side of things, and to take a little time every day to speak +pleasant words, is the message of the hour. + + THE AUTHOR. + +In the preparation of these pages, amid the daily demands of +journalistic work, the author has been assisted by Mr. E. P. Tenney, of +Cambridge. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS. + +I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS 7 + THE LAUGH CURE 9 + A CHEAP MEDICINE 13 + WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH? 14 + +II. THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS 16 + A WORRYING WOMAN 19 + OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE 22 + A WEATHER BREEDER 24 + "WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?" 27 + LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE 29 + +III. OILING YOUR BUSINESS MACHINERY 31 + SINGING AT YOUR WORK 33 + GOOD HUMOR 35 + "LE DIABLE EST MORT" 38 + +IV. TAKING YOUR FUN EVERY DAY AS YOU DO YOUR WORK 42 + UNWORKED JOY MINES 44 + THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD 45 + +V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK 51 + CHARLES LAMB 53 + JOHN B. GOUGH 55 + PHILLIPS BROOKS 60 + +VI. "LOOKING PLEASANT"--A THING TO BE WORKED FROM THE INSIDE 64 + WORTH FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS 66 + THE "DON'T WORRY" SOCIETY 67 + A PLEASURE BOOK 69 + +VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN 73 + + + + +CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER. + + + + +I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS. + + +William K. Vanderbilt, when he last visited Constantinople, one day +invited Coquelin the elder, so celebrated for his powers as a mimic, who +happened to be in the city at the time, to give a private recital on +board his yacht, lying in the Bosphorus. Coquelin spoke three of his +monologues. A few days afterwards Coquelin received the following +memorandum from the millionaire:-- + +"You have brought tears to our eyes and laughter to our hearts. Since +all philosophers are agreed that laughing is preferable to weeping, your +account with me stands thus:-- + + "For tears, six times . . . $600 + "For laughter, twelve times . . 2,400 + ------ + $3,000 + +"Kindly acknowledge receipt of enclosed check." + +"I find nonsense singularly refreshing," said Talleyrand. There is good +philosophy in the saying, "Laugh and grow fat." If everybody knew the +power of laughter as a health tonic and life prolonger the tinge of +sadness which now clouds the American face would largely disappear, and +many physicians would find their occupation gone. + +The power of laughter was given us to serve a wise purpose in our +economy. It is Nature's device for exercising the internal organs and +giving us pleasure at the same time. + +Laughter begins in the lungs and diaphragm, setting the liver, stomach, +and other internal organs into a quick, jelly-like vibration, which +gives a pleasant sensation and exercise, almost equal to that of +horseback riding. During digestion, the movements of the stomach are +similar to churning. Every time you take a full breath, or when you +cachinnate well, the diaphragm descends and gives the stomach an extra +squeeze and shakes it. Frequent laughing sets the stomach to dancing, +hurrying up the digestive process. The heart beats faster, and sends the +blood bounding through the body. "There is not," says Dr. Green, "one +remotest corner or little inlet of the minute blood-vessels of the human +body that does not feel some wavelet from the convulsions occasioned by +a good hearty laugh." In medical terms, it stimulates the vasomotor +centers, and the spasmodic contraction of the blood-vessels causes the +blood to flow quickly. Laughter accelerates the respiration, and gives +warmth and glow to the whole system. It brightens the eye, increases the +perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the +least-used lung cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or +balance which we call health, which results from the harmonious action +of all the functions of the body. This delicate poise, which may be +destroyed by a sleepless night, a piece of bad news, by grief or +anxiety, is often wholly restored by a good hearty laugh. + +There is, therefore, sound sense in the caption,--"Cheerfulness as a +Life Power,"--relating as it does to the physical life, as well as the +mental and moral; and what we may call + + THE LAUGH CURE + +is based upon principles recognized as sound by the medical +profession--so literally true is the Hebrew proverb that "a merry heart +doeth good like a medicine." + +"Mirth is God's medicine," said Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes; "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." Elsewhere he says: +"If you are making choice of a physician be sure you get one with a +cheerful and serene countenance." + +Is not a jolly physician of greater service than his pills? Dr. Marshall +Hall frequently prescribed "cheerfulness" for his patients, saying that +it is better than anything to be obtained at the apothecary's. + +In Western New York, Dr. Burdick was known as the "Laughing Doctor." He +always presented the happiest kind of a face; and his good humor was +contagious. He dealt sparingly in drugs, yet was very successful. + +The London "Lancet," the most eminent medical journal in the world, +gives the following scientific testimony to the value of jovialty:-- + +"This power of 'good spirits' is a matter of high moment to the sick and +weakly. To the former, it may mean the ability to survive; to the +latter, the possibility of outliving, or living in spite of, a disease. +It is, therefore, of the greatest importance to cultivate the highest +and most buoyant frame of mind which the conditions will admit. The same +energy which takes the form of mental activity is vital to the work of +the organism. Mental influences affect the system; and a joyous spirit +not only relieves pain, but increases the momentum of life in the body." + +Dr. Ray, superintendent of Butler Hospital for the Insane, says in one +of his reports, "A hearty laugh is more desirable for mental health than +any exercise of the reasoning faculties." + +Grief, anxiety, and fear are great enemies of human life. A depressed, +sour, melancholy soul, a life which has ceased to believe in its own +sacredness, its own power, its own mission, a life which sinks into +querulous egotism or vegetating aimlessness, has become crippled and +useless. We should fight against every influence which tends to depress +the mind, as we would against a temptation to crime. It is undoubtedly +true that, as a rule, the mind has power to lengthen the period of +youthful and mature strength and beauty, preserving and renewing +physical life by a stalwart mental health. + +I read the other day of a man in a neighboring city who was given up to +die; his relatives were sent for, and they watched at his bedside. But +an old acquaintance, who called to see him, assured him smilingly that +he was all right and would soon be well. He talked in such a strain that +the sick man was forced to laugh; and the effort so roused his system +that he rallied, and he was soon well again. + +Was it not Shakespere who said that a light heart lives long? + +The San Francisco "Argonaut" says that a woman in Milpites, a victim of +almost crushing sorrow, despondency, indigestion, insomnia, and kindred +ills, determined to throw off the gloom which was making life so heavy a +burden to her, and established a rule that she would laugh at least +three times a day, whether occasion was presented or not; so she trained +herself to laugh heartily at the least provocation, and would retire to +her room and make merry by herself. She was soon in excellent health and +buoyant spirits; her home became a sunny, cheerful abode. + +It was said, by one who knew this woman well, and who wrote an account +of the case for a popular magazine, that at first her husband and +children were amused at her, and while they respected her determination +because of the griefs she bore, they did not enter into the spirit of +the plan. "But after awhile," said this woman to me, with a smile, only +yesterday, "the funny part of the idea struck my husband, and he began +to laugh every time we spoke of it. And when he came home, he would ask +me if I had had my 'regular laughs;' and he would laugh when he asked +the question, and again when I answered it. My children, then very +young, thought 'mamma's notion very queer,' but they laughed at it just +the same. Gradually, my children told other children, and they told +their parents. My husband spoke of it to our friends, and I rarely met +one of them but he or she would laugh and ask me, 'How many of your +laughs have you had to-day?' Naturally, they laughed when they asked, +and of course that set me laughing. When I formed this apparently +strange habit I was weighed down with sorrow, and my rule simply lifted +me out of it. I had suffered the most acute indigestion; for years I +have not known what it is. Headaches were a daily dread; for over six +years I have not had a single pain in the head. My home seems different +to me, and I feel a thousand times more interest in its work. My husband +is a changed man. My children are called 'the girls who are always +laughing,' and, altogether, my rule has proved an inspiration which has +worked wonders." + +The queen of fashion, however, says that we must never laugh out loud; +but since the same tyrannical mistress kills people by corsets, indulges +in cosmetics, and is out all night at dancing parties, and in China +pinches up the women's feet, I place much less confidence in her views +upon the laugh cure for human woes. Yet in all civilized countries it is +a fundamental principle of refined manners not to be ill-timed and +unreasonably noisy and boisterous in mirth. One who is wise will never +violate the proprieties of well-bred people. + +"Yet," says a wholesome writer upon health, "we should do something more +than to simply cultivate a cheerful, hopeful spirit,--we should +cultivate a spirit of mirthfulness that is not only easily pleased and +smiling, but that indulges in hearty, hilarious laughter; and if this +faculty is not well marked in our organization we should cultivate it, +being well assured that hearty, body-shaking laughter will do us good." + +Ordinary good looks depend on one's sense of humor,--"a merry heart +maketh a cheerful countenance." Joyfulness keeps the heart and face +young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody +around us, and puts us into closer touch with what is best and brightest +in our lot in life. + +Physiology tells the story. The great sympathetic nerves are closely +allied; and when one set carries bad news to the head, the nerves +reaching the stomach are affected, indigestion comes on, and one's +countenance becomes doleful. Laugh when you can; it is + + A CHEAP MEDICINE. + +Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. The eminent surgeon +Chavasse says that we ought to begin with the babies and train children +to habits of mirth:-- + +"Encourage your child to be merry and laugh aloud; a good hearty laugh +expands the chest and makes the blood bound merrily along. Commend me to +a good laugh,--not to a little snickering laugh, but to one that will +sound right through the house. It will not only do your child good, but +will be a benefit to all who hear, and be an important means of driving +the blues away from a dwelling. Merriment is very catching, and spreads +in a remarkable manner, few being able to resist its contagion. A hearty +laugh is delightful harmony; indeed, it is the best of all music." +"Children without hilarity," says an eminent author, "will never amount +to much. Trees without blossoms will never bear fruit." + +Hufeland, physician to the King of Prussia, commends the ancient custom +of jesters at the king's table, whose quips and cranks would keep the +company in a roar. + +Did not Lycurgus set up the god of laughter in the Spartan eating-halls? +There is no table sauce like laughter at meals. It is the great enemy of +dyspepsia. + + +How wise are the words of the acute Chamfort, that the most completely +lost of all days is the one in which we have not laughed! + +"A crown, for making the king laugh," was one of the items of expense +which the historian Hume found in a manuscript of King Edward II. + +"It is a good thing to laugh, at any rate," said Dryden, the poet, "and +if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness." + +"I live," said Laurence Sterne, one of the greatest of English +humorists, "in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of +ill health and other evils by mirth; I am persuaded that, every time a +man smiles,--but much more so when he laughs,--it adds something to his +fragment of life." + +"Give me an honest laugher," said Sir Walter Scott, and he was himself +one of the happiest men in the world, with a kind word and pleasant +smile for every one, and everybody loved him. + +"How much lies in laughter!" exclaimed the critic Carlyle. "It is the +cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an +everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others 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 cachinnation, as if they were laughing +through wool. Of none such comes good." + +"The power to laugh, to cease work and begin to frolic and make merry in +forgetfulness of all the conflict of life," says Campbell Morgan, "is a +divine bestowment upon man." + +Happy, then, is the man, who may well laugh to himself over his good +luck, who can answer the old question, "How old are you?" by Sambo's +reply:-- + +"If you reckon by the years, sah, I'se twenty-five; but if you goes by +the fun I's 'ad, I guess I's a hundred." + + WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH? + + _From the "Independent"_ + + "Why don't you laugh, young man, when troubles come, + Instead of sitting 'round so sour and glum? + You cannot have all play, + And sunshine every day; + When troubles come, I say, why don't you laugh? + + "Why don't you laugh? 