SMILES
Smile! Never let your face look like a funeral; look like a search warrant. The bud that cannot blossom dries up in the stock. Smile, if you have to force it.
When your voice sounds like a benediction, when your face looks like an old lemon, folks are sure to sidestep you.
What you give out you are reasonably sure to take in.
Look for a fight and someone will put a black circle round your left eye.
Remember this: The face is more legible than an open book. You can read the face at a distance and get it all at a glance. The book compels you to thumb the leaves.
Smile, you son-of-a-gun, smile!
If I Knew
If I knew the box where the smiles are kept,
No matter how large the key,
Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard
'Twould open, I know, for me.
Then over the land and sea, broadcast,
I'd scatter the smiles to play,
That the children's faces might hold them fast
For many and many a day.
If I knew a box that was large enough
To hold all the frowns I meet,
I would like to gather them, every one,
From nursery, school and street.
Then, folding and holding, I'd pack them in,
And, turning the monster key,
I'd hire a giant to drop the box
To the depths of the deep, deep sea.
"Can you tell me what a smile is?" asked a gentleman of a little girl.
"Yes, sir; it's the whisper of a laugh."