There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear, And the blue-bird trills in the orchard tree; The swallows are twittering ceaselessly. To multiply our interests is to multiply our joys. They, whose little world is themselves and their particular occupation, are blind to most of the beauty that surrounds them. One of the greatest gifts of God is the faculty to appreciate all the works of His beneficient Hand. To cultivate, to a certain extent at least, every taste one is endowed with, is to equip one's mind and body with a perennial source of comfort for cloudy days. George Eliot says that what we call the dulness of things is but a disease in ourselves and this is quite true for just as "all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye," so all seems uninteresting to the uncultured. I Happiness is both cause and effect. It burnishes and irradiates the most commonplace objects and these, in their turn, reflect back their brightness on the human heart. One of the secrets of being happy is, perhaps, to think pleasantly when alone. The mind insensibly affects the demeanour, and cheerfulness is infectious, coming back to the giver like bread cast on the waters. The world owes a big debt of gratitude to the uniformly cheerful man. do not mean the man who habitually wears a stereotyped smile, nor the one who is always bubbling over with animal spirits, ready in season and out of it for all manner of practical jokes. Such a person jars more often than amuses, especially at those times when one's nervous system resembles Hamlet's reason in being "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh"; he is only one degree better than the pessimist. But the man or woman we can meet without the certainty of being buttonholed to hear of a grievance, one whose outlook on life is cheery and good-humoured (one who can listen to our own grievance with patience and sympathy!), such a man is a valuable asset in the world, and does incalculable good by his example, for we know his continued gladsomeness must cost him something. Few are cheerful always by inclination, even Mark Tapley had something to suffer from, were it only climatic conditions. To see the bright side of every event is an art which needs apprenticeship, if one is not "to the manner born." And nothing teaches one this lesson so quickly as the society of another who is instinctively cheerful. His sunny view of even distressing circumstances has an appealing force that is irresistible. Of course, there are degrees of optimism. No one is so irritating as the man who is so confirmed a believer in the "whatever-is-is-right" theory that he refuses to see anything at all wrong in the world, pooh-poohs your trouble even before he is quite sure what it is, and with a platitude reduces your mountain to a molehill-in his own estimation. Such persons do not help to lighten the burdens of others; but the man who believes there is enough sorrow and gloom without his adding to it by word or act or even manner, such a man does much towards lessening it. The Omar Khayyams of the world who, seeing a sunflushed cluster of roses sway in the perfumed air, can find nothing more hopeful to say than, "The flower that once has blown for ever dies," are easily found and play a very paltry part in life's drama. How does it add to the world's sum of joy to hurl broadcast such bombs of despair as, On entre, on crie C'est la vie. On crie, on sort, C'est la mort, or "Joy is a laugh between two sobs," or this, The world, which seems To be before us like a land of dreams So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; or this Still must I on: for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam to sail Where e'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's But why multiply quotations? There is scarcely one of our great poets who has not, now and again, sung a threne of anguish, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, M. Arnold, and Byron perpetually. Even, perhaps the greatest of them all, Francis Thompson, at times dips his pen in life's gall. this Nothing begins and nothing ends Listen to But, on the whole, Francis Thompson strikes a more joyful note. No practical Catholic can be aught but an optimist. It is your Unbeliever whose life, he thinks, will go out into the darkness of annihilation, who fills the earth with jeremiads of despair. The world's singers, above all, should be apostles of joy and hope, but often they seem to prefer a dirge to a paean. This may be because they think their audience like to have "a minor in the carol," but there is such a thing as educating one's public. Moreover, were the matter put to the vote, we should probably find that the majority prefer to forget life's sorrows for a time, and, like Cinderella, dance resplendent with the Fairy Prince as if no fatal hour should strike relegating them to hodden grey and the ashes. They like to be reminded that God's in His heaven All's right with the world; that there is never a night without its morrow, never a grief without its joy, never a life without its sunshine. How much better to sound a chord of hope for the future, or single out the sweet things the past has held, as it surely has, for all of us. "Whatever is lost, it once was found," and if "The tender grace of a day that is dead Can never come back," it surely is something to be grateful for, that "the tender grace" has been onetime ours. It A little more gratitude would do away with a great deal of pessimism. It is so cheap and so easy to be woebegone, to move about in the sacrificial garb of life's victim. requires no effort, nay rather it secures to one a certain immunity from care and a scope for self-indulgenec with the added sweet of universal sympathy, sincere or forced. Souls of this calibre will drink in, with equal eagerness, sympathy 66 that has sprung pure and sparkling from the fountain-head, or that which has been delved for and laboriously brought to the surface. They take all from life with a thankless heart and contribute nothing. They revel in their grievance and dolefully refuse to be cheered up. They are usually middle-aged, for that is, par excellence, the comfort-loving period and are well aware that nothing conduces so much to a pacific, undisturbed atmosphere of luxury as some little personal cross or misfortune. The young hate sorrow and try to forget it as soon as possible. Their days are as full of sunshine as spray tossed up by summer seas." This may be too, because they are irresponsible and have no ties. No one is dependent on them for anything. They are the protected, not the protector. Parents act the part of Providence towards them and, no matter how the pendulum swings, they have their playmates and their amusements outside the family circle, and their meals and their petting within it. Therefore they let their little troubles sit lightly on them and soon, cruelly soon, they forget even the tender hand that was ever ready to minister to their wants. And it is as well. Never again will their joy be so spontaneous and unconstrained. Never again will life seem to them a huge bank ready to cash all their cheques of hope. They little dream that here no balance may be overdrawn with impunity; when it is, it is paid for with bitter tears of disillusionment. Life to them is full not merely of joyous possibilities but of certainties. The word 'failure' will have no place in their dictionary. All their ventures will be crowned with success, and "all the ships they have at sea" will "come a-sailing home," laden with precious freight. The old, too, are generally joyful, but it is not with the blithesome, happy-go-lucky joy of the young. It is rather the gratitude, tinged with patient endurance, of those who rejoice that they got even so much, that gladness did not keep altogether aloof. They have seen others much worse off than themselves and tho' they believe There's not a joy the world can give Like that it takes away, yet, they live gratefully on the memory of these past joys, sift their garnered years letting the sorrows slip out of view. They have a genial way of looking back on life's journey which is most encouraging to those setting out. Experience has taught them the value of waiting, for while silk looks better than homespun, they have discovered that homespun lasts longer than silk. They are generally hopeful and less inclined to see the faults in life's plan; they can always find a pro to balance young manhood's con, because time alone can reveal what is joy and what is sorrow. (To be continued.) EASTER TRIOLETS Since Christ is risen from the dead The Lenten hours of woe and gloom Since Christ has left the guarded tomb The Lenten hours of woe and gloom The glories of the Easter Day In Heaven, on earth are sung. In wood and glen and cloisters grey MAGDALEN ROCK. |