| | | | | <"Essays on Social Subjects"> | | CHEERFULNESS is universally acknowledged as a duty, and as such is | affected by us all. We are glad, and find pleasure, a dozen times | a-day, and do no more than is expected of us ~~ in fact, should | pass for morose fellows if we did not smile at the accost of | every acquaintance: and if we can superadd an air of brisk | self-gratulation at the good fortune of the encounter, so much the | better. If, then, we have all to seem cheerful, a few speculations | on different kinds of cheerfulness, what is the best sort, and | how we may invest ourselves with it, cannot come amiss. The | ideal cheerful man is, indeed, a general benefactor. He is a moral | tonic to everyone about him. | For cheerfulness is a genial | strength; it can carry weights and support the weak. At its | greatest, it is a form of magnanimity. It is not ignoring the | troubles of life, not turning the back upon them, but owning | them, meeting them, and rising above them. And it teaches | others to do the same. It is a happy union of fine qualities ~~ | of an | | unruffled temper, a clear judgment, and well-proportioned | faculties. It is the expression of an inward harmony. However, if | we are to have much cheerfulness, it cannot all be of this | superfine quality; and, looking among our acquaintance, the | readiest examples are not of the heroic standard; though even | this is not so rare but that we believe every man's experience has, | at some time or other, come in happy contact with it. Only | cheerfulness in this nobler sense can hardly be spontaneous, this | is not compatible with human infirmity; it may look so, but the | man himself is conscious of effort, and has his moments of | reaction. We know this by the rules for cheerfulness laid down | by persons who have been distinguished for this virtue in | conjunction with great powers of mind ~~ rules and precepts which | all show consciousness of melancholy as an enemy at our very | doors. Great powers, as far as we can judge, are not friendly to | this habit of mind. Poets, philosophers, deep thinkers, even wits, | are not often cheerful men for themselves. All by turns have a | touch of poor Bunyan's experience, | ~~ but this only because these | powers are not well balanced; for where there is excess there is | too commonly defect somewhere. There is something pathetic in | the broad difference that constantly exists between the cheerful | man and the cheerful companion. Even Falstaff is a different | man in soliloquy; and many of those most | | noted for their powers of raising others' spirits have been | habitually hipped and sad in their solitary hours. Sydney Smith | is a contrary instance. He did not affect solitude, it is true, but | he describes his spirits as perennial, and those who lived with | him never saw him depressed, or other than the stay and | freshener of the household existence. But even he had his rule | ~~ namely, to

" take short views of life,"

to hold by | the present in all that is good in it, to refuse to look forward to a | possible change to worse, however imminent that worse may | appear; ~~ all things more easily said than done, and not always | wise if they could be done. It may, however, be because women | are more constantly occupied with the immediate present, | because their employments are more connected with the time | being than with building up a future either of fame or prosperity, | as well as because there is in the feminine organisation a more | even balance of powers, that our readiest examples of | cheerfulness are, we think, women. The girl cheers up home | more than the boy, the old maid is unquestionably more | cheerful than the old bachelor; and if we would raise up the | image, the very poetry, of cheerfulness, we recall some fair | matron, the presiding genius of the hearth, bright-eyed, | persuasive, who can | | Every form of this quality, whether in a man's self or for his | fellows, should be infectious; the spring of | | content should scatter drops of refreshing, and make us gay too | for more than the moment. All cheerfulness, even to be | attractive, ought to do us good, and not to be a mere attribute of | the man. But all does not do us this good turn. There is not, for | example, a more offensive fellow than one who insists on being | jolly, totally irrespective of our mood. A good deal of | cheerfulness is on the Miller-of-Dee principle, and consists in not | caring. So long as we do not find this out, it is all very well; but | the disenchantment is complete when circumstances disclose, | under the jaunty, easy hilarity, a hard indifference and positive | incapacity for sympathy. Such cheerfulness can only be | sustained by selfishness reduced to a system; and there is no | greater discouragement, when things are going wrong with us, | than to fall in with people who affect

