"I live," said Laurence Sterne, one of the greatest of English
humorists, "in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of
ill health and other evils by mirth; I am persuaded that, every time a
man smiles,--but much more so when he laughs,--it adds something to his
fragment of life."

"Give me an honest laugher," said Sir Walter Scott, and he was himself
one of the happiest men in the world, with a kind word and pleasant
smile for every one, and everybody loved him.

"How much lies in laughter!" exclaimed the critic Carlyle. "It is the
cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an
everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies the cold glitter,
as of ice; the fewest are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but
only sniff and titter and snicker from the throat outward, or at least
produce some whiffing, husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing
through wool. Of none such comes good."

"The power to laugh, to cease work and begin to frolic and make merry in
forgetfulness of all the conflict of life," says Campbell Morgan, "is a
divine bestowment upon man."

Happy, then, is the man, who may well laugh to himself over his good
luck, who can answer the old question, "How old are you?" by Sambo's
reply:--

"If you reckon by the years, sah, I'se twenty-five; but if you goes by
the fun I's 'ad, I guess I's a hundred."

WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH?