By Oliver Goldsmith
(1728 – 1774)

Writers of every age have endeavored to show that pleasure is in us, and not in the objects offered for our amusement. If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name. Every occurrence passes in review, like the figures of a procession; some may be awkward, enraged with the master of ceremonies.

I remember to have once seen a slave, in a fortification in Flanders, who appeared no way touched with his situation. He was maimed, deformed, and chained; obliged to toil from the appearance of day till night-fall, and condemned to this for life; yet, with all these circumstances of apparent wretchedness, he sang, would have danced, but that he wanted a leg, and appeared the merriest, happiest man of all the garrison. What a practical philosopher was here! A happy constitution supplied philosophy, and though seemingly destitute of wisdom he was really wise. No reading or study had contributed to disenchant the fairy-land around him. Every thing furnished him with an opportunity of mirth; and though some thought him, from his insensibility, a fool, he was such an idiot as philosophers should wish to imitate.

They who, like that slave, can place themselves on that side of the world in which every thing appears in a pleasant light, will find something in every occurrence to excite their good humor. The most calamitous events, either to themselves or others, can bring no new affliction; the world is to them a theater, in which only comedies are acted. All the hustle of heroism, or the aspirations of ambition, seem only to heighten the absurdity of the scene, and make the humor more poignant. They feel, in short, as little anguish at their own distress, or the complaints of others, as the undertaker, though dressed in black, feels sorrow at a funeral.

Of all the men I ever read of, the famous Cardinal de Retz possessed this happiness in the highest degree. When fortune wore her angriest look, and he fell into the power of Cardinal Mazain, his most deadly enemy, (being confined a close prisoner in the castle of Valenciennes,) he never attempted to support his distress by wisdom or philosophy, for he pretended to neither. He only laughed at himself and his persecutor, and seemed infinitely pleased at his new situation. In this mansion of distress, though denied all amusements, and even the conveniences of life, and entirely cut off from all intercourse with his friends, he still retained his good humor, laughed at the little spite of his enemies, and carried the jest so far as to write the life of his jailer.

All that the wisdom of the proud can teach, is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes. The Cardinal’s example will teach us to be good-humored in circumstances of the highest affliction. It matters not whether our good humor be construed by others into insensibility or idiotism,--it is happiness to ourselves; and none but a fool could measure his satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.

The happiest fellow I ever knew, was of the number of these good-natured creatures that are said to do so harm to anybody but themselves. Whenever he fell into any misery, he called it "seeing life." If his head was broken by a chairman, or his pocket picked by a sharper, he comforted himself by imitating the Hibernian dialect of the one, or the more fashionable cant of the other. Nothing came amiss to him. His inattention to money matters had concerned his father to such a degree that all intercession of friends was fruitless. The old gentleman was on his death-bed. The whole family (and Dick among the number) gathered around him.

"I have my second son, Andrew," said the expiring miser, "my whole estate, and desire him to be frugal." Andrew, in a sorrowful tone (as is usual on such occasions), prayed heaven to prolong his life and health to enjoy it himself. "I recommend Simon, my third son, to the care of his elder brother, and leave him, besides, four thousand pounds." "Ah, father!" cried Simon (in great affliction, to be sure), "may heaven give you life and health to enjoy it yourself!" At last, turning to poor Dick: "As for you, you have always been a sad dog; you’ll never come to good; you’ll never be rich; I leave you a shilling to buy a halter." "Ah, father!" cries Dick, without any emotion, "may heaven give you life and health to enjoy it yourself!"

Source: McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised
Copyright©1879 Van Astwerp, Bragg & Co.
Page 215