'T will ever help to soothe + The aches and pains. No road in life is smooth; + There's many an unseen bump, + And many a hidden stump + O'er which you'll have to jump. Why don't you laugh? + + "Why don't you laugh? Don't let your spirits wilt; + Don't sit and cry because the milk you've spilt; + If you would mend it now, + Pray let me tell you how: + Just milk another cow! Why don't you laugh? + + "Why don't you laugh, and make us all laugh, too, + And keep us mortals all from getting blue? + A laugh will always win; + If you can't laugh, just grin,-- + Come on, let's all join in! Why don't you laugh?" + + + + +II. THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS. + + +Prince Wolkonsky, during a visit to this country, declared that +"Business is the alpha and omega of American life. There is no pleasure, +no joy, no satisfaction. There is no standard except that of profit. +There is no other country where they speak of a man as worth so many +dollars. In other countries they live to enjoy life; here they exist for +business." A Boston merchant corroborated this statement by saying he +was anxious all day about making money, and worried all night for fear +he should lose what he had made. + +"In the United States," a distinguished traveler once said, "there is +everywhere comfort, but no joy. The ambition of getting more and +fretting over what is lost absorb life." + +"Every man we meet looks as if he'd gone out to borrow trouble, with +plenty of it on hand," said a French lady, upon arriving in New York. + +"The Americans are the best-fed, the best-clad, and the best-housed +people in the world," says another witness, "but they are the most +anxious; they hug possible calamity to their breasts." + +"I question if care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the +faces of any other population," says Emerson; "old age begins in the +nursery." + +How quickly we Americans exhaust life! With what panting haste we pursue +everything! Every man you meet seems to be late for an appointment. +Hurry is stamped in the wrinkles of the national face. We are men of +action; we go faster and faster as the years go by, speeding our +machinery to the utmost. Bent forms, prematurely gray hair, restlessness +and discontent, are characteristic of our age and people. We earn our +bread, but cannot digest it; and our over-stimulated nerves soon become +irritated, and touchiness follows,--so fatal to a business man, and so +annoying in society. + +"It is not work that kills men," says Beecher; "it is worry. Work is +healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is +rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but +friction." + +It is not so much the great sorrows, the great burdens, the great +hardships, the great calamities, that cloud over the sunshine of life, +as the little petty vexations, insignificant anxieties and fear, the +little daily dyings, which render our lives unhappy, and destroy our +mental elasticity, without advancing our life-work one inch. "Anxiety +never yet bridged any chasm." + +"What," asks Dr. George W. Jacoby, in an "Evening Post" interview, "is +the ultimate physical effect of worry? Why, the same as that of a fatal +bullet-wound or sword-thrust. Worry kills as surely, though not so +quickly, as ever gun or dagger did, and more people have died in the +last century from sheer worry than have been killed in battle." + +Dr. Jacoby is one of the foremost of American brain doctors. "The +investigations of the neurologists," he says, "have laid bare no secret +of Nature in recent years more startling and interesting than the +discovery that worry kills." This is the final, up-to-date word. "Not +only is it known," resumes the great neurologist, counting off his +words, as it were, on his finger-tips, "that worry kills, but the most +minute details of its murderous methods are familiar to modern +scientists. It is a common belief of those who have made a special study +of the science of brain diseases that hundreds of deaths attributed to +other causes each year are due simply to worry. In plain, untechnical +language, worry works its irreparable injury through certain cells of +the brain life. The insidious inroads upon the system can be best +likened to the constant falling of drops of water in one spot. In the +brain it is the insistent, never-lost idea, the single, constant +thought, centered upon one subject, which in the course of time destroys +the brain cells. The healthy brain can cope with occasional worry; it is +the iteration and reiteration of disquieting thoughts which the cells of +the brain cannot successfully combat. + +"The mechanical effect of worry is much the same as if the skull were +laid bare and the brain exposed to the action of a little hammer beating +continually upon it day after day, until the membranes are disintegrated +and the normal functions disabled. The maddening thought that will not +be downed, the haunting, ever-present idea that is not or cannot be +banished by a supreme effort of the will, is the theoretical hammer +which diminishes the vitality of the sensitive nerve organisms, the +minuteness of which makes them visible to the eye only under a powerful +microscope. The 'worry,' the thought, the single idea grows upon one as +time goes on, until the worry victim cannot throw it off. Through this, +one set or area of cells is affected. The cells are intimately +connected, joined together by little fibres, and they in turn are in +close relationship with the cells of the other parts of the brain. + +"Worry is itself a species of monomania. No mental attitude is more +disastrous to personal achievement, personal happiness, and personal +usefulness in the world, than worry and its twin brother, despondency. +The remedy for the evil lies in training the will to cast off cares and +seek a change of occupation, when the first warning is sounded by Nature +in intellectual lassitude. Relaxation is the certain foe of worry, and +'don't fret' one of the healthiest of maxims." + +In a life of constant worrying, we are as much behind the times as if we +were to go back to use the first steam engines that wasted ninety per +cent. of the energy of the coal, instead of having an electric dynamo +that utilizes ninety per cent. of the power. Some people waste a large +percentage of their energy in fretting and stewing, in useless anxiety, +in scolding, in complaining about the weather and the perversity of +inanimate things. Others convert nearly all of their energy into power +and moral sunshine. He who has learned the true art of living will not +waste his energies in friction, which accomplishes nothing, but merely +grinds out the machinery of life. + +It must be relegated to the debating societies to determine which is the +worse--A Nervous Man or + + A WORRYING WOMAN. + +"I'm awfully worried this morning," said one woman. "What is it?" "Why, +I thought of something to worry about last night, and now I can't +remember it." + +A famous actress once said: "Worry is the foe of all beauty." She might +have added: "It is the foe to all health." + +"It seems so heartless in me, if I do not worry about my children," said +one mother. + +Women nurse their troubles, as they do their babies. "Troubles grow +larger," said Lady Holland, "by nursing." + +The White Knight who carried about a mousetrap, lest he be troubled with +mice upon his journeys, was not unlike those who anticipate their +burdens. + +"He grieves," says Seneca, "more than is necessary, who grieves before +it is necessary." + +"My children," said a dying man, "during my long life I have had a great +many troubles, most of which never happened." A prominent business man +in Philadelphia said that his father worried for twenty-five years over +an anticipated misfortune which never arrived. + +We try to grasp too much of life at once; since we think of it as a +whole, instead of living one day at a time. Life is a mosaic, and each +tiny piece must be cut and set with skill, first one piece, then +another. + +A clock would be of no use as a time-keeper if it should become +discouraged and come to a standstill by calculating its work a year +ahead, as the clock did in Jane Taylor's fable. It is not the troubles +of to-day, but those of to-morrow and next week and next year, that +whiten our heads, wrinkle our faces, and bring us to a standstill. + +"There is such a thing," said Uncle Eben, "as too much foresight. People +get to figuring what might happen year after next, and let the fire go +out and catch their death of cold, right where they are." + +Nervous prostration is seldom the result of present trouble or work, but +of work and trouble anticipated. Mental exhaustion comes to those who +look ahead, and climb mountains before reaching them. Resolutely build a +wall about to-day, and live within the inclosure. The past may have been +hard, sad, or wrong,--but it is over. + +Why not take a turn about? Instead of worrying over unforeseen +misfortune, set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen +blessings of all your coming days. "I find the gayest castles in the air +that were ever piled," says Emerson, "far better for comfort and for use +than the dungeons in the air that are daily dug and caverned out by +grumbling, discontented people." + +What is this world but as you take it? Thackeray calls the world a +looking-glass that gives back the reflection of one's own face. "Frown +at it, and it will look sourly upon you; laugh at it, and it is a jolly +companion." + +"There is no use in talking," said a woman. "Every time I move, I vow +I'll never move again. Such neighbors as I get in with! Seems as though +they grow worse and worse." "Indeed?" replied her caller; "perhaps you +take the worst neighbor with you when you move." + +"In the sudden thunder-storm of Independence Day," says a news +correspondent, "we were struck by the contrast between two women, each +of whom had had some trying experience with the weather. One came +through the rain and hail to take refuge at the railway station, under +the swaying and uncertain shelter of an escorting man's umbrella. Her +skirts were soaked to the knees, her pink ribbons were limp, the purple +of the flowers on her hat ran in streaks down the white silk. And yet, +though she was a poor girl and her holiday finery must have been +relatively costly, she made the best of it with a smile and cheerful +words. The other was well sheltered; but she took the disappointment of +her hopes and the possibility of a little spattering from a leaky window +with frowns and fault-finding." + + "Cries little Miss Fret, + In a very great pet: + 'I hate this warm weather; it's horrid to tan! + It scorches my nose, + And it blisters my toes, + And wherever I go I must carry a fan.' + + "Chirps little Miss Laugh: + 'Why, I couldn't tell half + The fun I am having this bright summer day! + I sing through the hours, + I cull pretty flowers, + And ride like a queen on the sweet-smelling hay.'" + +Happily a new era has of late opened for our worried housekeepers, who +spend their time in "the half-frantic dusting of corners, spasmodic +sweeping, impatient snatching or pushing aside obstacles in the room, +hurrying and skurrying upstairs and down cellar." "It is not," says +Prentice Mulford, "the work that exhausts them,--it is the mental +condition they are in that makes so many old and haggard at forty." All +that is needful now to ease up their burdens is to go to + + OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE. + +A newspaper correspondent, Annie Laurie, has told us all about the new +kind of American girls just added to our country:-- + +"They are as straight as an arrow, and walk as queens walk in fairy +stories; they have great braids of sleek, black hair, soft brown eyes, +and gleaming white teeth; they can swim and ride and sing; and they are +brown with a skin that shines like bronze ... There isn't a worried +woman in Hawaii. The women there can't worry. They don't know how. They +eat and sing and laugh, and see the sun and the moon set, and possess +their souls in smiling peace. + +"If a Hawaii woman has a good dinner, she laughs and invites her friends +to eat it with her; if she hasn't a good dinner, she laughs and goes to +sleep,--and forgets to be hungry. She doesn't have to worry about what +the people in the downstairs flat will think if they don't see the +butcher's boy arrive on time. If she can earn the money, she buys a +nice, new, glorified Mother Hubbard; and, if she can't get it, she +throws the old one into the surf and washes it out, puts a new wreath of +fresh flowers in her hair, and starts out to enjoy the morning and the +breezes thereof. + +"They are not earnest workers; they haven't the slightest idea that they +were put upon earth to reform the universe,--they're just happy. They +run across great stretches of clear, white sand, washed with resplendent +purple waves, and, when the little brown babies roll in the surf, their +brown mothers run after them, laughing and splashing like a lot of +children. Or, perhaps we see them in gay cavalcades mounted upon +garlanded ponies, adorned by white jasmine wreaths with roses and pinks. +And here in this paradise of laughter and light hearts and gentle music, +there's absolutely nothing to do but to care for the children and old +people and to swim or ride. You couldn't start a 'reform circle' to save +your life; there isn't a jail in the place, nor a tenement quarter, and +there are no outdoor poor. There isn't a woman's club in Honolulu,--not +a club. There was a culture circle once for a few days; a Boston woman +who went there for her health organized it, but it interfered with +afternoon nap-time, so nobody came." + +When, hereafter, we talk about worrying women, we must take into +account our Hawaiian sisters, if we will average up the amount of worry +_per capita_, in our nation. + + A WEATHER BREEDER. + +It is probably quite within bounds to say that one out of three of our +American farming population, women and men, never enjoy a beautiful day +without first reminding you that "It is one of those infernal weather +breeders." + +Habitual fretters see more trouble than others. They are never so well +as their neighbors. The weather never suits them. The climate is trying. +The winds are too high or too low; it is too hot or too cold, too damp +or too dry. The roads are either muddy or dusty. + +"I met Mr. N. one wet morning," says Dr. John Todd; "and, bound as I was +to make the best of it, I ventured: + +"'Good morning. This rain will be fine for your grass crop.' + +'Yes, perhaps,' he replied, 'but it is very bad for corn; I don't think +we'll have half a crop.' + +"A few days later, I met him again. 