IV.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

WORDSWORTH

Cheerfulness.

1.  A cheerful man is pre-eminently a useful man.  He knows that there is much misery, but that misery is not 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 joy, the whole air is full of careering and rejoicing insects—­ that everywhere the good outbalances the bad, and that every evil that there is has its compensating balm.

2.  Then the brave man, as our German cousins say, possesses the world, whereas the melancholy man does not even possess his share of it.

Exercise, or continued employment of some kind, will make a man cheerful; but sitting at home, brooding and thinking, or doing little, will bring gloom.  The reaction of this feeling is wonderful.  It arises from a sense of duty done, and it also enables us to do our duty.

3.  Cheerful people live long in our memory.  We remember joy more readily than sorrow, and always look back with tenderness on the brave and cheerful.

We can all cultivate our tempers, and one of the employments of some poor mortals is to cultivate, cherish, and bring to perfection, a thoroughly bad one; but we may be certain that to do so is a very grave error and sin, which, like all others, brings its own punishment; though, unfortunately, it does not punish itself only.

4.  Addison says of cheerfulness, that it lightens sickness, poverty, affliction; converts ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and renders deformity itself agreeable; and he says no more than the truth.

5.  “Give us, therefore, oh! give us”—­let us cry with Carlyle—­ “the man who sings at his work!  He will do more in the same time, —­he will do it better,—­he will persevere longer.  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.

6.  “Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance.  Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous,—­a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.”

7.  Such a spirit is within everybody’s reach.  Let us but get out into the light of things.  The morbid man cries out that there is always enough wrong in the world to make a man miserable.  Conceded; but wrong is ever being righted; there is always enough that is good and right to make us joyful.

8.  There is ever sunshine somewhere; and the brave man 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 may be; rendering even rags respectable by the way he wears them; and not only being happy himself, but causing the happiness of others.