We may say generally that any fresh acquisition of knowledge destroys

one source of amusement and opens another. But if our mental powers were

to become perfect, which they never will, we should cease to laugh at

all. Wisdom or knowledge--the study of our own thoughts or of those of

others--has a tendency to alter our general views, and affects our

appreciation of humour, even where it affords no special information on

the subject before us. Upon given premises the conclusions of the highly

cultivated are different from those of others; and intellectual humour

is that which generally they enjoy most--finding more pleasure in

thought than in emotion. No doubt they sometimes appreciate what is

lighter, especially when a reaction taking place after severe study,

they feel like children let out to play. But ordinarily they certainly

appreciate most that rare and subtle humour which inferior minds cannot

understand. Herbert Spencer is probably correct that "we enjoy that

humour most at which we laugh least." But we must not conclude from this

rule that we can at will by repressing our laughter increase our

pleasure. The statement refers to the cases of different persons or of

the same person under different circumstances. Rude and uneducated

people would little feel the humour at which they could not laugh, and

some grave people entirely miss much that is amusing. "The nervous

energy," he says, "which would have caused muscular action, is

discharged in thought," but this presupposes a very sensitive mental

organization into which the discharge can be made. Where this does not

exist, laughter accompanies the appreciation of humour, and in silence

there would be little pleasure. The cause of mirth also differs as the

persons affected, and the farce which creates a roar in the pit will

often not raise a smile in the boxes. Swift writes--"Bombast and

buffoonery, by nature lofty and light, soar highest of all in the

theatre, and would be lost in the roof, if the prudent architect had

not contrived for them a fourth place called the twelvepenny gallery and

there planted a suitable colony." That emotionable ebullition affords a

lower class less enjoyment than intellectual action gives a higher order

of mind, must be somewhat uncertain. A thoughtful nature is probably

happier than an emotional, but it is difficult to compare the pleasure

derived from intellectual, moral, and sensuous feelings.

It is a common saying that "there is no disputing taste," and in this

respect we allow every man a certain range. But when he transgresses

this limit he often becomes ludicrous, especially to those whose tastes

rather tend in the opposite direction. The strange figure and

accoutrements of Don Quixote raised great laughter among the gay ladies

at the inn, and induced the puissant knight-errant to administer to them

the rebuke "Excessive laughter without cause denotes folly."

A friend of mine, desirous of giving an intellectual treat to the

rustics in the neighbourhood, announced that a reading of Shakespeare

would be given in the village schoolroom by a celebrated elocutionist.

The villagers, attracted by the name, came in large numbers, and laughed

vociferously at all the pathetic parts, but looked grave at the humour.

This was, no doubt, partly owing to their habits of life, as well as to

a want of taste and information. Taste for music, and familiarity with

the traditional style of the Opera, enable us to enjoy dialogues in

recitative, but were a man in ordinary conversation to deliver himself

in musical cadences, or even in rhyme, we should consider him supremely

ridiculous.

Translations have often exhibited very strange vagaries of taste. Thus,

Castalio's rendering of "The Song of Solomon" is ludicrous from the use

of diminutives.

"Mea columbula, ostende mihi tuum vulticulum.

Cerviculam habes Davidicæ turris similem--Cervicula quasi eburnea

turricula, &c."

Beattie is severe upon Dryden's obtuseness in his translation of the

"Iliad." "Homer," he says, "has been blamed for degrading his gods into

mortals, but Dryden has made them blackguards.... If we were to judge of

the poet by the translator, we should imagine the Iliad to have been

partly designed for a satire upon the clergy."

Addison observes that the Ancients were not particular about the bearing

of their similes. "Homer likens one of his heroes, tossing to and fro in

his bed and burning with resentment, to a piece of flesh broiled on the

coals." "The present Emperor of Persia," he continues, "conformable to

the Eastern way of thinking, amidst a great many pompous titles,

denominates himself the 'Son of Glory,' and 'Nutmeg of Delight.'"

Eastern nations indulge in this kind of hyperbole, which seems to us

rather to overstep the sublime, but we cannot be astonished when we read

in the Zgand-Savai (Golden Tulip) of China, that "no one can be a great

poet, unless he have the majestic carriage of the elephant, the bright

eyes of the partridge, the agility of the antelope, and a face rivalling

the radiance of the full moon."

Reflection is generally antagonistic to humour, just as abstraction of

mind will prevent our feeling our hands being tickled. Often what was

intended to amuse, merely produces thought on some social or physical

question. But the variability of our appreciation of humour, is most

commonly recognised in the differences of moral feeling. We have often

heard people say that it is wrong for people to jest on this or that

subject, or that they will not laugh at such ribaldry. The excitement

necessary for the enjoyment of humour is then neutralized by deeper

feelings, and they are perhaps more inclined to sigh than to laugh, or

the nervous action being entirely dormant, they remain unaffected. But

not only do people's feelings on various subjects differ in kind and in

amount, but also in result. The same idea produces different emotions

in different men, and the same emotion different effects. One man will

regard an event as insignificant, and will not laugh at it; another will

consider it important, but still will be unable to keep his countenance,

where most men would be grave. The experience of daily life teaches us

that different men act very differently under the same kind of emotion.

