A bas Polyanna!
Wherein the Jumbler finds the Cheeruptimistic Lore a bore.
I hate the Pollyanna cult! Cheeruptimistic lore, that now confronts at every turn, long since became a bore. In daily press, in magazines, in every thing I read, the sugar-coated life's prescribed as man's most urgent need. 'Tis O be joyful, grin and smile, let tears be left unshed; just purr and sing the whole day long, then pass it on ahead! If grandma dies or cook takes leave or father breaks a leg, be glad, be glad; and if you're broke, why, whistle as you beg! Now I, for one, refuse to live a grinning Cheshire cat. I'm just as human, mad as glad—a fool can tell you that. All sunshine makes a desert waste, and honey-words soon pall; because someone's in harder luck can't make me glad at all. A man has special muscles just to corrugate his brow; the Lord knew when he fashioned them that they'd be used, and how. I want my friends without veneer, straightforward as can be; and I will grant them outlet for innate depravity. Why bluff and play that grief's not real? Why blush to shed a tear? A temper may be lost and found, with Paradise still near. No need to gloom or grouch or fret, no need to howl or whine; but may the right to voice a grief or own a pain be mine.
