is reconciled by the proverbial "short life and merry".

Adverting now to the object that Helps had so earnestly at
heart--namely, to rouse and rescue the English population from their
comparative dulness to a more lively and cheerful flow of existence--let
us reflect how, upon the foregoing principles, this is to be done. Not
certainly by an eloquent appeal to the nation to get up and be amused.
The process will turn out to be a more circuitous one.

The mental conformation of the English people, which we may admit to be
less lively and less easily amused than the temperament of Irishmen,
Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, or even the German branch of our own
Teutonic race, is what it is from natural causes, whether remote
descent, or that coupled with the operation of climate and other local
peculiarities. How long would it take, and what would be the way to
establish in us a second nature on the point of cheerfulness?

Again, with the national temperament such as it is, there may be great
individual differences; and it may be possible by force of
circumstances, to improve the hilarity and the buoyancy of any given
person. Many of our countrymen are as joyous themselves, and as much the
cause of joy in others, as the most light-hearted Irishman, or the
gayest Frenchman or Italian. How shall we increase the number of such,
so as to make them the rule rather than the exception?

[SOLE MEANS OF ATTAINING CHEERFULLNESS.]

The only answer not at variance with the laws of the human constitution
is--_Increase the supports and diminish the burdens of life_.