The Ancients laughed at calamities, which would call forth our

commiseration, their consideration for others not being so great, nor

their appreciation of suffering so acute. But in the cases of some few

individuals, and of barbarous nations, we sometimes find at the present

day instances of the ludicrous seasoned with considerable hostility.

Flögel tells us that he knew a man in Germany who took especial delight

in witnessing tortures and executions, and related the circumstances

attending them with the greatest enjoyment and laughter. In "Two Years

in Fiji," we read, "Among the appliances which I had brought with me to

Fiji, from Sydney, were a stethoscope and a scarifier. Nothing was

considered more witty by those in the secret than to place this

apparently harmless instrument on the back of some unsuspecting native,

and touch the spring. In an instant twelve lancets would plunge into

the swarthy flesh. Then would follow a long-drawn cry, scarcely audible

amidst peals of laughter from the bystanders."

It has been said that our non-appreciation of hostile humour is much

owing to the suppression of feeling in conventional society, but I think

that there is also an influence in civilization, which subdues and

directs our emotions. A certain difference in this respect can be traced

in the higher and lower classes of the population. This, and the

difference in reasoning power, have led to the observation that "the

last thing in which a cultivated man can have community with the vulgar

is in jocularity."

Jesting on religious subjects, has generally arisen from scepticism,

deficiency in taste, or disbelief in the injurious consequences of the

practice. Some consider that levity is likely to bring any subject it

touches into contempt, or is only fitly used in connection with light

subjects; while others regard it as merely a source of harmless

pleasure, and can even laugh at a joke against themselves. In like

manner some consider it inconsistent with the profession of religion to

attend balls, races, or theatres, or even to wear gay-coloured clothes.

Congreve has been blamed even for calling a coachman a "Jehu." On the

other hand, at the beginning of this century, "a man of quality" could

scarcely get through a sentence without some profane expletive. Sir

Walter Scott makes a highwayman lament that, although he could "swear as

round an oath as any man," he could never do it "like a gentleman." Lord

Melbourne was so accustomed to garnish his conversation in this way that

Sydney Smith once said to him, "We will take it for granted that

everybody is damned, and now proceed with the subject." In former times,

and even sometimes in our own day, the most eminent Christians have

occasionally indulged in jest. At the time of the Reformation, a martyr

comforted a fellow-sufferer, Philpot, by telling him he was a "pot

filled with the most precious liquor;" and Latimer called bad passions

"Turks," and bade his hearers play at "Christian Cards." "Now turn up

your trump--hearts are trumps." Robert Hall, a most pious Christian, was

constantly transgressing in this direction, and I have heard Mr. Moody

raise a roar of laughter while preaching.

Now it is quite impossible to say that in any of the above cases there

was a want of faith, although we are equally unable to agree with those

who maintain that profane jests are most common when it is the

strongest. What they show is a want of control of feeling, or a

deficiency in taste, so that people do not regard such things as either

injurious or important. A sceptic at the present day is generally less

profane than a religious man was in the last century. Such is the result

of civilization, although unbelief in itself inclines to profanity, and

faith to reverence.

It is self-evident that peculiar feelings and convictions will prevent

our regarding things as ludicrous, at which we should otherwise be

highly amused. Religious veneration, or the want of it, often causes

that to appear sacred to one person which seems absurd to another. Many

Jewish stories seem strange to Gentile comprehensions. Elias Levi states

that he had been told by many old and pious rabbis that at the costly

entertainment at which the Messiah should be welcomed among the Jews, an

enormous bird should be killed and roasted, of which the Talmud says

that it once threw an egg out of its nest which crushed three hundred

lofty cedars, and when broken, swept away sixty villages.

The following petition was signed by sixteen girls of Charleston, S.C.,

and presented to Governor Johnson in 1733, and was no doubt thought to

set forth a serious evil.

"The humble petition of all the maids whose names are under

written. Whereas we, the humble petitioners are at present in a

very melancholy disposition of mind, considering how all the

bachelors are blindly captivated by widows, the consequence is this

our request that your Excellency will for the future order that no

widow presume to marry any young man until the maids are provided

for, or else to pay each of them a fine. The great disadvantage it

is to us maids, is that the widows by their forward carriages do

snap up the young men, and have the vanity to think their merit

beyond ours which is a just imposition on us who ought to have the

preference. This is humbly recommended to your Excellency's

consideration, and we hope you will permit no further insults. And

we poor maids in duty bound will ever pray," &c.

It is almost impossible to limit the number of influences, which affect

our appreciation of the ludicrous. "Nothing," writes Goethe, "is more

significant of a man's character than what he finds laughable." We find

highly intellectual men very different in this respect. Quintilian

notices the different kind of humour of Aulus Galba, Junius Bassus,

Cassius Severus, and Domitius Afer. In modern times Pitt was grave; Fox,

Melbourne, and Canning were witty. Sir Henry Holland enumerates as the

wits of his day, Canning, Sydney Smith, Jekyll, Lord Alvanley, Lord

Dudley, Hookham Frere, Luttrell, Rogers, and Theodore Hook, and he

adds--

"Scarcely two of the men just named were witty exactly in the same

vein. In Jekyll and Hook the talent of the simple punster

predominated, but in great perfection of the art, while Bishop

Blomfield and Baron Alderson, whom I have often seen in friendly

conflict, enriched this art by the high classical accompaniments

they brought to it. The wit of Lord Dudley, Lord Alvanley, and

Rogers was poignant, personal sarcasm; in Luttrell it was perpetual

fun of lighter and more various kind, and whimsically expressed in

his features, as well as in his words.[19] 'Natio comæda est' was

the maxim of his mind and denoted the wide field of his humour. The

wit of Mr. Canning was of rarer and more refined workmanship, and

drew large ornament from classical sources. The 'Anti-Jacobin'

shows Mr. Canning's power in his youthful exuberance. When I knew

him it had been sobered, perhaps saddened, by the political

contrarities and other incidents of more advanced life, but had

lost none of its refinement of irony. Less obvious than the common

wit of the world, it excited thought and refined it--one of the

highest characteristics of this faculty.