'This is a fine sun for corn, Mr. +N.' + +"'Yes,' said he, 'but it's awful for rye; rye wants cold weather.' + +"One cool morning soon after, I said: 'This is a capital day for rye.' + +"'Yes,' he said, 'but it is the worst kind of weather for corn and +grass; they want heat to bring them forward.'" + +There are a vast number of fidgety, nervous, and eccentric people who +live only to expect new disappointments or to recount their old ones. + +"Impatient people," said Spurgeon, "water their miseries, and hoe up +their comforts." + +"Let's see," said a neighbor to a farmer, whose wagon was loaded down +with potatoes, "weren't we talking together last August?" "I believe +so." "At that time, you said corn was all burnt up." "Yes." "And +potatoes were baking in the ground." "Yes." "And that your district +could not possibly expect more than half a crop." "I remember." "Well, +here you are with your wagon loaded down. Things didn't turn out so +badly, after all,--eh?" "Well, no-o," said the farmer, as he raked his +fingers through his hair, "but I tell you my geese suffered awfully for +want of a mud-hole to paddle in." + +What is a pessimist but "a man who looks on the sun only as a thing that +casts a shadow"? + +In Pepys's "Diary" we learn the difference between "eyes shut and ears +open," and "ears shut and eyes open." In going from John o' Groat's +House to Land's End, a blind man would hear that the country was going +to destruction, but a deaf man with eyes open could see great +prosperity. + +"I dare no more fret than curse or swear," said John Wesley. + +"A discontented mortal is no more a man than discord is music." + + "Why should a man whose blood is warm within + Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? + Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice + By being peevish?" + +Who are the "lemon squeezers of society"? They are people who predict +evil, extinguish hope, and see only the worst side,--"people whose very +look curdles the milk and sets your teeth on edge." They are often +worthy people who think that pleasure is wrong; people, said an old +divine, who lead us heavenward and stick pins into us all the way. They +say depressing things and do disheartening things; they chill +prayer-meetings, discourage charitable institutions, injure commerce, +and kill churches; they are blowing out lights when they ought to be +kindling them. + +A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one jolts +over every pebble; with mirth, he is like a chariot with springs, riding +over the roughest roads and scarcely feeling anything but a pleasant +rocking motion. + +"Difficulties melt away before the man who carries about a cheerful +spirit and persistently refuses to be discouraged, while they accumulate +before the one who is always groaning over his hard luck and scanning +the horizon for clouds not yet in sight." + +"To one man," says Schopenhauer, "the world is barren, dull, and +superficial; to another, rich, interesting, and full of meaning." If one +loves beauty and looks for it, he will see it wherever he goes. If there +is music in his soul, he will hear it everywhere; every object in nature +will sing to him. Two men who live in the same house and do the same +work may not live in the same world. Although they are under the same +roof, one may see only deformity and ugliness; to him the world is out +of joint, everything is cross-grained and out of sorts: the other is +surrounded with beauty and harmony; everybody is kind to him; nobody +wishes him harm. These men see the same objects, but they do not look +through the same glasses; one looks through a smoked glass which drapes +the whole world in mourning, the other looks through rose-colored lenses +which tint everything with loveliness and touch it with beauty. + +Take two persons just home from a vacation. "One has positively seen +nothing, and has always been robbed; the landlady was a harpy, the +bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was tough. The other has always +found the coziest nooks, the cheapest houses, the best landladies, the +finest views, and the best dinners." + + "WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?" + +This is the question a farmer's boy asked of his father. + +"Well, John," replied his father, "you know I can't give ye the +dictionary meanin' of that word any more 'n I can of a great many +others. But I've got a kind of an idee what it means. Probably you don't +remember your Uncle Henry; but I guess if there ever was an optimist, he +was one. Things was always comin' out right with Henry, and especially +anything hard that he had to do; it wa' n't a-goin' to be hard,--'t was +jest kind of solid-pleasant. + +"Take hoein' corn, now. If anything ever tuckered me out, 'twas hoein' +corn in the hot sun. But in the field, 'long about the time I begun to +lag back a little, Henry he'd look up an' say:-- + +"'Good, Jim! When we get these two rows hoed, an' eighteen more, the +piece'll be half done.' An' he'd say it in such a kind of a cheerful way +that I couldn't 'a' ben any more tickled if the piece had been all +done,--an' the rest would go light enough. + +"But the worst thing we had to do--hoein corn was a picnic to it--was +pickin' stones. There was no end to that on our old farm, if we wanted +to raise anything. When we wa'n't hurried and pressed with somethin' +else, there was always pickin' stones to do; and there wa'n't a plowin' +but what brought up a fresh crop, an' seems as if the pickin' had all to +be done over again. + +"Well, you'd' a' thought, to hear Henry, that there wa'n't any fun in +the world like pickin' stones. He looked at it in a different way from +anybody I ever see. Once, when the corn was all hoed, and the grass +wa'n't fit to cut yet, an' I'd got all laid out to go fishin', and +father he up and set us to pickin' stones up on the west piece, an' I +was about ready to cry, Henry he says:-- + +"'Come on, Jim. I know where there's lots of nuggets.' + +"An' what do you s'pose, now? That boy had a kind of a game that that +there field was what he called a plasser mining field; and he got me +into it, and I could 'a' sworn I was in Californy all day,--I had such a +good time. + +"'Only,' says Henry, after we'd got through the day's work, 'the way you +get rich with these nuggets is to get rid of 'em, instead of to get +'em.' + +"That somehow didn't strike my fancy, but we'd had play instead of work, +anyway, an' a great lot of stones had been rooted out of that field. + +"An', as I said before, I can't give ye any dictionary definition of +optimism; but if your Uncle Henry wa'n't an optimist, I don't know what +one is." + +At life's outset, says one, a cheerful optimistic temperament is worth +everything. A cheerful man, who always "feels first-rate," who always +looks on the bright side, who is ever ready to snatch victory from +defeat, is the successful man. + +Everybody avoids the company of those who are always grumbling, who are +full of "ifs" and "buts," and "I told you so's." We like the man who +always looks toward the sun, whether it shines or not. It is the +cheerful, hopeful man we go to for sympathy and assistance; not the +carping, gloomy critic,--who always thinks it is going to rain, and that +we are going to have a terribly hot summer, or a fearful thunder-storm, +or who is forever complaining of hard times and his hard lot. It is the +bright, cheerful, hopeful, contented man who makes his way, who is +respected and admired. + +Gloom and depression not only take much out of life, but detract greatly +from the chances of winning success. It is the bright and cheerful +spirit that wins the final triumph. + + LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE. + +"I see our brother, who has just sat down, lives on Grumbling street," +said a keen-witted Yorkshireman. "I lived there myself for some time, +and never enjoyed good health. The air was bad, the house bad, the water +bad; the birds never came and sang in the street; and I was gloomy and +sad enough. But I 'flitted.' I got into Thanksgiving avenue; and ever +since then I have had good health, and so have all my family. The air is +pure, the house good; the sun shines on it all day; the birds are always +singing; and I am happy as I can live. Now, I recommend our brother to +'flit.' There are plenty of houses to let on Thanksgiving avenue; and he +will find himself a new man if he will only come; and I shall be right +glad to have him for a neighbor." + +This world was not intended for a "vale of tears," but as a sweet Vale +of Content. Travelers are told by the Icelanders, who live amid the cold +and desolation of almost perpetual winter, that "Iceland is the best +land the sun shines upon." "In the long Arctic night, the Eskimo is +blithe, and carolsome, far from the approach of the white man; while +amid the glorious scenery and Eden-like climate of Central America, the +native languages have a dozen words for pain and misery and sorrow, for +one with any cheerful signification." + +When a Persian king was directed by his wise men to wear the shirt of a +contented man, the only contented man in the kingdom had no shirt. The +most contented man in Boston does not live on Commonwealth avenue or do +business on State street: he is poor and blind, and he peddles needles +and thread, buttons and sewing-room supplies, about the streets of +Boston from house to house. Dr. Minot J. Savage used to pity this man +very much, and once in venturing to talk with him about his condition, +he was utterly amazed to find that the man was perfectly happy. He said +that he had a faithful wife, and a business by which he earned +sufficient for his wants; and, if he were to complain of his lot, he +should feel mean and contemptible. Surely, if there are any "solid men" +in Boston, he is one. + +Content is the magic lamp, which, according to the beautiful picture +painted for us by Goethe, transforms the rude fisherman's hut into a +palace of silver; the logs, the floors, the roof, the furniture, +everything being changed and gleaming with new light. + + "My crown is in my heart, not on my head; + Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, + Nor to be seen; my crown is called content; + A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy." + + + + +III. OILING YOUR BUSINESS MACHINERY. + + +Business is king. We often say that cotton is king, or corn is king, but +with greater propriety we may say that the king is that great machine +which is kept in motion by the Law of Supply and Demand: the destinies +of all mankind are ruled by it. + +"Were the question asked," says Stearns, "what is at this moment the +strongest power in operation for controlling, regulating, and inciting +the actions of men, what has most at its disposal the condition and +destinies of the world, we must answer at once, it is business, in its +various ranks and departments; of which commerce, foreign and domestic, +is the most appropriate representation. In all prosperous and advancing +communities,--advancing in arts, knowledge, literature, and social +refinement,--business is king. Other influences in society may be +equally indispensable, and some may think far more dignified, but +_Business is King_. The statesman and the scholar, the nobleman and the +prince, equally with the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer, +pursue their several objects only by leave granted and means furnished +by this potentate." + +Oil is better than sand for keeping this vast machinery in good running +condition. Do not shovel grit or gravel stones upon the bearings. A tiny +copper shaving in a wheel box, or a scratch on a journal, may set a +railway train on fire. The running of the business world is damaged by +whatever creates friction. + +Anxiety mars one's work. Nobody can do his best when, fevered by worry. +One may rush, and always be in great haste, and may talk about being +busy, fuming and sweating as if he were doing ten men's duties; and yet +some quiet person alongside, who is moving leisurely and without anxious +haste, is probably accomplishing twice as much, and doing it better. +Fluster unfits one for good work. + +Have you not sometimes seen a business manager whose stiffness would +serve as "a good example to a poker?" He acts toward his employees as +the father of Frederick the Great did toward his subjects, caning them +on the streets, and shouting, "I wish to be loved and not feared." +"Growl, Spitfire and Brothers," says Talmage, "wonder why they fail, +while Messrs. Merriman and Warmheart succeed." + +There is no investment a business man can make that will pay him a +greater per cent, than patience and amiability. Good humor will sell the +most goods. + +John Wanamaker's clerks have been heard to say: "We can work better for +a week after a pleasant 'Good morning' from Mr. Wanamaker." + +This kindly disposition and cheerful manner, and a desire to create a +pleasant feeling and diffuse good cheer among those who work for him, +have had a great deal to do with the great merchant's remarkable +success. On the other hand, a man who easily finds fault, and is never +generous-spirited, who never commends the work of subordinates when he +can do so justly, who is unwilling to brighten their hours, fails to +secure the best of service. "Why not try love's way?" It will pay +better, and be better. + +A habit of cheerfulness, enabling one to transmute apparent misfortunes +into real blessings, is a fortune to a young man or young woman just +crossing the threshold of active life. There is nothing but ill fortune +in a habit of grumbling, which "requires no talent, no self-denial, no +brains, no character." Grumbling only makes an employee more +uncomfortable, and may cause his dismissal. No one would or should wish +to make him do grudgingly what so many others would be glad to do in a +cheerful spirit. + +If you dislike your position, complain to no one, least of all to your +employer. Fill the place as it was never filled