3. No person can be happy without friends. The heart is formed for love, and cannot be happy without the opportunity of giving and receiving affection.
4. But you cannot receive affection, unless you will also give it. You cannot find others to love you, unless you will also love them. Love is only to be obtained by giving love in return. Hence the importance of cultivating a cheerful and obliging disposition. You cannot be happy without it.
5. I have sometimes heard a girl say, "I know that I am very unpopular at school." Now, this is a plain confession that she is very disobliging and unamiable in her disposition.
6. If your companions do not love you, it is your own fault. They cannot help loving you, if you will be kind and friendly. If you are not loved, it is a good evidence that you do not deserve to be loved. It is true, that a sense of duty may, at times, render it necessary for you to do that which will be displeasing to your companions.
7. But, if it is seen that you have a noble spirit, that you are above selfishness, that you are willing to make sacrifices of your own personal convenience to promote the happiness of your associates, you will never be in want of friends.
8. You must not regard it as your misfortune that others do not love you, but your fault. It is not beauty, it is not wealth, that will give you friends. Your heart must glow with kindness, if you would attract to yourself the esteem and affection of those by whom you are surrounded.
9. You are little aware how much the happiness of your whole life depends upon the cultivation of an affectionate and obliging disposition. If you will adopt the resolution that you will confer favors whenever you have an opportunity, you will certainly be surrounded by ardent friends.
10. Begin upon this principle in childhood, and act upon it through life, and you will make yourself happy, and promote the happiness of all within your influence.
11. You go to school on a cold winter morning. A bright fire is blazing upon the hearth, surrounded with boys struggling to get near it to warm themselves. After you get slightly warmed, another school-mate comes in, suffering with cold. "Here, James," you pleasantly call out to him, "I am almost warm; you may have my place."
12. As you slip aside to allow him to take your place at the fire, will he not feel that you are kind? The worst dispositioned boy in the world cannot help admiring such generosity.