"Lady Morley bore off the palm among the 'witty women' of the day.

She was never 'willing to wound.' Her printed pieces, though short

and scattered, attest the rare merits of her humour. The 'Petition

of the Hens of Great Britain to the House of Commons against the

Importation of French eggs,' is an excellent specimen of them."

In corroboration of this view of the different complexion of men's

humour I may mention that in the course of this work I have often had

the sayings of various wits intermixed and have always been able easily

to assign each to its author.

Considering the great diversity in the appreciation of the ludicrous,

the question arises is it merely a name for many different emotions, or

has it always some invariable character. To decide this we may ask the

question, Is one kind of humour better than another? Practically the

answer is given every day, one saying being pronounced "good" if not

"capital," and another "very poor," or a "mild" joke; and when we see

humour varying with education, and with the ages of men and nations, we

cannot but suppose that there are gradations of excellence in it.

Now, if we allow generally this ascending scale in the ludicrous, we

admit a basis of comparison, and consequently a link between the various

circumstances in which it is found. It may be objected that in the

somewhat similar case of Beauty, there is no connection between the

different kinds. But the ludicrous stands alone among the emotions, and

is especially in contrast with that of Beauty in this--that it is

peculiarly dependent on the judgment, as beauty is on the senses. That

we understand more about the ludicrous than about beauty is evident from

its being far easier to make what is beautiful appear ludicrous than

what is ludicrous appear beautiful.

There is something unique in the perception of the ludicrous. It seems

to strike and pass away too quickly for an emotion. The lightness of the

impression produced by laughter is the reason why, although we often

remember to have felt alarmed or pleased in dreams, we never remember to

have been amused. The imperfect circulation of the blood in the head

during sleep causes the reason to be partially dormant, and leads to

strange fantasies being brought before us. But that our judgment is not

entirely inactive is evident from the emotions we feel, and among them

is the ludicrous, for many people laugh in their sleep, and when they

are awakened think over the strange visions. They then laugh, but never

remember having done so before. Memory is much affected by sleep, the

greater number of our dreams are entirely forgotten, and the emotions

and circumstances of the ludicrous easily pass from our remembrance.

Bacon considered the ludicrous too intellectual to be called a "passio"

or emotion. It has commonly been regarded as almost an intuitive

faculty. We speak of "seeing" humour, and of having a "sense" of the

ludicrous. We think that we have a sense in other matters, where

reflection is not immediately perceptible, as when in music or painting

we at once observe that a certain style produces a certain effect, and

that a certain means conduces to a certain end. This recognition seems

to be made intuitively, and from long habit and constant observation we

come to acquire what appears like a sense, by which without going

through any reasoning process we give opinions upon works of Art. The

judgment acts from habit so imperceptibly that it is altogether

overlooked, and we seem almost to have a natural instinct. We are often

as unconscious of its exercise as of the changes going on in our bodily

constitution. The compositor sets his types without looking at them; the

mathematician solves problems "by inspection," and a well-known

physiologist told me he had seen a man read a book while he kept three

balls in the air. At times we seem to be more correct when acting

involuntarily than when from design. We have heard it said that, if you

think of the spelling of a word, you will make a mistake in it, and many

can form a good judgment on a subject who utterly fail when they begin

to specify the grounds on which it is founded. In many such cases we

seem almost to acquire a sense, and, perhaps, for a similar reason we

speak of a sense of the ludicrous. We are also, perhaps, influenced by a

logical error--the ludicrous seems to us a simple feeling, and as every

sense is so, we conclude that all simple feelings are senses.

The ludicrous is not analogous to our bodily senses, in that it is not

affected in so constant and uniform a manner. The sky appears blue to

every man, unless he have some visual defect, but an absurd situation is

not "taken" by all. In the senses no ratiocination is required, whereas

the ludicrous does not come to us directly, but through judgment--a

moment, though brief and unnoticed, always elapses in which we grasp the

nature of the circumstances before us. If it be asserted that our

decision is in this case pronounced automatically, without any exercise

of reason, we must still admit that it comes from practice and

experience, and not naturally and immediately, like a sense. The

arguments taken from profit and expediency, which have led to a belief

in moral sense, would, of course, have no weight in the case of the

ludicrous.

CHAPTER XX.

Definition--Difficulties of forming one of Humour.