before. Crowd it to +overflowing. Make yourself more competent for it. Show that you are +abundantly worthy of better things. Express yourself in this manner as +freely as you please, for it is the only way that will count. + +No one ever found the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure +to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you +are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you +can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and +didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth +away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs that others leave +undone,--they are the true peacemakers, and worth a regiment of +grumblers. + +"Oh, what a sunny, winsome face she has!" said a Christian Endeavorer, +in reporting of a clerk whom he saw in a Bay City store. "The customers +flocked about her like bees about a honey-bush in full bloom." + + SINGING AT YOUR WORK. + +"Give us, therefore,"--let us cry with Carlyle,--"oh, give us the man +who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it +better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue +whilst 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, +graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright." + +"It is a good sign," says another writer, "when girlish voices carol +over the steaming dish-pan or the mending-basket, when the broom moves +rhythmically, and the duster flourishes in time to some brisk melody. We +are sure that the dishes shine more brightly, and that the sweeping and +dusting and mending are more satisfactory because of this running +accompaniment of song. Father smiles when he hears his girl singing +about her work, and mother's tired face brightens at the sound. Brothers +and sisters, without realizing it, perhaps, catch the spirit of the +cheerful worker." + +There are singing milkers in Switzerland; a milkmaid or man gets better +wages if gifted with a good voice, for a cow will yield one-fifth more +milk when soothed by a pleasing melody. + +It was said by Buffon that even sheep fatten better to the sound of +music. And when field-hands are singing, as you sometimes hear them in +the old country, you may be sure the labor is lightened. + +It is Mrs. Howitt who has told us of the musical bells of the farm teams +in a rural district in England:--"It was no regular tune, but a +delicious melody in that soft, sunshiny air, which was filled at the +same time with the song of birds. Angela had heard all kinds of music in +London, but this was unlike anything she had heard before, so soft, and +sweet, and gladsome. On it came, ringing, ringing as softly as flowing +water. The boys and grandfather knew what it meant. Then it came in +sight,--the farm team going to the mill with sacks of corn to be ground, +each horse with a little string of bells to its harness. On they came, +the handsome, well-cared-for creatures, nodding their heads as they +stepped along; and at every step the cheerful and cheering melody rang +out. + +"'Do all horses down here have bells?' asked Angela. + +"'By no means,' replied her grandfather. 'They cost something; but if we +can make labor easier to a horse by giving him a little music, which he +loves, he is less worn by his work, and that is a saving worth thinking +of. A horse is a generous, noble-spirited animal, and not without +intellect, either; and he is capable of much enjoyment from music.'" + +A spirit of song, if not the singing itself, is a constant delight to +us. "It is like passing sweet meadows alive with bobolinks." + +"Some men," says Beecher, "move through life as a band of music moves +down the street, flinging out pleasures on every side, through the air, +to every one far and near who can listen; others fill the air with harsh +clang and clangor. Many men go through life carrying their tongue, their +temper, their whole disposition so that wherever they go, others dread +them. Some men fill the air with their presence and sweetness, as +orchards in October days fill the air with the perfume of ripe fruit." + + GOOD HUMOR. + +"Health and good humor," said Massillon, "are to the human body like +sunshine to vegetation." + +The late Charles A. Dana fairly bubbled over with the enjoyment of his +work, and was, up to his last illness, at his office every day. A +Cabinet officer once said to him: "Well, Mr. Dana, I don't see how you +stand this infernal grind." + +"Grind?" said Mr. Dana. "You never were more mistaken. I have nothing +but fun." + +"Bully" was a favorite word with him; a slang word used to express +uncommon pleasure, such as had been afforded by a trip abroad, or by a +run to Cuba or Mexico, or by the perusal of something especially +pleasing in the "Sun's" columns. + +"One of my neighbors is a very ill-tempered man," said Nathan +Rothschild. "He tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine +close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first, 'Grunt, grunt,' then +'Squeak, squeak.' But this does me no harm. I am always in good humor." + +Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at the "Tribune" +office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a little +seven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley sat, with his head close down to +his paper, scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began by +asking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said the +editor quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate +visitor then began using his tongue, with no reference to the rules of +propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued to +write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with +no change of features, and without paying the slightest attention to the +visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most impassioned +scolding ever poured out in an editor's office, the angry man became +disgusted, and abruptly turned to walk out of the room. Then, for the +first time, Mr. Greeley quickly looked up, rose from his chair, and, +slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in a pleasant tone of +voice said: "Don't go, friend; sit down, sit down, and free your mind; +it will do you good,--you will feel better for it. Besides, it helps me +to think what I am to write about. Don't go." + +"One good hearty laugh," says Talmage, "is like a bomb-shell exploding +in the right place, and spleen and discontent like a gun that kicks over +the man shooting it off." + +"Every one," says Lubbock, "likes a man who can enjoy a laugh at his own +expense,--and justly so, for it shows good humor and good sense. If you +laugh at yourself, other people will not laugh at you." + +People differ very much in their sense of humor. As some are deaf to +certain sounds and blind to certain colors, so there are those who seem +deaf and blind to certain pleasures. What makes me laugh until I almost +go into convulsions moves them not at all. + +Is it not worth while to make an effort to see the funny side of our +petty annoyances? How could the two boys but laugh, after they had +contended long over the possession of a box found by the wayside, when +they agreed to divide its contents, and found nothing in it? + +The ability to get on with scolding, irritating people is a great art in +doing business. To preserve serenity amid petty trials is a happy gift. + +A sunny temper is also conducive to health. A medical authority of +highest repute affirms that "excessive labor, exposure to wet and cold, +deprivation of sufficient quantities of necessary and wholesome food, +habitual bad lodging, sloth, and intemperance are all deadly enemies to +human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent and ungoverned +passions;" that men and women have frequently lived to an advanced age +in spite of these; but that instances are very rare in which people of +irascible tempers live to extreme old age. + +Poultney Bigelow, in "Harper's Magazine," in relating the story of +Jameson's raid upon the Boers of South Africa, says that the triumphant +Boers fell on their knees, thanking God for their victory; and that they +prayed for their enemies, and treated their prisoners with the utmost +kindness. Our foreign missionary books relate similar anecdotes, it +being a characteristic feature of their childlike piety for new converts +to take literally the words of our Lord,--"Love your enemies." + +It is not true that the devil has his tail in everything. A stalwart +confidence in God, and faith in the happy outcome of life, will do more +to lubricate the creaking machinery of our daily affairs than anything +else. + + "LE DIABLE EST MORT." + +"_Courage, ami, le diable est mort!_" "Courage, friend, the devil is +dead!" was Denys's constant countersign, which he would give to +everybody. "They don't understand it," he would say, "but it wakes them +up. I carry the good news from city to city, to uplift men's hearts." +Once he came across a child who had broken a pitcher. "_Courage, amie, +le diable est mort!_" said he, which was such cheering news that she +ceased crying, and ran home to tell it to her grandma. + +Give me the man who, like Emerson, sees longevity in his cause, and who +believes there is a remedy for every wrong, a satisfaction for every +longing soul; the man who believes the best of everybody, and who sees +beauty and grace where others see ugliness and deformity. Give me the +man who believes in the ultimate triumph of truth over error, of harmony +over discord, of love over hate, of purity over vice, of light over +darkness, of life over death. Such men are the true nation-builders. + +Jay Cooke, many times a millionaire at the age of fifty-one, at +fifty-two practically penniless, went to work again and built another +fortune. The last of his three thousand creditors was paid, and the +promise of the great financier was fulfilled. To a visitor who once +asked him how he regained his fortune, Mr. Cooke replied, "That is +simple enough: by never changing the temperament I derived from my +father and mother. From my earliest experience in life I have always +been of a hopeful temperament, never living in a cloud; I have always +had a reasonable philosophy to think that men and times are better than +harsh criticism would suppose. I believed that this American world of +ours is full of wealth, and that it was only necessary to go to work and +find it. That is the secret of my success in life. Always look on the +sunny side." + +"Everything has gone," said a New York business man in despair, when he +reached home. But when he came to himself he found that his wife and his +children and the promises of God were left to him. Suffering, it was +said by Aristotle, becomes beautiful when any one bears great calamities +with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of +mind. + +When Garrison was locked up in the Boston city jail he said he had two +delightful companions,--a good conscience and a cheerful mind. + + "To live as always seeing + The invisible Source of things, + Is the blessedest state of being, + For the quietude it brings." + +"Away with those fellows who go howling through life," wrote Beccher, +"and all the while passing for birds of paradise! He that cannot laugh +and be gay should look to himself. He should fast and pray until his +face breaks forth into light." + +Martin Luther has told us that he was once sorely discouraged and vexed +at himself, the world, and the church, and at the small success he then +seemed to be having; and he fell into a despondency which affected all +his household. His good wife could not charm it away by cheerful speech +or acts. At length she hit upon this happy device, which proved +effectual. She appeared before him in deep mourning. + +"Who is dead?" asked Luther. + +"Oh, do you not know, Martin? God in heaven is dead." + +"How can you talk such nonsense, Kaethe? How can God die? Why, He is +immortal, and will live through all eternity." + +"Is that really true?" persisted she, as if she could hardly credit his +assertion that God still lived. + +"How can you doubt it? So surely as there is a God in heaven," asserted +the aroused theologian, "so sure is it that He can never die." + +"And yet," said she demurely, in a tone which made him look up at her, +"though you do not doubt there is a God, you become hopeless and +discouraged as if there were none. It seemed to me you acted as if God +were dead." + +The spell was broken; Luther heartily laughed at his wife's lesson, and +her ingenious way of presenting it. "I observed," he remarked, "what a +wise woman my wife was, who mastered my sadness." + +Jean Paul Richter's dream of "No God" is one of the most somber things +in all literature,--"tempestuous chaos, no healing hand, no Infinite +Father. I awoke. My soul wept for joy that it could again worship the +Infinite Father.... And when I arose, from all nature I heard flowing +sweet, peaceful tones, as from evening bells." + + + + +IV. TAKING YOUR FUN EVERY DAY AS YOU DO YOUR WORK. + + +Ten things are necessary for happiness in this life, the first being a +good digestion, and the other nine,--money; so at least it is said by +our modern philosophers. Yet the author of "A Gentle Life" speaks more +truly in saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of +superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support of +life. + +He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness, not from +ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him. The man who has +mastered the secret will not wait for ideal surroundings; he will not +wait until next year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he can +travel abroad, until he can afford to surround himself with works of the +great masters; but he will make the most out of life to-day, where he +is. + + "Why thus longing, thus forever sighing, + For the far-off, unattained and dim, + While the beautiful, all round thee lying, + Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? + + "Happy the man, and happy he alone, + He who can call to-day his own; + He who, secure within himself, can say: + 'To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day!'" + +Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will +never find it. + +It is after business