Laugh, and the world laughs with you;Weep, and you weep alone;For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,But has trouble enough of its own.Sing, and the hills will answer;Sigh, it is lost on the air;The echoes bound to a joyful sound,But shrink from voicing care.Rejoice, and men will seek you;Grieve, and they turn and go;They want full measure of all your pleasure,But they do not need your woe.Be glad, and your friends are many;Be sad, and you lose them all,—There are none to decline your nectared wine,But alone you must drink life’s gall.Feast, and your halls are crowded;Fast, and the world goes by.Succeed and give, and it helps you live,But no man can help you die.There is room in the halls of pleasureFor a large and lordly train,But one by one we must all file onThrough the narrow aisles of pain.
I am metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistences mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.
Sincere and unspiteful laughter is mirth, but where is there any mirth in our time, and do people know how to be mirthful?... A man's mirth is a feature that gives away the whole man, from head to foot. Someone's character won't be cracked for a long time then the man bursts out laughing somehow quite sincerely, and his whole character suddenly opens up as if on the flat of your hand. Only a man of the loftiest and happiest development knows how to be mirthful infectiously, that is, irresistibly and goodheartedly. I'm not speaking of his mental development, but of his character, of the whole man. And so, if you want to discern a man and know his soul, you must look, not at how he keeps silent, or how he speaks, or how we weeps, or even how he is stirred by the noblest ideas, but you had better look at him when he laughs. If a man has a good laugh, it means he's a good man.
When Death, or adverse Fortune's ruthless gale,Tears our best hopes away, the wounded HeartExhausted, leans on all that can impartThe charm of Sympathy; her mutual wailHow soothing! never can her warm tears failTo balm our bleeding grief's severest smart;Nor wholly vain feign'd Pity's solemn art,Tho' we should penetrate her sable veil.Concern, e'en known to be assum'd, our painsRespecting, kinder welcome far acquiresThan cold Neglect, or Mirth that Grief profanes.Thus each faint Glow-worm of the Night conspires,Gleaming along the moss'd and darken'd lanes,To cheer the Gloom with her unreal fires.