Some of the considerations towards the end of the last chapter may have

led us to conclude that our sense[20] of the ludicrous is not a variety

of emotions, but only one; and the possibility of our forming a

definition of it depends, not only upon its unity, but upon our being

able to trace some common attributes in the circumstances which awaken

it. But in one of the leading periodicals of the day, I lately read the

observation--made by a writer whose views should not be lightly

regarded--that "all the most profound philosophers have pronounced a

definition of humour to be hopelessly impracticable." I think that such

an important and fundamental statement as this may be suitably taken

into consideration in commencing our examination of the question. As a

matter of history, we shall find that it is erroneous, for several great

philosophers have given us definitions of the sense of the ludicrous,

and few have thought it indefinable. But those who took the former

course might be charged with wandering into the province of literature;

while the views of those who adopted the latter might be thought

incorrect with regard to definition, or unwarranted with regard to

humour. To suppose that a definition of humour would be of any great

value, would be to think that it would unfold the nature of things,

instead of merely giving the meaning of a term; nor is it correct to

conclude that by employing a string of words we can reach the precise

signification of one, any more than we can hit the mark by striking at

each side of it. If the number and variety of our words and thoughts

were increased, we could approximate more nearly; but as we know neither

the boundaries of our conceptions, nor the natural limits of things,

definition can never be perfect or final. Various standards have been

sought for it--the common usage of society being generally adopted--but

it must always to a certain extent vary, according to the knowledge and

approval of the definer.

Scientific definitions are not intended to be complete, except for the

study immediately in view. Who ever saw that ghostly line which is

length without breadth--and how absurd it is to require of us to draw

it! And would not a country-bumpkin feel as much insulted, if we told

him he was a "carnivorous ape," or a "mammiferous two-handed animal," as

the French soldier did when his officer called him a biped? If we give

man his old prerogative, a "rational animal," how many would refuse the

title to pretty women and spendthrift sons, while others would most

willingly bestow it upon their poodles?

Definition cannot be formed without analysis and comparison, and as few

people indulge much in either, they accomplish it very roughly, but it

answers their purpose, and they are contented until they find themselves

wrong. Hence we commonly consider that nearly everything can be defined.

We may then call the ludicrous "an element in things which tends to

create laughter." This may be considered a fair definition, and although

it is quite untrue, and founded on a superficial view of the ludicrous,

it may give us the characteristics which men had in view in originally

giving the name at a time when they had little consideration or

experience. But if we require more, and ask for a definition which will

stand the test of philosophical examination, we must reply that such

only can be given as is dependent upon the satisfaction of the inquirer.

Progressive minds will find it difficult to circumscribe the meaning of

words, especially on matters with which they are well acquainted.

Brown, in his "Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind," observes

that the ludicrous is a compound feeling of gladness and astonishment;

not a very comprehensive view, for according to it, if a man were

informed that he had been left a sum of money, he would regard his good

fortune as highly absurd.

Beattie maintains, on the contrary, that the ludicrous is a simple

feeling, and therefore indefinable, a statement in which the premise

seems more correct than the conclusion. The opinion that it is simple

and primary, although not admitting of proof, has some probability in

its favour. It arose from a conviction that we had no means of reaching

it, of taking it to pieces, and was derived from the unsatisfactory

character of such attempts as that of Brown, or from analogy with some

other emotions, or with physical substances whose essence we cannot

ascertain. If we can connect the ludicrous with certain acts of

judgment, we cannot tell how far the emotion is modified by them, and

even if we seem to have detected some elements in it, we were not

conscious of them at the moment of our being amused. If they exist, they

are then undiscernible.

As when we regard a work of art, we are not sensible of pleasure until

all the several elements of beauty are blended together, so if the

ludicrous be a compound, there is some power within us that fuses the

several emotions into one, and evolves out of them a completely new and

distinct feeling. The product has a different nature from its component

parts, just as the union of the blue, yellow and red give the simple

sensation of whiteness. Regard the elements as separate and the feeling

vanishes.

It has probably been owing to reflections of the above kind that some

philosophers have stated that the ludicrous is a simple feeling,

awakened by certain means, and not a compound or acquired feeling formed

of certain elements. But although it is more comfortable to have

questions settled and at rest, it is often safer to leave them open,

especially where we have neither sufficient knowledge nor power of

investigation to bring our inquiries to an issue. It is not, however,

correct to say that because feelings are primary or single they cannot

be defined. As we cannot take them to pieces or analyse them, we are

ignorant with regard to their real nature, and of some we cannot form

any definition whatever, the only account we can give of them being to

enumerate every object in which they appear; but in the case of others,

we are enabled to form a definition by means of attributes observed in

the objects or circumstances which awaken them. We cannot trace any

common elements in sugar and scent, or in leaves and emeralds, by which

to define sweetness and viridity; but we think we can discern some in

the ludicrous. The mere grouping of certain things under one head seems

to show that mankind notices some similarity between them. But

definition requires more than this; attributes must be observed, and

such as are common to all the instances, and where it has been attempted

there has been a conviction that such would be found, for without them

it would be impossible. When this belief is entertained, a definition is

practicable, regarding it not as a perfect or final, but as a possible

and approximate limitation. To define accurately, we should summon

before us every real circumstance which does, or imaginary one which

could, awaken the feeling, and every real and imaginary circumstance

which, though very similar, has not this effect. The greater the variety

of these instances which have the power, the fewer are the qualities

which appear to possess it; and the greater the variety of instances

which have it not, the greater the number of the qualities we attribute

to it.

