In the presence of some priggish youths, we have heard a cheerful old man declare that, apparently, there would soon be nothing but "old boys" left. Cheerfulness, being generous and genial, joyous and 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]