"There's the dearest little old gentleman," says James Buckham, "who
goes into town every morning on the 8.30 train. I don't know his name,
and yet I know him better than anybody else in town. He just radiates
cheerfulness as far as you can see him. There is always a smile on his
face, and I never heard him open his mouth except to say something kind,
courteous, or good natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and
he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint of presumption
or familiarity. If the weather is fine, his jolly compliments make it
seem finer; and if it is raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it
is as good as a rainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 train knows
the sunshine-man; it's his train. You just hurry up a little, and I'll
show you the sunshine-man this morning. It's foggy and cold, but if one
look at him doesn't cheer you up so that you'll want to whistle, then
I'm no judge of human nature."
"Good morning, sir!" said Mr. Jolliboy in going to the same train.
"Why, sir, I don't know you," replied Mr. Neversmile.
"I didn't say you did, sir. Good morning, sir!"
"The inborn geniality of some people," says Whipple, "amounts to
genius." "How in our troubled lives," asks J. Freeman Clarke, "could we
do without these fair, sunny natures, into which on their creation-day
God allowed nothing sour, acrid, or bitter to enter, but made them a
perpetual solace and comfort by their cheerfulness?" There are those
whose very presence carries sunshine with them wherever they go; a
sunshine which means pity for the poor, sympathy for the suffering, help
for the unfortunate, and benignity toward all. Everybody loves the sunny
soul. His very face is a passport anywhere. All doors fly open to him.
He disarms prejudice and envy, for he bears good will to everybody. He
is as welcome in every household as the sunshine.
"He was quiet, cheerful, genial," says Carlyle in his "Reminiscences"
concerning Edward Irving's sunny helpfulness. "His soul unruffled, clear
as a mirror, honestly loving and loved, Irving's voice was to me one of
blessedness and new hope."
And to William Wilberforce the poet Southey paid this tribute: "I never
saw any other man who seemed to enjoy such perpetual serenity and
sunshine of spirit."
"I resolved," said Tom Hood, "that, like the sun, so long as my day
lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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