It follows that the more numerous are the particulars to be considered,

the more difficult it is to form a definition, and this may have led

some to say that the ludicrous, which covers such a vast and varied

field, lies entirely beyond it. We might think that we could add and

subtract attributes until words and faculties failed us, until, in the

one direction, we were reduced to a single point, in fact, to the

ludicrous itself--while in the other we are lost in a boundless expanse.

To be satisfied with our definition, we must form a narrower estimate of

the number of instances, and a higher one of our powers of

discrimination.

But there is an alternative--although amusing objects and circumstances

are almost innumerable, as we may have gathered from the last chapter,

we may claim a license, frequently allowed in other cases, of drawing

conclusions from a considerable number of promiscuous examples, and

regarding them as a fair sample of the whole. Such a view has no doubt

been taken by many able men, who have attempted to define the ludicrous.

An eminent German philosopher even said that he did not despair of

discovering its real essence.

It must be admitted that we have no actual proof that the provocatives

of the ludicrous are innumerable or utterly heterogeneous, nor any

greater presumption that they are so than in many cases of physical

phenomena which we are accustomed to define. The difficulty is at the

most only that of degree, but we are unusually conscious of it owing to

the nature of the subject. Every day, if not every hour, brings

ludicrous objects of different kinds before us, whereas the number and

variety of plants, animals, and minerals are only known to botanists and

zoologists and other scientific men.

As the members of a class are infinitely less numerous than the somewhat

similar things which lie outside it, the course commonly adopted has

been to examine a few members of it and try to find some of the

properties a class possesses, without aspiring to ascertain them all.

Our conclusions will thus be coextensive with our knowledge, rather than

with our wishes, incomplete and overwide rather than illogical. How far

easier is it, with regard to our present subject, to decide that the

circumstances which awaken the ludicrous possess certain elements, than

that it requires nothing more! the chemist may analyse the bright water

of a natural spring which he can never manufacture. We can sometimes

form what is humorous by imitation, but not by following any rules or

directions; we even seem to be led more to it by accident than by

design.

Our safest plan, therefore, will be to search for some possible

elements, and to endeavour to establish some probabilities on a subject

which must always be somewhat surrounded with uncertainty. The constant

tillage of the soil, the investigations made, and definitions attempted,

have not been unproductive of fruit, and we may feel a tolerable degree

of assurance on some points in question, while admitting that, however

assiduously we labour, there will always be something beyond our reach.

We will proceed then to examine and compare the stores of our

predecessors, and if possible add a grain to the heap. Knowledge is

progressive, and although it is not the lot of man to be assured of

absolute truth, still the acquisition of what is relative or approximate

is not valueless. This consideration, which has cheered many on the road

of physical philosophy, may afford some encouragement to those who

follow the equally obscure indications of our mental phenomena.

CHAPTER XXI.

Charm of Mystery--Complication--Poetry and Humour

compared--Exaggeration.

All who are accustomed to novel reading or writing, are aware of the

fascinating power of mystery. They even consider it a principal test of

a good story that the plot should be impenetrable, and the final result

concealed up to the last page. Tension and excitement are agreeable,

even when the subject itself is somewhat painful. We observe this in a

tragedy, and it is a common saying some people are never happy except

when they are miserable. Such is the constitution of the mind; and the

fact that enjoyment can be obtained when we should expect the reverse,

is noteworthy with reference to the ludicrous. All mystery causes a

certain disquietude, but if the problem seems to us capable of being

solved, it begets an agreeable curiosity. On its resolution the

excitement ceases, and we only feel a kind of satisfaction, which,

though more unalloyed, gives less enjoyment than mystery, inasmuch as

it produces less mental and physical commotion. This tendency in the

mind to find pleasure in complexity was observed even by Aristotle.

Experience teaches us that no literary style is attractive without a

certain interlacing of thoughts and feelings. The sentiments which are

most treasured and survive longest, are those which are conveyed rather

in a complex than simple form--emotion is thus most quickened, and

memory impressed. The beauty and charm of form lie greatly in its

bringing ideas closer together, and succinctness implies fulness of

thought. Thus a vast number of paradoxical expressions have been

generated, which are far more agreeable than plain language. We speak of

"blushing honours," "liquid music," "dry wine," "loud" or "tender

colours," "round flavour," "cold hearts," "trembling stars," "storms in

tea-cups," and a thousand similar combinations, putting the abstract for

the concrete, transferring the perception of one sense to another,

intermingling the nomenclature of arts, and using a great variety of

metaphorical and even ungrammatical phrases. Poets owe much of their

power to such combinations, and we find that allusions, which are

confessedly the reverse of true, are often the most beautiful, touch the

heart deepest, and live longest in the memory. Thus the lover delights

to sing--

"Why does azure deck the sky?

'Tis to be like thine eyes of blue."

Poetry has been called "the conflict of the elements of our being," and

it is a mark of genius to leave much to the imagination of the reader.

The higher we soar in poetry and the nearer we approach the sublime, the

more the distance between the intertwined ideas increases. But we are

scarcely conscious of any contradiction or discordance, as there is

always something to resolve and explain it. Thus in "Il Penseroso," when

we read of "the rugged brow of Night," we think of emblematic

representations of Nox, and of the dark contraction of the brow in

frowning. There is no breach of harmony, and we always find in poetry

stepping stones which enable us to pass over difficulties. Often, too,

we are assisted in this direction by the intention or tone of the writer

or speaker.

