Cheerfulness bears the same friendly regard to the mind as to the body. It banishes all anxious care and discontent, soothes and composes the passions, and keeps the soul in a perpetual calm. Try for a single day to keep yourself in an easy and cheerful frame of mind; and then compare the day with one which has been marred by discontent, and you will find your heart open to every good motive, and your life so greatly strengthened, that you will wonder at your own improvement, and will feel that you are more than repaid for the effort.
Goethe once said, "Give me the man who bears a heavy load lightly, and looks on a grave matter with a blithe and cheerful eye." And Carlyle has pointed out that "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 power of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous—a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."
This spirit of cheerfulness should be encouraged in our youth if we would wish to have the benefit of it in our old age. Persons who are always innocently cheerful and good-humored are very useful in the world; they maintain peace and happiness, and spread a thankful temper among all who live around them.
"A little word in kindness spoken
A motion or a tear,
Has often healed a heart that's broken,
And made a friend sincere."
Cheerfulness does not depend upon the measure of our possessions. There is a Persian story to the effect that the great king, being out of spirits, consulted his astrologers, and was told that happiness could be found by wearing the shirt of a perfectly happy man. The court, and the homes of all the prosperous classes were searched in vain; no such man could be found. At last a common laborer was found to fulfill the conditions; he was absolutely happy; but, alas! the remedy was as far off as ever, for the man had no shirt.
The same truth may be illustrated by a reference to the life and character of the Roman emperor, Nero. Few persons ever had greater means and opportunities for self-gratification. From the senator to the slave, everybody in the empire crouched in servile subjection before his throne. Enormous revenues from the provinces were poured into his coffers, and no one dared criticise his manner of spending them. He was absolute monarch, holding the destinies of millions at his will. He came to the throne at seventeen; and during the fifteen years of his reign he exhausted every known means of passionate indulgence. He left nothing untried or untouched that could stimulate the palate, or arouse his passions, or administer in any way to his pleasure. After the great fire in Rome, he built his golden palace, and said, "Now at last I am lodged like a man"; but alas! his search for happiness was in vain. During his later years he never knew a really cheerful day; and, at last, he was forced to flee before his outraged people, and took refuge in a miserable hut, trembling like a base coward, where, at his own request, a slave did him the favor to end his miserable life.
In one of his famous essays, Addison says, "I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity."
Cheerfulness and good spirits depend in a great degree upon bodily causes; but much may be done for the promotion of this frame of mind. "Persons subject to low spirits should make the room in which they live as cheerful as possible; hanging up pictures or prints, and filling the odd nooks and corners with beautiful ornaments. A bay window looking upon pleasant objects, and, above all, a large fire whenever the weather will permit, are favorable to good spirits, and the tables near should be strewed with books and pamphlets." "To this," says Sydney Smith, "must be added as much eating and drinking as is consistent with health; and some manual employment for men—as gardening, a carpenter's shop, or a turning-lathe. Women have always manual employment enough, and it is a great source of cheerfulness." For children, fresh air, occupation, and outdoor sports are great helps in overcoming depression and gloom.
SYDNEY SMITH.
There are a few noble natures 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 kindness toward all. It is the sunshine, and not the cloud, that colors the flower. There is more virtue in one sunbeam than in a whole hemisphere of cloud and gloom.