morose are often caught by it. That the melancholy hate the
merry, even though Horace says it, I have some difficulty to
allow; because I have always observed that, where the jollity is
moderate and decent, serious people are so much the more
delighted, as it dissipates the gloom with which they are
commonly oppressed, and gives them an unusual enjoyment.

From this influence of cheerfulness, both to communicate itself
and to engage approbation, we may perceive that there is another
set of mental qualities, which, without any utility or any
tendency to farther good, either of the community or of the
possessor, diffuse a satisfaction on the beholders, and procure
friendship and regard. Their immediate sensation, to the person
possessed of them, is agreeable. Others enter into the same
humour, and catch the sentiment, by a contagion or natural
sympathy; and as we cannot forbear loving whatever pleases, a
kindly emotion arises towards the person who communicates so much
satisfaction. He is a more animating spectacle; his presence
diffuses over us more serene complacency and enjoyment; our
imagination, entering into his feelings and disposition, is
affected in a more agreeable manner than if a melancholy,
dejected, sullen, anxious temper were presented to us. Hence the
affection and probation which attend the former: the aversion and
disgust with which we regard the latter.

[Footnote: There is no man, who, on particular occasions, is not
affected with all the disagreeable passions, fear, anger,
dejection, grief, melancholy, anxiety, &c. But these, so far as
they are natural, and universal, make no difference between one
man and another, and can never be the object of blame. It is only