SMILING THROUGH LIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18941, 11 December 1929, Page 13

SMILING THROUGH LIFE.

The Greatest Thing. Can You Buy Happiness?

(Written for the “ Star ” by

LADY CHAYTOR.)

Once somebody asked me the question: “What is the greatest thing in life?” I told them : 44 Happiness! ” The statement was received with surprise. It was argued that surely love must rank before anything else. * I disagreed. If you really possess in your heart the spirit of happiness, no matter what troubles may fall to your lot, you will be sustained by the courage wherewith to meet them. Pl&yifif the “ Glad Game.” When one uses the term “Happiness” in such a connection as this, one means the happiness that springs from within, and has its roots imbedded in one's soul. This is the kind that has the power to transform a grey day into a sunny one. and that like “Pollyanna,” the beloved child of fiction, is imbued with the gospel of “playing the glad game”:— “Well! Even if I have fallen down and cut myself badly, I can still be glad I did not break my leg! ” Persons who cultivate the habit of searching for the “glad” aspect of any trouble, instead of regarding themselves as objects of pity, have something in their possession that is worth all the gold ever wrested from the Klondyke. Most of us get up against things at some period or another in our lives. Sooner or later, we make the discovery that our childish tumbles on the nursery floor were but the prelude to tumbles of bitter reality. But the man, or woman, possessed of the essence of happiness will pick themselves up, and start all over again with a smile. Tha Magic of a Smile. It may be a trite expression to Say “keep smiling!” but put it to the test and see the result. Have you ever walked along a crowded thoroughfare and observed the effect on the hurrying pedestrians when a really happy looking person passes by? By “happy looking,” I mean the sort whose smile is dictated by their heart, and not by their head. You can always tell the difference between the two because the latter “grimace” only reaches as far as the lips, and the former plays at sunbeams in its owner’s eyes.

The result of such a “passing” Is magical. The street twinkles at you, and you can positively see that smile spreading. It is reflected in the faces of those around, until their previous saddened countenances resemble the lit-up windows of those drab villas, that have been transformed into twinkling beauty by the rays of the sun. A smile is the most infectious thing in the world, and the pity of it ifi that more people do not realise its contagious value—and use it.

Unpurchasable! Lots of people make the mistake of thinking that happiness can be bought for hard cash. I am strengthened in this opinion by a quaint old legend:— Once, long ago, there lived a gloomy king, and one day he called his subjects together, and said to them: “ 1 must be happy, or I shall die. I am willing to buy happiness from any of you. The one who succeeds in obtaining, and bringing it to me may name their own price ! ” The subjects scattered, all of them full of eagerness to win such a magnificent reward. Time passed though, and still the king was minus happiness. One day he decided to divert himself by going a-hunting, and in the course of the hunt, becoming extremely thirsty, he stopped at a woodcutter’s hut, and asked the good man s wife for a bowl of water. She brought it, and the king drank eagerly until his thirst was quenched. Afterwards, he dismounted, and asked permission to look around the hut. Having inspected the interior he said:—

“Your home is very humble. Tell me. are you content?”

“Oh! Yes, sire;” answered the woodcutter’s wife, “We are very happy.” “Happy!” shouted the King, “I will give you a room full of golden coins, if you wilt sell me your happiness?” “Sire! You cannot buy it any more than you can buy and take away the crystal stream that bubbles over yonder stones, and from whence came the water to your thirst.” “But if, as you say, happiness cannot be bought, how am I ever to obtain it?” asked the king. “By setting wide your windows, sire,, and bidding the sunshine welcome to your hearth,” answered the woodcutter’s wife. “But sunshine is always there,” protested the king. “I can get it any time I like.” “So is happiness, sire, if you look for it." The people who smile their way through life are by no means to be dismissed as frivolous minded. They are simply foHoving Nature’s gospel. f (Anglo-American N.S. —Copyright.)