Athenæus exhibits well, in a story fictitious or traditional, the

contradictory elements to be found in poetry, and shows how easily

metaphorical language may become ludicrous when interpreted according to

the letter rather than the spirit. He makes Sophocles say to an

Erythræan schoolmaster who wanted to take poetical things literally,

"Then this of Simonides does not please you, I suppose, though it seems

to the Greeks very well spoken--

"The maid sends her voice

From out her purple mouth!"

"Nor the poet speaking of the golden-haired Apollo, for if the painter

had made the hair of the god golden and not black, the painting would be

all the worse. Nor the poet speaking of the rosy-fingered Aurora, for if

anyone were to dip his fingers into rose-coloured paint, he would make

his hands like those of a purple dyer, not of a beautiful woman."

The praise of women is so common, and we so often compare them to

everything beautiful, that the harsh lines in the above similes are

coloured over and almost disappear. Such language seems as suitable in

poetry, as commonplace information would be tedious, and being the

scaffolding by which the ideal rises, the complexity is not prominent as

in humour, though it adds to the pleasure afforded. But whenever the

verge of harmony is not only reached, but transgressed, the connection

of opposite ideas produces a different effect upon us, and we admit that

from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. When we go beyond the

natural we may, if, we heed not, enter the unnatural. In such cases we

have an additional incentive to mirth--a double complication as it were,

from the failure of the original intention.

If there were nothing in the world but what is plain and self-evident,

where would be the romance and wit which form the greatest charm of

life. Poetry recognises this; and in comic songs, especially of the

Ethiopian class lately so popular, there is rather too prominent an aim

to obtain complexity of ideas--sometimes to the verge of nonsense.

Humorous sayings are largely manufactured on this plan.

The ideas in humour, although in one respect distant, must be brought

close together. Protraction in relating a story will cause it to fail,

and this is one reason why jokes in a foreign language seldom make us

laugh.

Locke speaks of wit as the assemblage of ideas. Most philosophers

acknowledge the existence of some conflict in humour, and in many

instances of the ludicrous it seems to lie between the real and ideal.

External circumstances appear different from what we should expect them

to be, and think they ought to be. Thus we have seen a dignified man

walking about quite unconscious that a wag has chalked his back, or

fastened a "tail" on his coat behind.

Some have attempted to explain all humour on this basis, but the

complication in it does not seem capable of being brought under this

head. Weiss and Arnold Ruge say it is "the ideal captive by the

real"--an opinion similar to that of Schopenhauer, who calls it "the

triumph of intuition over reflection." Of course, this cannot be taken

as a definition, for in that case every mistake we make, such as

thinking a mountain higher than it is, or a right action wrong, would be

laughable. We contemplate acts of injustice or oppression, and failures

in art and manufacture, and still feel no inclination to laugh. But we

may accept the opinion as an admission of the principle of complication.

The ideal and real often meet without any spark being struck, and in

some cases the conflict in humour can scarcely be said to lie between

them. It is often dependent upon a breach of association, or of some

primary ideas or laws of nature. Necessary principles of mind or matter

are often violated where things, true under one condition, are

represented as being so universally. Our American cousins supply us with

many illustrative instances. "A man is so tall that he has to go up a

ladder to shave himself." Generally we require to mount, to reach

anything in a very high position, but if it were our own head, however

lofty we carried it, we should not require a ladder. Somewhat similar is

the observation "that a young lady's head-dress is now so high, that she

requires to stand on a stool to put it on."

We have heard of a soldier surprising and surrounding a body of the

enemy; and of a man coming downstairs in the morning, thinking himself

someone else. "One man is as good as another," said Thackeray to the

Irishman. "No, but much better," was the sharp reply. A somewhat similar

breach takes place when something is spoken of under a metaphor, and

then expressions applicable to that thing are transferred to that to

which it is compared. Passages in literature and oratory thus become

unintentionally ludicrous. A dignitary, well known for his

conversational and anecdotal powers, told me that he once heard a very

flowery preacher exclaim, when alluding to the destruction of the

Assyrian host. "Death, that mighty archer, mowed them all down with the

besom of destruction." Another clergyman, equally fond of metaphor,

enforced the consideration of the shortness of life in the words,

"Remember, my brethren, we are fast sailing down the stream of life, and

shall speedily be landed in the ocean of eternity."

Johnson says that wit is "a _discordia concors_, a combination of

dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things

apparently unlike." Many have considered that humour consists of

contrast or comparison, and it is true that a large portion of it owes

much to attributes of relation. This kind of humorous complication is

generally under the form of saying that a thing is _like_

something--from which it is essentially different--merely because of the

existence of some accidental similitude. There are many kinds and

degrees of this, and some points of resemblance may be found in all

things. We say "one man is like another," "a man may make himself like a

brute," &c. Similitudes in minute detail may be pointed out in things

widely different; and from this range of significations the word _like_

has been most prolific of humour. It properly means, a real and

essential likeness, and to use it in any other sense, is to employ it

falsely. But our amusement is greatly increased when associations are

violated, and much amusement may by made by showing there is some

considerable likeness between two objects we have been accustomed to

regard as very far apart. The smaller the similarity pointed out the

slighter is the chain which connects the distant objects, and the less

we are inclined to laugh. But the more we draw the objects together, the

greater is the complication and the humour. We are then inclined to

associate the qualities of the one with the other, and a succession of

grotesque images is suggested backwards and forwards, before the

amusement ceases. One principal reason why the mention of a drunken man,

a tailor, or a lover, inclines us to mirth, is that they are associated

in our minds with absurd actions. Laughter is generally greatest when we

are intimately acquainted with the person against whom it is directed.

