| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 20 |
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Laughter has its place in every wholesome, healthy life. A man who never smiles is morbid. He has lost the joy chords out of his life. He has trained himself to think only of unpleasant things, to look only and always at the dark side. He has accustomed himself so long to sadness that the muscles of his face have become set in hard, fixed lines and cannot relax themselves. His thoughts of life are gloomy, and the gloom has entered his soul and darkened his eyes.
All this is wrong. It is abnormal, unnatural. True, most of us are busy and burdened. Our life is full of serious tasks which fill every moment and give us little time for unbending. Yet hard work should never drive laughter out of the soul. We should keep a happy heart amid the severest toil. We should sing at our work. We will work better and far more effectively if we keep the music always ringing within our breast. “A sad heart tires in a mile” runs the old song. “The joy of the Lord is your strength,” said Tirshatha to the people, as he urged them to rejoicing. Joy of spirit makes burdens seem lighter and tasks easier. It is probably necessary to require silence in certain establishments where people work together, but it is not the natural way. It would ad much to the value of labor if the strokes of toil could be the time beats of joyous music.
Laughter is a token of a good heart and a good conscience. Shakespeare said some quite uncomplimentary things about the man who has no music in his soul. Where there is no music, all evils nest. Demons do not laugh unless it be the laugh of wicked exultation over the mischief they have wrought, or the laughing sneer at goodness and virtue. Nothing on earth is more beautiful than the merry laugh of childhood. It is the bubbling up of the fountain of innocence and simplicity in the child’s heart. It tells of a spirit yet unspoiled by sin, unhurt by the world’s evil. Spontaneous, happy laughter tells always of goodness, and the man who never laughs must not blame his fellows if they think there is something wrong with his life, something dark within. If the streams which flow out are only bitter the fountain cannot be sweet.
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