Cheerfulness as a Life Power Part 7

was organized not long ago in New York; it is, however, just as well suited to other lat.i.tudes and longitudes. It is intended for people who "cannot help worrying."

If really you can't help it, you are in an abnormal condition, you have lost self-control,--it is a mild type of mental derangement. You must attack your bad habit of worrying as you would a disease. It is definitely something to be overcome, an infirmity that you are to get rid of.

"Be good and you will be happy," is a very old piece of advice. Mrs.

Mary A. Livermore now proposes to reverse it,--"Be happy and you will be good." If unhappiness is a bad habit, you are to turn about by sheer force of will and practice cheerfulness. "Happiness is a thing to be practiced like a violin."

Not work, but worry, fretfulness, friction,--these are our foes in America. You should not go here and there, making prominent either your bad manners or a gloomy face. Who has a right to rob other people of their happiness? "Do not," says Emerson, "hang a dismal picture on your wall; and do not deal with sables and glooms in your conversation."

If you are not at the moment cheerful,--look, speak, act, as if you were. "You know I had no money, I had nothing to give but myself," said a woman who had great sorrows to bear, but who bore them cheerfully. "I formed a resolution never to sadden any one else with my troubles. I have laughed and told jokes when I could have wept. I have always smiled in the face of every misfortune. I have tried never to let any one go from my presence without a happy word or a bright thought to carry away.

And happiness makes happiness. I myself am happier than I should have been had I sat down and bemoaned my fate."

"'T is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song; But the man worth while is the one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong; For the test of the heart is trouble, And it always comes with the years; And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth Is the smile that comes through tears."

A PLEASURE BOOK.

"She is an aged woman, but her face is serene and peaceful, though trouble has not pa.s.sed her by. She seems utterly above the little worries and vexations which torment the average woman and leave lines of care. The Fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her happiness; and the beautiful old face shone with joy.

"'My dear,' she said, 'I keep a Pleasure Book.'

"'A what?'

"'A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there is no day so dark and gloomy that it does not contain some ray of light, and I have made it one business of my life to write down the little things which mean so much to a woman. I have a book marked for every day of every year since I left school. It is but a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in the field, a letter, a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into my Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I read a few pages to see what a happy, blessed woman I am. You may see my treasures if you will.'

"Slowly the peevish, discontented woman turned over the book her friend brought her, reading a little here and there. One day's entries ran thus: 'Had a pleasant letter from mother. Saw a beautiful lily in a window. Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw such a bright, happy girl on the street. Husband brought some roses in the evening.'

"Bits of verse and lines from her daily reading have gone into the Pleasure Book of this world-wise woman, until its pages are a storehouse of truth and beauty.[1]

"'Have you found a pleasure for every day?' the Fretful Woman asked.

"'For every day,' the low voice answered; 'I had to make my theory come true, you know.'"

The Fretful Woman ought to have stopped there, but did not; and she found that page where it was written--"He died with his hand in mine, and my name upon his lips." Below were the lines from Lowell:--

"Lone watcher on the mountain height: It is right precious to behold The first long surf of climbing light Flood all the thirsty eat with gold;

"Yet G.o.d deems not thine aeried sight More worthy than our twilight dim, For meek obedience, too, is light, And following that is finding Him."

In one of the battles of the Crimea, a cannon-ball struck inside the fort, crashing through a beautiful garden; but from the ugly chasm there burst forth a spring of water which is still flowing. And how beautiful it is, if our strange earthly sorrows become a blessing to others, through our determination to live and to do for those who need our help.

Life is not given for mourning, but for unselfish service.

"Cheerfulness," says Ruskin, "is as natural to the heart of a man in strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual gloom there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe labor, or erring habits of life." It is an erring habit of life if we are not first of all cheerful. We are thrown into a morbid habit through circ.u.mstances utterly beyond our control, yet this fact does not change our duty toward G.o.d and toward man,--our duty to be cheerful. We are human; but it is our high privilege to lead a divine life, to accept the joy which our Lord bequeathed to his disciples.

Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man's habits are well set, about all he can do is to sit by and observe which way he is going.

Regret it as he may, how helpless is a weak man, bound by the mighty cable of habit; twisted from tiny threads which he thought were absolutely within his control. Yet a habit of happy thought would transform his life into harmony and beauty. Is not the will almost omnipotent to determine habits before they become all-powerful? What contributes more to health or happiness than a vigorous will? A habit of directing a firm and steady will upon those things which tend to produce harmony of thought will bring happiness and contentment; the will, rightly drilled,--and divinely guided,--can drive out all discordant thoughts, and usher in the reign of perpetual harmony. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of forming a habit of cheerfulness early in life. The serene optimist is one whose mind has dwelt so long upon the sunny side of life that he has acquired a habit of cheerfulness.

"Talk happiness. The world is sad enough Without your woes. No path is wholly rough; Look for the places that are smooth and clear, And speak of those who rest the weary ear Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain Of human discontent and grief and pain.