We have often noticed the absurd effect produced in literature when

words are used which, although suitable to the subject literally, are

remote from it in association. The extreme subtlety of these feelings

render it impossible sometimes to give any explanation of the ideas upon

which a humorous saying is founded, and may be noticed in many words,

the bearings of which we can feel, but not specify. A vast number of

thoughts and emotions are always passing through the mind, many of them

being so fine that we cannot detect them. The results of some of them

can be traced as we have before observed in the proficiency which is

acquired by practice but can never be imparted by mere verbal

instruction.

If things compared together are given too slight a connection, the

associations will not be transferred from one to the other, and the wit

fails, as in Cowley's extravagant fancy work on the basis of his

mistress' eyes, being like burning-glasses. The objects must also be

far enough apart for contrast--the farther the better, provided the

distance be not so great as to change humour into the ludicrous.

Referring to the desirability of a good literal translation of Homer,

Beattie makes the following amusing comparisons.

"Something of this kind the world had reason to expect from Madame

Dacier, but was disappointed. Homer, as dressed out by that lady,

has more of the Frenchman in his appearance than of the old

Grecian. His beard is close shaved, his hair powdered, and there is

even a little _rouge_ on his cheek. To speak more intelligibly, his

simple and nervous diction is often wire-drawn into a flashy and

feeble paraphrase, and his imagery as well as humour, sometimes

annihilated by abbreviation. Nay, to make him the more modish, the

good lady is at pains to patch up his style with unnecessary

phrases and flourishes in the French taste, which have just such an

effect in a translation of Homer, as a bag-wig, and snuff-box would

have in a picture of Achilles."

In parody a slight likeness in form and expression brings together ideas

with very different associations. Several instances of this may be found

in a preceding chapter. By increasing points of similarity between

distant objects, poetry may be changed into humour. Addison remarks that

"If a lover declare that his mistress' breast is as white as snow, he

makes a commonplace observation, but when he adds with a sigh, that it

is as cold too, he approaches to wit." The former simile is only

poetical, but the latter draws the comparison too close, the

complication becomes too strong, and we feel inclined to laugh. Addison

merely notices the number of points of similitude, but the reason they

produce or augment humour, is that they make the solution difficult.

When it is easy to limit and disentangle the likeness and unlikeness,

the pleasantry is small, as where Butler says--

"The sun had long since, in the lap

Of Thetis, taken out his nap,

And, like a lobster boiled, the moon

From black to red began to turn."

Here there is no element of truth--the things are too far apart. A

humorous comparison should not be entirely fanciful, and without basis;

otherwise we should have no complication.

Many humorous sayings, especially those found in comic papers, fail for

want of foundation. That would-be wit which has no element of truth is

always a failure, and may appear romantic, dull or ludicrous--or simply

nonsensical. As in a novel, the more pure invention there is the duller

we find it, so here the more like truth, the error appears the better.

The finer the balance, the nearer doubt is approached, provided it be

not reached, the more excellent and artistic the humour. Gross

exaggeration is not humorous. There is too much of this extravagant and

spurious humour in the comic literature of the day. "Many men," writes

Addison, "if they speak nonsense believe they are talking humour; and

when they have drawn together a scheme of absurd inconsistant ideas are

not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. These poor

gentlemen endeavour to gain themselves the reputation of wits and

humorists by such monstrous conceits as almost qualify them for Bedlam,

not considering that humour should be always under the check of reason."

There is nothing pleasant in nonsense. In both humour and the ludicrous

the imperfection must refer to some kind of right or truth, and revolve,

as it were, round a fixed axis. "To laugh heartily we must have

reality," writes Marmontel, and it is remarkable that most good comic

situations have been taken from the author's own experience. The best

kind of humour is the most artistic embellishment of the ludicrous.

The fact that humour is often found in comparisons, probably led Léon

Dumont to consider that it arose from the meeting of two opposite ideas

in the mind. But often there is no contrast. It does not always strike

us that the state of things present before us is different from some

other clearly defined condition. We do not necessarily see that a thing

is wrong as differing from something else, but as opposing some

standard in our minds which it is often difficult to determine. We

sometimes laugh at another person's costume, though it does not occur to

us that he should be dressed as ourselves, or according to some

particular fashion, nor could we point out at what precise point it

diverges from the code of propriety. But by reflecting we could probably

mark the deviation. The ludicrous often suggests comparisons; when we

see something absurd we often try to find a resemblance to something

else, but this is after we have been amused, and we sometimes say of a

very ridiculous man, that we "do not know what he is like."

