Practical Essays | Page 5

of ten thousand a year". This sanguine, happy temper, is
merely another form of the cheerfulness recommended to general
adoption.
I contend, nevertheless, that to bid a man be habitually cheerful, he not
being so already, is like bidding him treble his fortune, or add a cubit to
his stature. The quality of a cheerful, buoyant temperament partly
belongs to the original cast of the constitution--like the bone, the
muscle, the power of memory, the aptitude for science or for music;
and is partly the outcome of the whole manner of life. In order to
sustain the quality, the physical (as the support of the mental) forces of
the system must run largely in one particular channel; and, of course, as
the same forces are not available elsewhere, so notable a feature of
strength will be accompanied with counterpart weaknesses or
deficiencies. Let us briefly review the facts bearing upon the point.
The first presumption in favour of the position is grounded in the
concomitance of the cheerful temperament with youth, health, abundant
nourishment. It appears conspicuously along with whatever promotes
physical vigour. The state is partially attained during holidays, in

salubrious climates, and health-bringing avocations; it is lost, in the
midst of toils, in privation of comforts, and in physical prostration. The
seeming exception of elated spirits in bodily decay, in fasting, and in
ascetic practices, is no disproof of the general principle, but merely the
introduction of another principle, namely, that we can feed one part of
the system at the expense of degrading and prematurely wasting others.
[LIGHT-HEARTEDNESS NOT IN OUR OWN POWER.]
A second presumption is furnished also from our familiar experience.
The high-pitched, hilarious temperament and disposition commonly
appear in company with some well-marked characteristics of corporeal
vigour. Such persons are usually of a robust mould; often large and full
in person, vigorous in circulation and in digestion; able for fatigue,
endurance, and exhausting pleasures. An eminent example of this
constitution was seen in Charles James Fox, whose sociability,
cheerfulness, gaiety, and power of dissipation were the marvel of his
age. Another example might be quoted in the admirable physical frame
of Lord Palmerston. It is no more possible for an ordinarily constituted
person to emulate the flow and the animation of these men, than it is to
digest with another person's stomach, or to perform the twelve labours
of Hercules.
A third fact, less on the surface, but no less certain, is, that the men of
cheerful and buoyant temperament, as a rule, sit easy to the cares and
obligations of life. They are not much given to care and anxiety as
regards their own affairs, and it is not to be expected that they should
be more anxious about other people's. In point of fact, this is the
constitution of somewhat easy virtue: it is not distinguished by a severe,
rigid attention to the obligations and the punctualities of life. We
should not be justified in calling such persons selfish; still less should
we call them cold-hearted: their exuberance overflows upon others in
the form of heartiness, geniality, joviality, and even lavish generosity.
Still, they can seldom be got to look far before them; they do not often
assume the painfully circumspect attitude required in the more arduous
enterprises. They are not conscientious in trifles. They cast off readily
the burdensome parts of life. All which is in keeping with our principle.

To take on burdens and cares is to draw upon the vital forces--to leave
so much the less to cheerfulness and buoyant spirits. The same
corporeal framework cannot afford a lavish expenditure in several
different ways at one time. Fox had no long-sightedness, no tendency
to forecast evils, or to burden himself with possible misfortunes. It is
very doubtful if Palmerston could have borne the part of Wellington in
the Peninsula; his easy-going temperament would not have submitted
itself to all the anxieties and precautions of that vast enterprise. But
Palmerston was hale and buoyant, and the Prime Minister of England at
eighty: Wellington began to be infirm at sixty.
[LIMITATIONS OF THE MENTAL FORCES.]
To these three experimental proofs we may add the confirmation
derived from the grand doctrine named the Correlation, Conservation,
Persistence, or Limitation of Force, as applied to the human body and
the human mind. We cannot create force anywhere; we merely
appropriate existing force. The heat of our fires has been derived from
the solar fire. We cannot lift a weight in the hand without the
combustion of a certain amount of food; we cannot think a thought
without a similar demand; and the force that goes in one way is
unavailable in any other way. While we are expending ourselves
largely in any single function--in muscular exercise, in digestion, in
thought and feeling, the remaining functions must