“If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter
“Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity
“Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity
“Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us