hours, not in them, that men break down. Men must, +like Philip Armour, turn the key on business when they leave it, and at +once unlock the doors of some wholesome recreation. Dr. Lyman Beecher +used to divert himself with a violin. He had a regular system of what he +called "unwinding," thus relieving the great strain put upon him. + +"A man," says Dr. Johnson, "should spend part of his time with the +laughers." + +Humor was Lincoln's life-preserver, as it has been of thousands of +others. "If it were not for this," he used to say, "I should die." His +jests and quaint stories lighted the gloom of dark hours of national +peril. + +"Next to virtue," said Agnes Strickland, "the fun in this world is what +we can least spare." + +"When the harness is off," said Judge Haliburton, "a critter likes to +kick up his heels." + +"I have fun from morning till night," said the editor Charles A. Dana to +a friend who was growing prematurely old. "Do you read novels, and play +billiards, and walk a great deal?" + +Gladstone early formed a habit of looking on the bright side of things, +and never lost a moment's sleep by worrying about public business. + +There are many out-of-door sports, and the very presence of nature is to +many a great joy. How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, +all nature smiles with us,--the air seems more balmy, the sky more +clear, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, +the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly, and the sun, +moon, and stars all appear more beautiful. "It is a grand thing to +live,--to open the eyes in the morning and look out upon the world, to +drink in the pure air and enjoy the sweet sunshine, to feel the pulse +bound, and the being thrill with the consciousness of strength and power +in every nerve; it is a good thing simply to be alive, and it is a good +world we live in, in spite of the abuse we are fond of giving it." + + "I love to hear the bee sing amid the blossoms sunny; + To me his drowsy melody is sweeter than his honey: + For, while the shades are shifting + Along the path to noon, + My happy brain goes drifting + To dreamland on his tune. + + "I love to hear the wind blow amid the blushing petals, + And when a fragile flower falls, to watch it as it settles; + And view each leaflet falling + Upon the emerald turf, + With idle mind recalling + The bubbles on the surf. + + "I love to lie upon the grass, and let my glances wander + Earthward and skyward there; while peacefully I ponder + How much of purest pleasure + Earth holds for his delight + Who takes life's cup to measure + Naught but its blessings bright." + +Upon every side of us are to be found what one has happily called-- + + UNWORKED JOY MINES. + +And he who goes "prospecting" to see what he can daily discover is a +wise man, training his eye to see beauty in everything and everywhere. + +"One ought, every day," says Goethe, "at least to hear a little song, +read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak +a few reasonable words." And if this be good for one's self, why not try +the song, the poem, the picture, and the good words, on some one else? + +Shall music and poetry die out of you while you are struggling for that +which can never enrich the character, nor add to the soul's worth? Shall +a disciplined imagination fill the mind with beautiful pictures? He who +has intellectual resources to fall back upon will not lack for daily +recreation most wholesome. + +It was a remark of Archbishop Whately that we ought not only to +cultivate the cornfields of the mind, but the pleasure-grounds also. A +well-balanced life is a cheerful life; a happy union of fine qualities +and unruffled temper, a clear judgment, and well-proportioned faculties. +In a corner of his desk, Lincoln kept a copy of the latest humorous +work; and it was frequently his habit, when fatigued, annoyed, or +depressed, to take this up, and read a chapter with great relief. Clean, +sensible wit, or sheer nonsense,--anything to provoke mirth and make a +man jollier,--this, too, is a gift from Heaven. + +In the world of books, what is grand and inspiring may easily become a +part of every man's life. A fondness for good literature, for good +fiction, for travel, for history, and for biography,--what is better +than this? + + THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD. + +This title best fits Victoria, the true queen of the world, but it fits +her best because she is the best type of a noble wife, the queen of her +husband's heart, and of a queen mother whose children rise up and call +her blessed. + +"I noticed," said Franklin, "a mechanic, among a number of others, at +work on a house a little way from my office, who always appeared to be +in a merry humor; he had a kind word and smile for every one he met. +Let the day be ever so cold, gloomy, or sunless, a happy smile danced on +his cheerful countenance. Meeting him one morning, I asked him to tell +me the secret of his constant flow of spirits. + +"'It is no secret, doctor,' he replied. 'I have one of the best of +wives; and, when I go to work, she always has a kind word of +encouragement for me; and, when I go home, she meets me with a smile and +a kiss; and then tea is sure to be ready, and she has done so many +little things through the day to please me that I cannot find it in my +heart to speak an unkind word to anybody.'" + +Some of the happiest homes I have ever been in, ideal homes, where +intelligence, peace, and harmony dwell, have been homes of poor people. +No rich carpets covered the floors; there were no costly paintings on +the walls, no piano, no library, no works of art. But there were +contented minds, devoted and unselfish lives, each contributing as much +as possible to the happiness of all, and endeavoring to compensate by +intelligence and kindness for the poverty of their surroundings. "One +cheerful, bright, and contented spirit in a household will uplift the +tone of all the rest. The keynote of the home is in the hand of the +resolutely cheerful member of the family, and he or she will set the +pitch for the rest." + +"Young men," it is said, "are apt to be overbearing, imperious, brusque +in their manner; they need that suavity of manner, and urbanity of +demeanor, gracefulness of expression and delicacy of manner, which can +only be gained by association with the female character, which possesses +the delicate instinct, ready judgment, acute perceptions, wonderful +intuition. The blending of the male and female characteristics produces +the grandest character in each." + +The woman who has what Helen Hunt so aptly called "a genius for +affection,"--she, indeed, is queen of the home. "I have often had +occasion," said Washington Irving, "to remark the fortitude with which +woman sustains the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those +disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the +dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give +such intrepidity and elevation to their character that at times it +approaches sublimity." + +If a wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the +cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place her husband can find refuge in,--a +retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world,--then God help +the poor man, for he is virtually homeless. "Home-keeping hearts," said +Longfellow, "are happiest." What is a good wife, a good mother? Is she +not a gift out of heaven, sacred and delicate, with affections so great +that no measuring line short of that of the infinite God can tell their +bound; fashioned to refine and soothe and lift and irradiate home and +society and the world; of such value that no one can appreciate it, +unless his mother lived long enough to let him understand it, or unless, +in some great crisis of life, when all else failed him, he had a wife to +reenforce him with a faith in God that nothing could disturb? + +Nothing can be more delightful than an anecdote of Joseph H. Choate, of +New York, our Minister at the Court of St. James. Upon being asked, at a +dinner-party, who he would prefer to be if he could not be himself, he +hesitated a moment, apparently running over in his mind the great ones +on earth, when his eyes rested on Mrs. Choate at the other end of the +table, who was watching him with great interest in her face, and +suddenly replied, "If I could not be myself, I should like to be Mrs. +Choate's second husband." + +"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the +bones." It is the little disputes, little fault-findings, little +insinuations, little reflections, sharp criticisms, fretfulness and +impatience, little unkindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad +temper, that create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family. +How much it would add to the glory of the homes of the world if that +might be said of every one which Rogers said of Lord Holland's sunshiny +face: "He always comes to breakfast like a man upon whom some sudden +good fortune has fallen"! + +The value of pleasant words every day, as you go along, is well depicted +by Aunt Jerusha in what she said to our genial friend of "Zion's +Herald":-- + +"If folks could have their funerals when they are alive and well and +struggling along, what a help it would be"! she sighed, upon returning +from a funeral, wondering how poor Mrs. Brown would have felt if she +could have heard what the minister said. "Poor soul, she never dreamed +they set so much by her! + +"Mis' Brown got discouraged. Ye see, Deacon Brown, he'd got a way of +blaming everything on to her. I don't suppose the deacon meant +it,--'twas just his way,--but it's awful wearing. When things wore out +or broke, he acted just as if Mis' Brown did it herself on purpose; and +they all caught it, like the measles or the whooping-cough. + +"And the minister a-telling how the deacon brought his young wife here +when 't wa'n't nothing but a wilderness, and how patiently she bore +hardship, and what a good wife she'd been! Now the minister wouldn't +have known anything about that if the deacon hadn't told him. Dear! +Dear! If he'd only told Mis' Brown herself what he thought, I do believe +he might have saved the funeral. + +"And when the minister said how the children would miss their mother, +seemed as though they couldn't stand it, poor things! + +"Well, I guess it is true enough,--Mis' Brown was always doing for some +of them. When they was singing about sweet rest in heaven, I couldn't +help thinking that that was something Mis' Brown would have to get used +to, for she never had none of it here. + +"She'd have been awful pleased with the flowers. They was pretty, and no +mistake. Ye see, the deacon wa'n't never willing for her to have a +flower-bed. He said 't was enough prettier sight to see good cabbages +a-growing; but Mis' Brown always kind of hankered after sweet-smelling +things, like roses and such. + +"What did you say, Levi? 'Most time for supper? Well, land's sake, so it +is! I must have got to meditating. I've been a-thinking, Levi, you +needn't tell the minister anything about me. If the pancakes and pumpkin +pies are good, you just say so as we go along. It ain't best to keep +everything laid up for funerals." + +_It is the grand secret of a happy home to express the affection you +really have._ + +"He is the happiest," it was said by Goethe, "be he king or peasant, who +finds peace in his home." There are indeed many serious, too +serious-minded fathers and mothers who do not wish to advertise their +children to all the neighbors as "the laughing family." If this be so, +yet, at the very least, these solemn parents may read the Bible. Where +it is said, "provoke not your children to wrath," it means literally, +"do not irritate your children;" "do not rub them up the wrong way." + +Children ought never to get the impression that they live in a hopeless, +cheerless, cold world; but the household cheerfulness should transform +their lives like sunlight, making their hearts glad with little things, +rejoicing upon small occasion. + +"How beautiful would our home-life be if every little child at the +bed-time hour could look into the faces of the older ones and say: +'We've had such sweet times to-day.'" + +"To love, and to be loved," says Sydney Smith, "is the greatest +happiness of existence." + + + + +V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK. + + +Dining one day with Baron James Rothschild, Eugene Delacroix, the famous +French artist, confessed that, during some time past, he had vainly +sought for a head to serve as a model for that of a beggar in a picture +which he was painting; and that, as he gazed at his host's features, the +idea suddenly occurred to him that the very head he desired was before +him. Rothschild, being a great lover of art, readily consented to sit as +the beggar. The next day, at the studio, Delacroix placed a tunic around +the baron's shoulders, put a stout staff in his hand, and made him pose +as if he were resting on the steps of an ancient Roman temple. In this +attitude he was found by one of the artist's favorite pupils, in a brief +absence of the master from the room. The youth naturally concluded that +the beggar had just been brought in, and with a sympathetic look quietly +slipped a piece of money into his hand. Rothschild thanked him simply, +pocketed the money, and the student passed out. Rothschild then inquired +of the master, and found that the young man had talent, but very slender +means. Soon after, the youth received a letter stating that charity +bears interest, and that the accumulated interest on the amount he had +given to one he supposed to be a beggar was represented by the sum of +ten thousand francs, which was awaiting his claim at the Rothschild +office. + +This illustrates well the art of cheerful amusement even if one has +great business cares,--the entertainment of the artist, the personation +of a beggar, and an act of beneficence toward a worthy student. + +It illustrates, too, what was said by Wilhelm von Humboldt, that "it is +worthy of special remark that when we are not too anxious about +happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and +unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself." We carry +each day nobly, doing the duty or enjoying the privilege of the moment, +without thinking whether or not it will make us happy. This is quite in +accord with the saying of George Herbert, "The consciousness of duty +performed gives us music at midnight." + +Are not buoyant spirits like water sparkling when it runs? "_I have +found my greatest happiness in labor_," said Gladstone. "I early formed +a habit of industry, and it has been its own reward. The young are apt +to think that rest means a cessation from all effort, but I have found +the most perfect rest in changing effort. If brain-weary over books and +study, go out into the blessed sunlight and the pure air, and give +heartfelt exercise to the body. The brain will soon become calm and +rested. The efforts of Nature are ceaseless. Even in our sleep the heart +throbs on. I try to live close to Nature, and to imitate her in my +labors. The compensation is sound sleep, a wholesome digestion, and +powers that are kept at their best; and this, I take it, is the chief +reward of industry." + +"Owing to ingrained habits," said Horace Mann, "work has always been to +me what water is to a fish. I have wondered a thousand times to hear +people say, 'I don't like this business,' or 'I wish I could exchange it +for that;' for with me, when I have had anything to do, I do not +remember ever to have demurred, but have always set about it like a +fatalist, and it was as sure to be done as the sun was to set." + +"_One's personal enjoyment is a very small thing, but one's personal +usefulness is a very important thing." Those only are happy who have +their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness_. "The +most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures," says La Bruyere, +"consists in promoting the pleasures of others." And Hawthorne has said +that the inward pleasure of imparting pleasure is the choicest of all. + +"Oh, it is great," said Carlyle, "and there is no other greatness,--to +make some nook of God's creation more fruitful, better, more worthy of +God,--to make some human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier, more +blessed, less accursed!" The gladness of service, of having some +honorable share in the world's work, what is better than this? + +"The Lord must love the common people," said Lincoln, "for he made so +many of them, and so few of the other kind." To extend to all the cup of +joy is indeed angelic business, and there is nothing that makes one more +beautiful than to be engaged in it. + +"The high desire that others may be blest savors of heaven." + +The memory of those who spend their days in hanging sweet pictures of +faith and trust in the galleries of sunless lives shall never perish +from the earth. + + DOING GOOD BY STEALTH, AND HAVING IT FOUND OUT BY ACCIDENT. + +"This," said Charles Lamb, "is the greatest pleasure I know." "Money +never yet made a man happy," said Franklin; "and there is nothing in its +nature to produce happiness." To do good with it, makes life a delight +to the giver. How happy, then, was the life of Jean Ingelow, since what +she received from the sale of a hundred thousand copies of her poems, +and fifty thousand of her prose works, she spent largely in charity; one +unique charity being a "copyright" dinner three times a week to twelve +poor persons just discharged from the neighboring hospitals! Nor was any +one made happier by it than the poet. + +John Buskin inherited a million dollars. "With this money he set about +doing good," says a writer in the "Arena." "Poor young men and women who +were struggling to get an education were helped, homes for working men +and women were established, and model apartment houses were erected. He +also promoted a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This +land was used for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again +from the state in which they had fallen through cruel social conditions +and their own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General +Booth his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in +aiding poor artists, and has done much to encourage artistic taste among +the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings +by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in the public schools of London. +By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides all +the income from his books. But the calls of the poor, and his plans +looking toward educating and ennobling the lives of working men, giving +more sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all +the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him $1,500 +a year on which to live." + +Our own Peter Cooper, in his last days, was one of the happiest men in +America; his beneficence shone in his countenance. + +Let the man who has the blues take a map and census table of the world, +and estimate how many millions there are who would gladly exchange lots +with him, and let him begin upon some practicable plan to do all the +good he can to as many as he can, and he will forget to be despondent; +and he need not stop short at praying for them without first giving +every dollar he can, without troubling the Lord about that. Let him +scatter his flowers as he goes along, since he will never go over the +same road again. + +No man in England had a better time than did Du Maurier on that cold day +when he took the hat of an old soldier on Hampstead road, and sent him +away to the soup kitchen in Euston to get warm. The artist chalked on a +blackboard such portraits as he commonly made for "Punch," and soon +gathered a great quantity of small coins for the grateful soldier; who, +however, at once rubbed out Du Maurier's pictures and put on "the +faithful dog," and a battle scene, as more artistic. + +"Chinese Gordon," after serving faithfully and valiantly in the great +Chinese rebellion, and receiving the highest honors of the Chinese +Empire, returned to England, caring little for the praise thus heaped on +him. He took some position at Gravesend, just below London, where he +filled his house with boys from the streets, whom he taught and made men +of, and then secured them places on ships,--following them all over the +world with letters of advice and encouragement. + + HIS HEAD IN A HOLE. + +"I was appointed to lecture in a town in Great Britain six miles from +the railway," said John B. Gough, "and a man drove me in a fly from the +station to the town. I noticed that he sat leaning forward in an +awkward manner, with his face close to the glass of the window. Soon he +folded a handkerchief and tied it round his neck. I asked him if he was +cold. "No, sir." Then he placed the handkerchief round his face. I asked +him if he had the toothache. "No, sir," was the reply. Still he sat +leaning forward. At last I said, "Will you please tell me why you sit +leaning forward that way with a handkerchief round your neck if you are +not cold and have no toothache?" He said very quietly, "The window of +the carriage is broke, and the wind is cold, and I am trying to keep it +from you." I said, in surprise, "You are not putting your face to that +broken pane to keep the wind from me, are you?" "Yes, sir, I am." "Why +do you do that?" "God bless you, sir! I owe everything I have in the +world to you." "But I never saw you before." "No, sir; but I have seen +you. I was a ballad-singer once. I used to go round with a half-starved +baby in my arms for charity, and a draggled wife at my heels half the +time, with her eyes blackened; and I went to hear you in Edinburgh, and +_you told me I was a man_; and when I went out of that house I said, 'By +the help of God, I'll be a man;' and now I've a happy wife and a +comfortable home. God bless you, sir! I would stick my head in any hole +under the heavens if it would do you any good." + + "Let's find the sunny side of men, + Or be believers in it; + A light there is in every soul + That takes the pains to win it. + Oh! there's a slumbering good in all, + And we perchance may wake it; + Our hands contain the magic wand: + This life is what we make it." + +He indeed is getting the most out of life who does most to elevate +mankind. How happy were those Little Sisters of the Poor at Tours, who +took scissors to divide their last remnant of bedclothing with an old +woman who came to them at night, craving hospitality! And how happy was +that American school-teacher who gave up the best room in the house, +which she had engaged long before the season opened, at a mountain +sanitarium, during the late war, taking instead of it the poorest room +in the house, that she might give good quarters to a soldier just out of +his camp hospital! + +"Teach self-denial," said Walter Scott, "and make its practice +pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than +ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer." + +Yet how many there are, ready to make some great sacrifice, who neglect +those little acts of kindness which make so many lives brighter and +happier. + +"I say, Jim, it's the first time I ever had anybody ask my parding, and +it kind o' took me off my feet." A young lady had knocked him down in +hastily turning a corner. She stopped and said to the ragged +crossing-boy: "I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very sorry I +ran against you." He took off the piece of a cap he had on his skull, +made a low bow, and said with a broad smile: "You have my parding, Miss, +and welcome; and the next time you run agin me, you can knock me clean +down and I won't say a word." + +One of the greatest mistakes of life is to save our smiles and pleasant +words and sympathy for those of "our set," or for those not now with us, +and for other times than the present. + +"If a word or two will render a man happy," said a Frenchman, "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." + +Sydney Smith recommends us to make at least one person happy every day: +"Take ten years, and you will make thirty-six hundred and fifty persons +happy; or brighten a small town by your contribution to the fund of +general joy." One who is cheerful is preeminently useful. + +Dr. Raffles once said: "I have made it a rule never to be with a person +ten minutes without trying to make him happier." It was a remark of Dr. +Dwight, that "one who makes a little child happier for half an hour is a +fellow-worker with God." + +A little boy said to his mother: "I couldn't make little sister happy, +nohow I could fix it. But I made myself happy trying to make her happy." +"I make Jim happy, and he laughs," said another boy, speaking of his +invalid brother; "and that makes me happy, and I laugh." + +There was once a king who loved his little boy very much, and took a +great deal of pains to please him. So he gave him a pony to ride, +beautiful rooms to live in, pictures, books, toys without number, +teachers, companions, and everything that money could buy or ingenuity +devise; but for all this, the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown +wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have. +At length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl on the boy's +face, and said to the king: "I can make your son happy, and turn his +frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a great price for telling him +this secret." "All right," said the king; "whatever you ask I will +give." The magician took the boy into a private room. He wrote something +with a white substance on a piece of paper. He gave the boy a candle, +and told him to light it and hold it under the paper, and then see what +he could read. Then the magician went away. The boy did as he had been +told, and the white letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed +these words: "Do a kindness to some one every day." The prince followed +the advice, and became the happiest boy in the realm. + +"Happiness," says one writer, "is a mosaic, composed of many smaller +stones." It is the little acts of kindness, the little courtesies, the +disposition to be accommodating, to be helpful, to be sympathetic, to be +unselfish, to be careful not to wound the feelings, not to expose the +sore spots, to be charitable of the weaknesses of others, to be +considerate,--these are the little things which, added up at night, are +found to be the secret of a happy day. How much greater are all these +than one great act of noteworthy goodness once a year! Our lives are +made up of trifles; emergencies rarely occur. "Little things, +unimportant events, experiences so small as to scarcely leave a trace +behind, make up the sum-total of life." And the one great thing in life +is to do a little good to every one we meet. Ready sympathy, a quick +eye, and a little tact, are all that are needed. + +This point is happily illustrated by this report of an incident upon a +train from Providence to Boston. A lady was caring for her father, whose +mental faculties were weakened by age. He imagined that some imperative +duty called on him to leave the swift-moving train, and his daughter +could not quiet him. Just then she noticed a large man watching them +over the top of his paper. As soon as he caught her eye, he rose and +crossed quickly to her. + +"I beg your pardon, you are in trouble. May I help you?" + +She explained the situation to him. + +"What is your father's name?" he asked. + +She told him; and then with an encouraging smile, she spoke to her +venerable father who was sitting immediately in front of her. The next +moment the large man turned over the seat, and leaning toward the +troubled old man, he addressed him by name, shook hands with him +cordially, and engaged him in a conversation so interesting and so +cleverly arranged to keep his mind occupied that the old gentleman +forgot his need to leave the train, and did not think of it again until +they were in Boston. There the stranger put the lady and her charge into +a carriage, received her assurance that she felt perfectly safe, and was +about to close the carriage door, when she remembered that she had felt +so safe in the keeping of this noble-looking man that she had not even +asked his name. Hastily putting her hand against the door, she said: +"Pardon me, but you have rendered me such service, may I not know whom I +am thanking?" The big