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."
"You are on the shady side of seventy, I expect?" was asked of an old man. "No," was the reply, "I am on the sunny side; for I am on the side nearest to glory."
A cheerful man is pre-eminently a useful man. He does not cramp his mind, nor take half-views of men and things. He knows that there is much misery, but that misery need not be the rule of life. He sees that in every state people may be cheerful; the lambs skip, birds sing and fly joyously, puppies play, kittens are full of joyance, the whole air full of careering and rejoicing insects; that everywhere the good outbalances the bad, and that every evil has its compensating balm.
"Bishop Fénelon is a delicious man," said Lord Peterborough; "I had to run away from him to prevent his making me a Christian."
Hume, the historian, never said anything truer than—"To be happy, the person must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty."
Dr. Johnson once remarked with his point and pith that the custom of looking on the bright side of every event was better than having a thousand pounds a year income. But Hume rated the value in dollars and cents of cheerfulness still higher. He said he would rather have a cheerful disposition always inclined to look on the bright side of things than to be master of an estate with 10,000 pounds a year.
"We have not fulfilled every duty, unless we have fulfilled that of being pleasant."
"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."
The sensible young man, in theory at least, chooses for his wife one who will be able to keep his house, to be the mother of sturdy children, one who will of all things meet life's experiences with a sweet temper. It is impossible to imagine a pleasant home with a cross wife, mother or sister, as its presiding genius. And it is a rule, with exceptions, that good appetite and sound sleep induce amiability. If, with these advantages, a girl or woman, boy or man, is still snappish or surly, why it must be due to her or his total depravity.
Some things she should not do; she shouldn't dose herself, or study up her case, or plunge suddenly into vigorous exercise. Moderation is a safe rule to begin with, and, indeed, to keep on with—moderation in study, in work, in exercise, in everything except fresh air, good, simple food, and sleep. Few people have too much of these. The average girl at home can find no more sanitary gymnastics than in doing part of the lighter housework. This sort of exercise has object, and interest, and use, which raises it above mere drill. Add to this a merry romp with younger brothers and sisters, a brisk daily walk, the use for a few moments twice a day of dumb bells in a cool, airy room, and it is safe to predict a steady advance toward that ideal state of being in which we forget our bodies and just enjoy ourselves.