There are no companions so
delightful as the people for whom one treasures up jests and
reminiscences, because one is sure that they will respond to them and
enjoy them; and indeed I have found that the power of being
irresponsibly amused has come to my aid in the middle of really tragic
and awful circumstances, and has relieved the strain more than
anything else could have done.

I do not say that humour is a thing to be endlessly indulged and
sought after; but to be genuinely amused is a sign of courage and
amiability, and a sign too that a man is not self-conscious and
self-absorbed. It ought not to be a settled pre-occupation. Nothing
is more wearisome than the habitual jester, because that signifies
that a man is careless and unobservant of the moods of others. But it
is a thing which should be generously and freely mingled with life;
and the more sides that a man can see to any situation, the more rich
and full his nature is sure to be.

After all, our power of taking a light-hearted view of life is
proportional to our interest in it, our belief in it, our hopes of it.
Of course, if we conclude from our little piece of remembered
experience, that life is a woeful thing, we shall be apt to do as the
old poets thought the nightingale did, to lean our breast against a
thorn, that we may suffer the pain which we propose to utter in liquid
notes. But that seems to me a false sentiment and an artificial mode
of life, to luxuriate in sorrow; even that is better than being
crushed by it; but we may be sure that if we wilfully allow ourselves
to be one-sided, it is a delaying of our progress. All experience
comes to us that we may not be one-sided; and if we learn to weep with
those that weep, we must remember that it is no less our business to
rejoice with those that rejoice. We are helped beyond measure by
those who can tell us and convince us, as poets can, that there is
something beautiful in sorrow and loss and severed ties; by those who
show us the splendour of courage and patience and endurance; but the
true faith is to believe that the end is joy; and we therefore owe
perhaps the largest debt of all to those who encourage us to enjoy, to
laugh, to smile, to be amused.

And so we must not retire into our fortress simply for lonely visions,
sweet contemplation, gentle imagination; there are rooms in our castle
fit for that, the little book-lined cell, facing the sunset, the high
parlour, where the gay, brisk musi