C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Good-Humor
Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,I mean good-nature, are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.
Good-humor, gay spirits, are the liberators, the sure cure for spleen and melancholy. Deeper than tears, these irradiate the tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting imps into angels by the alchemy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight of these redeemers.
It is also important to guard against mistaking for good-nature what is properly good-humor,a cheerful flow of spirits and easy temper not readily annoyed, which is compatible with great selfishness.
Good-humor will sometimes conquer ill-humor, but ill-humor will conquer it oftener; and for this plain reason, good-humor must operate on generosity, ill-humor on meanness.
Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.