man smiled as he turned away, and answered:-- + + "PHILLIPS BROOKS." + +"What a gift it is," said Beecher, who was the great preacher of +cheerfulness, "to make all men better and happier without knowing it! We +do not suppose that flowers know how sweet they are. These roses and +carnations have made me happy for a day. Yet they stand huddled together +in my pitcher, without seeming to know my thoughts of them, or the +gracious work they are doing. And how much more is it, to have a +disposition that carries with it involuntarily sweetness, calmness, +courage, hope, and happiness. Yet this is the portion of good nature in +a large-minded, strong-natured man. When it has made him happy, it has +scarcely begun its office. God sends a natural heart-singer--a man whose +nature is large and luminous, and who, by his very carriage and +spontaneous actions, calms, cheers, and helps his fellows. God bless +him, for he blesses everybody!" This is just what Mr. Beecher would have +said about Phillips Brooks. + +And what better can be said than to compare the heart's good cheer to a +floral offering? _Are not flowers appropriate gifts to persons of all +ages, in any conceivable circumstances in which they are placed? So the +heart's good cheer and deeds of kindness are always acceptable to +children and youth, to busy men and women, to the aged, and to a world +of invalids._ + +"Thus live and die, O man immortal," says Dr. Chalmers. "Live for +something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue, which the +storms of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and +mercy, on the hearts of those who come in contact with you, and you will +never be forgotten. Good deeds will shine as brightly on earth as the +stars of heaven." + +What is needed to round out human happiness is a well-balanced life. Not +ease, not pleasure, not happiness, but a man, Nature is after. "There +is," says Robert Waters, "no success without honor; no happiness without +a clear conscience; no use in living at all if only for one's self. It +is not at all necessary for you to make a fortune, but it is necessary, +absolutely necessary, that you should become a fair-dealing, honorable, +useful man, radiating goodness and cheerfulness wherever you go, and +making your life a blessing." + +"When a man does not find repose in himself," says a French proverb, "it +is vain for him to seek it elsewhere." Happy is he who has no sense of +discord with the harmony of the universe, who is open to the voices of +nature and of the spiritual realm, and who sees the light that never was +on sea or land. Such a life can but give expression to its inward +harmony. Every pure and healthy thought, every noble aspiration for the +good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better +life, every lofty purpose and unselfish endeavor, makes the human spirit +stronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. It is this alone that +gives a self-centered confidence in one's heaven-aided powers, and a +high-minded cheerfulness, like that of a celestial spirit. It is this +which an old writer has called the paradise of a good conscience. + + "I count this thing to be grandly true, + That a noble deed is a step toward God; + Lifting the soul from the common clod + To a purer air and a broader view. + + "We rise by the things that are under our feet; + By what we have mastered of good or gain; + By the pride deposed and the passion slain, + And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet." + +"My body must walk the earth," said an ancient poet, "but I can put +wings on my soul, and plumes to my hardest thought." The splendors and +symphonies and the ecstacies of a higher world are with us now in the +rudimentary organs of eye and ear and heart. Much we have to do, much +we have to love, much we have to hope for; and our "joy is the grace we +say to God." "When I think upon God," said Haydn to Carpani, "my heart +is so full of joy that the notes leap from my pen." + +Says Gibbons:-- + + "Our lives are songs: + God writes the words, + And we set them to music at leisure; + And the song is sad, or the song is glad, + As we choose to fashion the measure. + + "We must write the song + Whatever the words, + Whatever its rhyme or meter; + And if it is sad, we must make it glad, + And if sweet, we must make it sweeter." + + + + +VI. "LOOKING PLEASANT"--SOMETHING TO BE WORKED FROM THE INSIDE. + + +Acting on a sudden impulse, an elderly woman, the widow of a soldier who +had been killed in the Civil War, went into a photographer's to have her +picture taken. She was seated before the camera wearing the same stern, +hard, forbidding look that had made her an object of fear to the +children living in the neighborhood, when the photographer, thrusting +his head out from the black cloth, said suddenly, "Brighten the eyes a +little." + +She tried, but the dull and heavy look still lingered. + +"Look a little pleasanter," said the photographer, in an unimpassioned +but confident and commanding voice. + +"See here," the woman retorted sharply, "if you think that an old woman +who is dull can look bright, that one who feels cross can become +pleasant every time she is told to, you don't know anything about human +nature. It takes something from the outside to brighten the eye and +illuminate the face." + +"Oh, no, it doesn't! _It's something to be worked from the inside._ Try +it again," said the photographer good-naturedly. + +Something in his manner inspired faith, and she tried again, this time +with better success. + +"That's good! That's fine! You look twenty years younger," exclaimed the +artist, as he caught the transient glow that illuminated the faded face. + +She went home with a queer feeling in her heart. It was the first +compliment she had received since her husband had passed away, and it +left a pleasant memory behind. When she reached her little cottage, she +looked long in the glass and said, "There may be something in it. But +I'll wait and see the picture." + +When the picture came, it was like a resurrection. The face seemed alive +with the lost fires of youth. She gazed long and earnestly, then said in +a clear, firm voice, "If I could do it once, I can do it again." + +Approaching the little mirror above her bureau, she said, "Brighten up, +Catherine," and the old light flashed up once more. + +"Look a little pleasanter!" she commanded; and a calm and radiant smile +diffused itself over the face. + +Her neighbors, as the writer of this story has said, soon remarked the +change that had come over her face: "Why, Mrs. A., you are getting +young. How do you manage it?" + +"_It is almost all done from the inside. You just brighten up inside and +feel pleasant._" + + "Fate served me meanly, but I looked at her and laughed, + That none might know how bitter was the cup I quaffed. + Along came Joy and paused beside me where I sat, + Saying, 'I came to see what you were laughing at.'" + +_Every emotion tends to sculpture the body into beauty or into +ugliness._ Worrying, fretting, unbridled passions, petulance, +discontent, every dishonest act, every falsehood, every feeling of envy, +jealousy, fear,--each has its effect on the system, and acts +deleteriously like a poison or a deformer of the body. Professor James +of Harvard, an expert in the mental sciences, says, "Every small stroke +of virtue or vice leaves its ever so little scar. Nothing we ever do is, +in strict literalness, wiped out." _The way to be beautiful without is +to be beautiful within._ + + + + +WORTH FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. + + +It is related that Dwight L. Moody once offered to his Northfield pupils +a prize of five hundred dollars for the best thought. This took the +prize: "Men grumble because God put thorns with roses; wouldn't it be +better to thank God that he put roses with thorns?" + +We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we +find it, including the thorns. "It is," says Fontenelle, "a great +obstacle to happiness to expect too much." This is what happens in real +life. Watch Edison. He makes the most expensive experiments throughout a +long period of time, and he expects to make them, and he never worries +because he does not succeed the first time. + +"I cannot but think," says Sir John Lubbock, "that the world would be +better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of happiness +as well as on the happiness of duty." + +Oliver Wendell Holmes, in advanced years, acknowledged his debt of +gratitude to the nurse of his childhood, who studiously taught him to +ignore unpleasant incidents. If he stubbed his toe, or skinned his knee, +or bumped his nose, his nurse would never permit his mind to dwell upon +the temporary pain, but claimed his attention for some pretty object, or +charming story, or happy reminiscence. To her, he said, he was largely +indebted for the sunshine of a long life. It is a lesson which is easily +mastered in childhood, but seldom to be learned in middle life, and +never in old age. + +"When I was a boy," says another author, "I was consoled for cutting my +finger by having my attention called to the fact that I had not broken +my arm; and when I got a cinder in my eye, I was expected to feel more +comfortable because my cousin had lost his eye by an accident." + +"We should brave trouble," says Beecher, "as the New England boy braves +winter. The school is a mile away over the hill, yet he lingers not by +the fire; but, with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to +face the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where the snow lies +in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and +cower down by the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? +No; he buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses +the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect and fearless, with strong +heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on to his place at school." + +Children should be taught the habit of finding pleasure everywhere; and +to see the bright side of everything. "Serenity of mind comes easy to +some, and hard to others. It can be taught and learned. We ought to have +teachers who are able to educate us in this department of our natures +quite as much as in music or art. Think of a school or classes for +training men and women to carry themselves serenely amid all the trials +that beset them!" + + "Joy is the mainspring in the whole + Of endless Nature's calm rotation. + Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll + In the great timepiece of Creation." + SCHILLER. + + THE "DON'T WORRY" SOCIETY + +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." + + A PLEASURE BOOK. + +"She is an aged woman, but her face is serene and peaceful, though +trouble has not passed her by. She seems utterly above the little +worries and vexations which torment the average woman and leave lines of +care. The Fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her happiness; +and the beautiful old face shone with joy. + +"'My dear,' she said, 'I keep a Pleasure Book.' + +"'A what?' + +"'A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there is no day so dark and +gloomy that it does not contain some ray of light, and I have made it +one business of my life to write down the little things which mean so +much to a woman. I have a book marked for every day of every year since +I left school. It is but a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a +friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in +the field, a letter, a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into my +Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I read a few pages to +see what a happy, blessed woman I am. You may see my treasures if you +will.' + +"Slowly the peevish, discontented woman turned over the book her friend +brought her, reading a little here and there. One day's entries ran +thus: 'Had a pleasant letter from mother. Saw a beautiful lily in a +window. Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw such a bright, happy +girl on the street. Husband brought some roses in the evening.' + +"Bits of verse and lines from her daily reading have gone into the +Pleasure Book of this world-wise woman, until its pages are a storehouse +of truth and beauty.[1] + +"'Have you found a pleasure for every day?' the Fretful Woman asked. + +"'For every day,' the low voice answered; 'I had to make my theory come +true, you know.'" + +The Fretful Woman ought to have stopped there, but did not; and she +found that page where it was written--"He died with his hand in mine, +and my name upon his lips." Below were the lines from Lowell:-- + + "Lone watcher on the mountain height: + It is right precious to behold + The first long surf of climbing light + Flood all the thirsty eat with gold; + + "Yet God deems not thine aeried sight + More worthy than our twilight dim, + For meek obedience, too, is light, + And following that is finding Him." + +In one of the battles of the Crimea, a cannon-ball struck inside the +fort, crashing through a beautiful garden; but from the ugly chasm there +burst forth a spring of water which is still flowing. And how beautiful +it is, if our strange earthly sorrows become a blessing to others, +through our determination to live and to do for those who need our help. +Life is not given for mourning, but for unselfish service. + +"Cheerfulness," says Ruskin, "is as natural to the heart of a man in +strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual +gloom there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe +labor, or erring habits of life." It is an erring habit of life if we +are not first of all cheerful. We are thrown into a morbid habit through +circumstances utterly beyond our control, yet this fact does not change +our duty toward God and toward man,--our duty to be cheerful. We are +human; but it is our high privilege to lead a divine life, to accept the +joy which our Lord bequeathed to his disciples. + +Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man's habits are well +set, about all he can do is to sit by and observe which way he is going. +Regret it as he may, how helpless is a weak man, bound by the mighty +cable of habit; twisted from tiny threads which he thought were +absolutely within his control. Yet a habit of happy thought would +transform his life into harmony and beauty. Is not the will almost +omnipotent to determine habits before they become all-powerful? What +contributes more to health or happiness than a vigorous will? A habit of +directing a firm and steady will upon those things which tend to produce +harmony of thought will bring happiness and contentment; the will, +rightly drilled,--and divinely guided,--can drive out all discordant +thoughts, and usher in the reign of perpetual harmony. It is impossible +to overestimate the importance of forming a habit of cheerfulness early +in life. The serene optimist is one whose mind has dwelt so long upon +the sunny side of life that he has acquired a habit of cheerfulness. + + "Talk happiness. The world is sad enough + Without your woes. No path is wholly rough; + Look for the places that are smooth and clear, + And speak of those who rest the weary ear + Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain + Of human discontent and grief and pain. + + "Talk faith. The world is better off without + Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt. + If you have faith in God, or man, or self, + Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf + Of silence all your thoughts till faith shall come; + No one will grieve because your lips are dumb. + + "Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale + Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. + You cannot charm, or interest, or please, + By harping on that minor chord, disease. + Say you are well, or all is well with you. + And God shall hear your words and make them true."[2] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] For this Pleasure-Book illustration I am indebted to "The Woman's +Home Companion." + +[2] The three metrical pieces cited in this chapter are by ELLA WHEELER +WILCOX, who has gladdened the world by so much literary sunlight. + + + + +VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN. + + +"There's the dearest little old gentleman," says James Buckham, "who +goes into town every morning on the 8.30 train. I don't know his name, +and yet I know him better than anybody else in town. He just radiates +cheerfulness as far as you can see him. There is always a smile on his +face, and I never heard him open his mouth except to say something kind, +courteous, or good natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and +he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint of presumption +or familiarity. If the weather is fine, his jolly compliments make it +seem finer; and if it is raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it +is as good as a rainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 train knows +the sunshine-man; it's his train. You just hurry up a little, and I'll +show you the sunshine-man this morning. It's foggy and cold, but if one +look at him doesn't cheer you up so that you'll want to whistle, then +I'm no judge of human nature." + +"Good morning, sir!" said Mr. Jolliboy in going to the same train. + +"Why, sir, I don't know you," replied Mr. Neversmile. + +"I didn't say you did, sir. Good morning, sir!" + +"The inborn geniality of some people," says Whipple, "amounts to +genius." "How in our troubled lives," asks J. Freeman Clarke, "could we +do without these fair, sunny natures, into which on their creation-day +God allowed nothing sour, acrid, or bitter to enter, but made them a +perpetual solace and comfort by their cheerfulness?" There are those +whose very presence carries sunshine with them wherever they go; a +sunshine which means pity for the poor, sympathy for the suffering, help +for the unfortunate, and benignity toward all. Everybody loves the sunny +soul. His very face is a passport anywhere. All doors fly open to him. +He disarms prejudice and envy, for he bears good will to everybody. He +is as welcome in every household as the sunshine. + +"He was quiet, cheerful, genial," says Carlyle in his "Reminiscences" +concerning Edward Irving's sunny helpfulness. "His soul unruffled, clear +as a mirror, honestly loving and loved, Irving's voice was to me one of +blessedness and new hope." + +And to William Wilberforce the poet Southey paid this tribute: "I never +saw any other man who seemed to enjoy such perpetual serenity and +sunshine of spirit." + +"I resolved," said Tom Hood, "that, like the sun, so long as my day +lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything." + +When Goldsmith was in Flanders he discovered the happiest man he had +ever seen. At his toil, from morning till night, he was full of song and +laughter. Yet this sunny-hearted being was a slave, maimed, deformed, +and wearing a chain. How well he illustrated that saying which bids us, +if there is no bright side, to polish up the dark one! "Mirth is like +the flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and +glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the soul, +filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity." It is cheerfulness +that has the staying quality, like the sunshine changing a world of +gloom into a paradise of beauty. + +The first prize at a flower-show was taken by a pale, sickly little +girl, who lived in a close, dark court in the east of London. The judges +asked how she could grow it in such a dingy and sunless place. She +replied that a little ray of sunlight came into the court; as soon as it +appeared in the morning, she put her flower beneath it, and, as it +moved, moved the flower, so that she kept it in the sunlight all day. + +"Water, air, and sunshine, the three greatest hygienic agents, are free, +and within the reach of all." "Twelve years ago," says Walt Whitman, "I +came to Camden to die. But every day I went into the country, and bathed +in the sunshine, lived with the birds and squirrels, and played in the +water with the fishes. I received my health from Nature." + +"It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick," said +Florence Nightingale, "that second only to their need of fresh air, is +their need of light; that, after a close room, what most hurts them is a +dark room; and that it is not only light, but direct sunshine they +want." + +"Sunlight," says Dr. L. W. Curtis, in "Health Culture," "has much to do +in keeping air in a healthy condition. No plant can grow in the dark, +neither can man remain healthy in a dark, ill-ventilated room. When the +first asylum for the blind was erected in Massachusetts, the committee +decided to save expense by not having any windows. They reasoned that, +as the patients could not see, there was no need of any light. It was +built without windows, but ventilation was well provided for, and the +poor sightless patients were domiciled in the house. But things did not +go well: one after another began to sicken, and great languor fell upon +them; they felt distressed and restless, craving something, they hardly +knew what. After two had died and all were ill, the committee decided to +have windows. The sunlight poured in, and the white faces recovered +their color; their flagging energies and depressed spirits revived, and +health was restored." + +The sun, making all living things to grow, exerts its happiest influence +in cheering the mind of man and making his heart glad, and if a man has +sunshine in his soul he will go on his way rejoicing; content to look +forward if under a cloud, not bating one jot of heart or hope if for a +moment cast down; honoring his occupation, whatever it be; rendering +even rags respectable by the way he wears them; and not only happy +himself, but giving happiness to others. + +How a man's face shines when illuminated by a great moral motive! and +his manner, too, is touched with the grace of light. + +"Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches," said Emerson, +"and to make knowledge valuable you must have the cheerfulness of +wisdom." + +"Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness," said Carlyle; "altogether +past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently +useful must be uniformly joyous,--a spirit all sunshine, graceful from +very gladness, beautiful because bright." + +"The cheerful man carries with him perpetually, in his presence and +personality, an influence that acts upon others as summer warmth on the +fields and forests. It wakes up and calls out the best that is in them. +It makes them stronger, braver, and happier. Such a man makes a little +spot of this world a lighter, brighter, warmer place for other people to +live in. To meet him in the morning is to get inspiration which makes +all the day's struggles and tasks easier. His hearty handshake puts a +thrill of new vigor into your veins. After talking with him for a few +minutes, you feel an exhilaration of spirits, a quickening of energy, a +renewal of zest and interest in living, and are ready for any duty or +service." + +"Great hearts there are among men," says Hillis, of Plymouth pulpit; +"they carry a volume of manhood; their presence is sunshine; their +coming changes our climate; they oil the bearings of life; their shadow +always falls behind them; they make right living easy. Blessed are the +happiness-makers: they represent the best forces in civilization!" + +If refined manners reprove us a little for ill-timed laughter, a smiling +face kindled by a smiling heart is always in order. Who can ever forget +Emerson's smile? It was a perpetual benediction upon all who knew him. A +smile is said to be to the human countenance what sunshine is to the +landscape. Or a smile is called the rainbow of the face. + +"This is a dark world to many people," says a suggestive modern writer, +"a world of chills, a world of fogs, a world of wet blankets. +Nine-tenths of the men we meet need encouragement. Your work is so +urgent that you have no time to stop and speak to the people, but every +day you meet scores, perhaps hundreds and thousands of persons, upon +whom you might have direct and immediate influence. 'How? How?' you +cry out. We answer: By the grace of physiognomy. There is nothing more +catching than a face with a lantern behind it, shining clear through. We +have no admiration for a face with a dry smile, meaning no more than the +grin of a false face. But a smile written by the hand of God, as an +index finger or table of contents, to whole volumes of good feeling +within, is a benediction. You say: 'My face is hard and lacking in +mobility, and my benignant feelings are not observable in the facial +proportions.' We do not believe you. Freshness and geniality of the soul +are so subtle and pervading that they will, at some eye or mouth corner, +leak out. Set behind your face a feeling of gratitude to God and +kindliness toward man, and you will every day preach a sermon long as +the streets you walk, a sermon with as many heads as the number of +people you meet, and differing from other sermons in the fact that the +longer it is the better. The reason that there are so many sour faces, +so many frowning faces, so many dull faces, is because men consent to be +acrid and petulant, and stupid. The way to improve your face is to +improve your disposition. Attractiveness of physiognomy does not depend +on regularity of features. We know persons whose brows are shaggy, eyes +oblique, noses ominously longitudinal, and mouths straggling along in +unusual and unexpected directions; and yet they are men and women of so +much soul that we love to look upon them, and their faces are sweet +evangels." + +It was N. P. Willis, I think, who added to the beatitudes--"Blessed are +the joy-makers." "And this is why all the world loves little children, +who are always ready to have 'a sunshine party,'--little children +bubbling over with fun, as a bobolink with song. + +"How well we remember it all!--the long gone years of our own childhood, +and the households of joyous children we have known in later years. +Joy-makers are the children still,--some of them in unending scenes of +light. I saw but yesterday this epitaph at Mount Auburn,--'She was so +pleasant': sunny-hearted in life, and now alive forever more in light +supernal. + +"How can we then but rejoice with joy unspeakable, as the children of +immortality; living habitually above the gloom and damps of earth, and +leading lives of ministration; bestowing everywhere sweetness and +light,--radiating upon the earth something of the beauty of the unseen +world." + +What is a sunny temper but "a talisman more powerful than wealth, more +precious than rubies"? What is it but "an aroma whose fragrance fills +the air with the odors of Paradise"? + +"I am so full of happiness," said a little child, "that I could not be +any happier unless I could grow." And she bade "Good morning" to her +sweet singing bird, and "Good morning" to the sun; then she asked her +mother's permission, and softly, reverently, gladly bade "Good morning +to God,"--and why should she not? + +Was it not Goethe who represented a journey that followed the sunshine +round the world, forever bathed in light? And Longfellow sang: + + "'T is always morning somewhere; and above + The awakening continents, from shore to shore, + Somewhere the birds are singing evermore." + + "The darkness past, we mount the radiant skies, + And changeless day is ours; we hear the songs + Of higher spheres, the light divine our eyes + Behold and sunlight robes of countless throngs + Who dwell in light; we seek, with joyous quest, + God's service sweet to wipe all tears away, + And list we every hour, with eager zest, + For high command to toils that God has blest: + So fill we full our endless sunshine day." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cheerfulness as a Life Power, by +Orison Swett Marden + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER *** + +***** This file should be named 18394.txt or 18394.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/3/9/18394/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/18394.zip b/18394.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..572cb39 --- /dev/null +++ b/18394.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3c2033 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #18394 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18394) |