"pity in their smiles | of comfort"

and yet smile on. We must not be hard on | merely constitutional cheerfulness. It sometimes seems as if | these social butterflies, these summer friends, had a place in | our economy, but at best it is only to add to our mirth or to | distract us momentarily from our trouble, not really to alleviate | it. There is a form of cheerfulness which nobody can stand: ~~ | | | perhaps because it is impossible the smiles should be real, but | rather, we incline to think, because smiles should be rare things, | and cheerfulness that is always parading itself in smiles is of the | wrong sort. People | | ostentatiously and notoriously cheerful are at best foolish | people, their spirits of a brisk but thin quality ~~ nothing about | them in good working order. The tiling we respect and admire | shows itself most unmistakably in its quiet moments ~~ the soul | looking out through the eyes. Anybody can smile; but to look | bright, with the muscles all at rest, betokens a habit of seeing | things at their best, and making the best of them. | Those in whose way it falls to hear of the characteristics of | modern ascetisms are constantly informed of the exceeding | cheerfulness, the almost childlike hilarity, observable in persons | who have renounced the pleasures of the world, abandoned | every natural tie, and made themselves desolate for religion's | sake. Whenever a knot of converts get together, we hear of | much laughter and boyish ebullitions of animal spirits. | No-one | visits a nunnery but, if the rule admit of his seeing a nun at all, | he comes back charmed by her smiles. No young lady falls in | with a Sister but she is struck, not by her resigned expression, | that

"leaden eye that loves the ground,"

but by her | cheerfulness. Perhaps serenity is not enough; the fair ascetic is | positively merry, and laughs with a silvery laugh. Nuns in the | hour of recreation are often described as children over again. | Some persons regard this conventual hilarity as a strong | sanction for this mode of life ~~ as, in fact, a miraculous reward | for utter self-renunciation. For our part, whatever reflection we | may incur by the avowal, we never hear of these ineffable. | | good spirits without irritation. What right have these people to | be so very happy? why should they have lighter hearts than | anybody else? whence this shimmer of smiles? What | satisfactory connection is there between seclusion and | separation and this exuberant joyousness? We even ask, If these | people who have turned their backs on us laugh while we take | life as a very grave affair, are we necessarily in fault? must the | contrast be owing to our worldliness? What is it that makes men | whose lot it is to live in the world often heavy and depressed? | what is it that gives the sense of weight? Not, we think, satiety | of pleasure, as some are pleased to assume, but the burdens of | life pressing on shoulders not strong enough or properly | disciplined, it may be, to bear them lightly. If the celibate or the | nun is merry when we are sad and lumpish, it may of course be | the sunshine of a pure conscience breaking out into smiles; but | may it not also be because they are free from the anxieties which | oppress us, and which they have taken violent means to be rid | of? There is a certain class of worries inseparable from the | exercise of the affections, and which cannot exist where the | natural affections are suppressed and superseded. We are not | wishing to exchange our burden for theirs. Their existence | would be an intolerable vacuity and restraint to us; we lack, it | may be, their contemplative faculty. But nevertheless they have | shaken themselves loose from the natural trials that beset us, | that compose our countenance into grave lines, hinder our | smiles from being as frequent | | or as beaming as they might be, and make fresh careless hilarity | a thing of memory, with which we can never again expect to | have anything to do. For, in truth, the most fortunate existence | has cares enough to make gravity our normal condition. The way | to be-a child again is, it seems, to throw them all over, though it | be to assume more onerous tasks, if only these do not pull at the | heart-strings. We are not saying that life is not pleasant. If it is | an

