hearty, is
never the characteristic of prigs. Goethe used to exclaim of goody-goody
persons, "Oh! if they had but the heart to commit an absurdity!" This
was when he thought they wanted heartiness and nature. "Pretty dolls!"
was his expression when speaking of them, and turning away.

The true basis of cheerfulness is love, hope, and patience. Love evokes
love, and begets loving kindness. Love cherishes hopeful and generous
thoughts of others. It is charitable, gentle, and truthful. It is a
discerner of good. It turns to the brightest side of things, and its
face is ever directed towards happiness. It sees "the glory in the
grass, the sunshine on the flower." It encourages happy thoughts, and
lives in an atmosphere of cheerfulness. It costs nothing, and yet is
invaluable; for it blesses its possessor, and grows up in abundant
happiness in the bosoms of others. Even its sorrows are linked with
pleasures, and its very tears are sweet.

Bentham lays it down as a principle, that a man becomes rich in his own
stock of pleasures in proportion to the amount he distributes to others.
His kindness will evoke kindness, and his happiness be increased by his
own benevolence. "Kind words," he says, "cost no more than unkind ones.
Kind words produce kind actions, not only on the part of him to whom
they are addressed, but on the part of him by whom they are employed;
and this not incidentally only, but habitually, in virtue of the
principle of association.".... "It may indeed happen, that the effort
of beneficence may not benefit those for whom it was intended; but when
wisely directed, it MUST benefit the person from whom it emanates. Good
and friendly conduct may meet with an unworthy and ungrateful return;
but the absence of gratitude on the part of the receiver cannot destroy
the self-approbation which recompenses the giver, and we may scatter the
seeds of courtesy and kindliness around us at so little expense. Some of
them will inevitably fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence
in the minds of others; and all of them will bear fruit of happiness
in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues always;
twice blest sometimes." [174]

The poet Rogers used to tell a story of a little girl, a great favourite
with every one who knew her. Some one said to her, "Why does everybody
love you so much?" She answered, "I think it is because I love everybody
so much." This little story is capable of a very wide app