"Talk faith. The world is better off without Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.

If you have faith in G.o.d, or man, or self, Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf Of silence all your thoughts till faith shall come; No one will grieve because your lips are dumb.

"Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale Of mortal maladies is worn and stale.

You cannot charm, or interest, or please, By harping on that minor chord, disease.

Say you are well, or all is well with you.

And G.o.d shall hear your words and make them true."[2]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For this Pleasure-Book ill.u.s.tration I am indebted to "The Woman's Home Companion."

[2] The three metrical pieces cited in this chapter are by ELLA WHEELER WILc.o.x, who has gladdened the world by so much literary sunlight.

VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN.

"There's the dearest little old gentleman," says James Buckham, "who goes into town every morning on the 8.30 train. I don't know his name, and yet I know him better than anybody else in town. He just radiates cheerfulness as far as you can see him. There is always a smile on his face, and I never heard him open his mouth except to say something kind, courteous, or good natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint of presumption or familiarity. If the weather is fine, his jolly compliments make it seem finer; and if it is raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it is as good as a rainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 train knows the sunshine-man; it's his train. You just hurry up a little, and I'll show you the sunshine-man this morning. It's foggy and cold, but if one look at him doesn't cheer you up so that you'll want to whistle, then I'm no judge of human nature."

"Good morning, sir!" said Mr. Jolliboy in going to the same train.

"Why, sir, I don't know you," replied Mr. Neversmile.

"I didn't say you did, sir. Good morning, sir!"

"The inborn geniality of some people," says Whipple, "amounts to genius." "How in our troubled lives," asks J. Freeman Clarke, "could we do without these fair, sunny natures, into which on their creation-day G.o.d allowed nothing sour, acrid, or bitter to enter, but made them a perpetual solace and comfort by their cheerfulness?" There are those 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 benignity toward all. Everybody loves the sunny soul. His very face is a pa.s.sport anywhere. All doors fly open to him.

He disarms prejudice and envy, for he bears good will to everybody. He is as welcome in every household as the sunshine.

"He was quiet, cheerful, genial," says Carlyle in his "Reminiscences"

concerning Edward Irving's sunny helpfulness. "His soul unruffled, clear as a mirror, honestly loving and loved, Irving's voice was to me one of blessedness and new hope."

And to William Wilberforce the poet Southey paid this tribute: "I never saw any other man who seemed to enjoy such perpetual serenity and sunshine of spirit."

"I resolved," said Tom Hood, "that, like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything."

When Goldsmith was in Flanders he discovered the happiest man he had ever seen. At his toil, from morning till night, he was full of song and laughter. Yet this sunny-hearted being was a slave, maimed, deformed, and wearing a chain. How well he ill.u.s.trated that saying which bids us, if there is no bright side, to polish up the dark one! "Mirth is like the flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the soul, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity." It is cheerfulness that has the staying quality, like the sunshine changing a world of gloom into a paradise of beauty.

The first prize at a flower-show was taken by a pale, sickly little girl, who lived in a close, dark court in the east of London. The judges asked how she could grow it in such a dingy and sunless place. She replied that a little ray of sunlight came into the court; as soon as it appeared in the morning, she put her flower beneath it, and, as it moved, moved the flower, so that she kept it in the sunlight all day.

"Water, air, and sunshine, the three greatest hygienic agents, are free, and within the reach of all." "Twelve years ago," says Walt Whitman, "I came to Camden to die. But every day I went into the country, and bathed in the sunshine, lived with the birds and squirrels, and played in the water with the fishes. I received my health from Nature."

"It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick," said Florence Nightingale, "that second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that, after a close room, what most hurts them is a dark room; and that it is not only light, but direct sunshine they want."

"Sunlight," says Dr. L. W. Curtis, in "Health Culture," "has much to do in keeping air in a healthy condition. No plant can grow in the dark, neither can man remain healthy in a dark, ill-ventilated room. When the first asylum for the blind was erected in Ma.s.sachusetts, the committee decided to save expense by not having any windows. They reasoned that, as the patients could not see, there was no need of any light. It was built without windows, but ventilation was well provided for, and the poor sightless patients were domiciled in the house. But things did not go well: one after another began to sicken, and great languor fell upon them; they felt distressed and restless, craving something, they hardly knew what. After two had died and all were ill, the committee decided to have windows. The sunlight poured in, and the white faces recovered their color; their flagging energies and depressed spirits revived, and health was restored."

The sun, making all living things to grow, exerts its happiest influence in cheering the mind of man and making his heart glad, and if a man has sunshine in his soul he will go on his way rejoicing; content to look forward if under a cloud, not bating one jot of heart or hope if for a moment cast down; honoring his occupation, whatever it be; rendering even rags respectable by the way he wears them; and not only happy himself, but giving happiness to others.

How a man's face shines when illuminated by a great moral motive! and his manner, too, is touched with the grace of light.