"anxious"

being, the most constitutionally | melancholy of poets calls it

"pleasing"

and

| "cheerful"

too. Grave as we are, we are probably happier | than we look; while, on the other hand, we have not much faith | in the hilarity we are now speaking of. It is compatible, we know, | with long flats of dreariness and misgiving. If it be not also | compatible with a latent yearning for | we are greatly mistaken. The | happiness of mature life does not show itself in marked, fussy | expression; it may lurk even under some outward evidence of | harassment. It is only the outside part of many a poor recluse | that is merry while she laughs like a child, and finds her | amusement and refreshment of spirit in childish things which | have nothing in them for the woman to relish. But all the same | we say that, if she would have been sad at her own old home ~~ | sad for the brother that has gone astray, for the sister drooping in | premature decay, for the mother fretted into ill-temper by her | trials ~~ and is now merry, having separated herself by one | strong act from the tyranny of these carking cares, we | | see no particular reason to reverence her jollity, though we do not | grudge it her. We will say also that, whatever she gains, she is | losing one most important point of training ~~ the sorrows and | pains of the affections. She may serve the outer world, the poor, | and the stranger, with an energy of self-sacrifice; but she cannot | love with quaking nerves and throbbing pulses any but the | heart's natural belongings. And this fact will be written in the | smiles of which so much account is made, which, however | beautiful in themselves, do not cheer our spirits, for the very | reason that there is, and can be, no sympathy and fellowship in | them. But we have digressed, not only into gravity, but into | polemics. | We sometimes think that mankind must at one time have been | endowed with a more robust cheerfulness than our civilisation | can boast, to carry them through the trials to which they were | exposed in lawless times. History is such a succession of | miseries, tyrannies, cruelties, and wrongs, that how people | stood it and lived out their days is sometimes a marvel. But | something constantly lets out that life under these conditions was | vigorous ~~ that people caught, with an alacrity foreign to us, | the pleasures within their reach. Even where torture and | hideous forms of death curdle the modern reader's blood, there | are continually indications, if we look for them, of a somewhat | jovial society in the thick of these horrors, and that not only | among the victimisers. In Mr Motley's book on the Netherlands, | what a wild cheerfulness characterises all | | the actors principally and most fatally concerned! Spirits may | be crushed in the end, but while there is hope, excitement will | always engender cheerfulness; just as soldiers are cheerful; and | probably both from the same necessity of

"taking short | views of life,"

while the present is occupied by stirring | events. | We may be a little over-educated for this frank, careless form of | cheerfulness. Ours must be in some degree the result of rule and | self-discipline, yet still the first qualification, the indispensable | ally, must be courage. There can be no cheerfulness without it. | We must have no bugbears, no frightful fiends in our rear | which we dare not turn upon. The cheerful man must be able to | look everything in the face ~~ take it in, in its just proportions, | but not dwell upon it. Such remedies as occur to him he applies | with promptness, but he broods upon nothing. Hence | cheerfulness is most rare and difficult to an active imagination, | unless this is allied to the most sanguine temperament. It is all | very well to tell some people not to dwell on things, not to look | forward, not to devise terrors; they cannot help themselves. We | perceive, therefore, that the cheerful man must be a busy one ~~ | not a drudge, but always with something in hand to engage and | arrest the attention, and impart interest to the present. We do | not much believe in that form of it which is fed by illusions. | Charles Lamb describes a man who keeps himself and his | household in supreme spirits by calling everything by wrong | names ~~ asking, for example, for the silver sugar-tongs when | the thing indicated, | | and under the very nose of both host and guest,

"was but a | spoon, and that plated."

Real, lasting cheerfulness throws its | own hue upon things, but it sees them in exact shape and proportion. | It also is one of its secrets to esteem everything the more for the | fact of possession. All the cheerful people we know think the | better of a thing for being their own; disparagement is altogether | alien to this temper, unless of things obviously beyond reach. | Cheerful people, again, have few secrets, and no willing ones; | they do not hug mysteries, and, in fact, have a way of scattering | them ~~ perhaps for the reason that in its nature cheerfulness is | akin to daylight, and while other humours shut up men

| "each in the cave of his own complexion,"

this brings him | into the sunshine. We can see all round him and into him as | well, and he is not only illuminated, but in his turn an | illumination; so that it is wonderful what a change in morbid | states of feeling and general misunderstandings the sudden | presence of a cheerful spirit will bring about.