Humorous complications appear under many forms and disguises. The

Americans have lately introduced an indifferent kind of it under the

form of an ellipse--an omission of some important matter. Thus, the

editor of a Western newspaper announces that if any more libels are

published about him, there will be several first class funerals in his

neighbourhood. Again, "An old Maine woman undertook to eat a gallon of

oysters for one hundred dollars. She gained fifteen--the funeral costing

eighty-five." Another common form of humorous complication is taking an

expression in a different sense from that it usually bears. "You cannot

eat your cake, and have your cake;" "But how," asks the wilful child,

"am I to eat my cake, if I don't have it?" Thackeray speaks of a young

man who possessed every qualification for success--except talent and

industry.

In many other common forms of speech there are openings for specious

amendments, sometimes for real ones, especially in ironical expressions.

But as in pronunciation we regard usage rather than etymology, so in

sense the true meaning is not the literal or grammatical, but the

conventional. Much indifferent humour is made of question and

answer;--the reply being given falsely, as if the interrogation were put

in a different sense from that intended, an occasion for the quibble

being given by some loose or perhaps literal meaning of the words. Thus,

"Have you seen Patti?" _A._ "Yes." _Q._ "What in?" _A._ "A brougham."

Indelicacy or irreverence is unpleasant in itself, and yet when

complication is added to it few of us can avoid laughing, and I am

afraid that some considerably enjoy objectionable allusions. To tell a

man to go to h---, or that he deserves to go there, is merely coarse and

profane abuse, but when a labourer is found by an irritable country

gentleman piling up a heap of stones in front of his house, and being

rated for causing such an obstruction, asks where else he is to take

them, and is told "to h--- if you like," we are amused at the

answer--"Indeed, then, if I was to take them to heaven, they'd be more

out of your way." Thus, also, to call a man an ass would not win a smile

from most of us, but we relax a little when the writers in a high church

periodical, addicted to attacking Mr. Spurgeon, upon being accused of

being actuated by envy, retort that they know the commandment--"Thou

shalt not covet thy neighbour's ass."

If we examine carefully the circumstances which awaken the ludicrous, we

shall probably come to conclude that they often contain something which

puzzles our understanding. An act which seems ridiculous would not

appear so if we could entirely account for it, for instance, if it were

done to win a bet. There seems to be in the ludicrous not merely some

error in the taste brought before us, but something which we can

scarcely believe to be the case. This alone would account for some

variation, for what seems unintelligible to the ignorant seems plain to

the educated, and what puzzles the well-informed raises no question

among the inexperienced. The ludicrous depends upon that kind of

intellectual twilight which is the lot of man here below. Were our

knowledge perfect we should no more laugh than angelic beings,[21] were

it final we should be as grave as the lower animals. Humour exists where

the faculties are not fully developed, and our capacities are beyond our

attainments, but fails where the mind has reached its limit, or feels no

forward impulse. Study and high education are adverse to mirth, because

the mind becomes impressed with the universality of law and order, and

when learned men are merry, they are so mostly from being of genial or

sympathetic natures. Density and dullness of intelligence are also

unfavourable to humour from the absence of sensibility and

generalization. We find that those whose experience is imperfect are

most inclined to mirth. This is the reason why children, especially

those of the prosperous classes, are so full of merriment. They are not

only highly emotional, but have inquiring and progressive minds, while

their experience being small, and generalization imperfect, they see

much that appears strange and perplexing to them; but their laughter is

never hearty as in the case of those whose views are more formed.[22]

Exaggeration always contains either falsity, or complication, and when

it is used for humour the deficiency is made up. It easily affords

amusement, because it can bring together the most distant and discordant

ideas. American wits have made great use of it. Thus we read of a man

driving his gig at such a pace along the high road that his companion,

looking at the mile stones, asked what cemetery they were passing

through? One of the same country described the extent of his native land

in the following terms: "It is bounded on the North by the Aurora

Borealis, on the South by the Southern Cross, on the East by the rising

sun, and on the West by the Day of Judgment." The same may be said of

diminution which is only humorous when connecting distant ideas. In "The

Man of Taste," a poem, by the Rev. T. Bramstone in Dodsley's collection,

we read--

"My hair I'll powder in the women's way,

And dress and talk of dressing more than they;

I'll please the maids of honour if I can,

Without black velvet breeches--what is man?"

Longinus, says, "He was possessor of a field as small as a Lacedæmonian

letter." Their letters often consisted only of two or three words. A

gentleman I met on one occasion in a train, speaking of a lady friend,

observed--"She's very small, but what there is of her is very, very

good. Why, she'd go into that box," pointing to one for sandwiches.

"She's not bigger than that umbrella. 'Pon my honour as a gentleman,

she's not."

Humour, by means of the perplexity it produces, often gains the victory

over strong emotions. This fact has been practically recognised by

orators, who see that when a man is struck by a humorous allusion,

powerful feelings which could not otherwise be swayed give way, and even

firm resolutions seem for the moment shaken and changed. We are bribed

by our desire for pleasure, and a man thus often seems to sympathise

with those he really opposes and can even be made to laugh at

himself--strong antagonistic sensations and emotions being conquered by

complexity. To most persons nothing can be more solemn than the thought

of death, except its actual presence; but Theramenes was light-hearted

when the hemlock bowl was presented to him, and drinking it off could

not, as he threw out the dregs, resist exclaiming "To the health of the

lovely Critias."[23] Sir Thomas More was jocose upon the scaffold.

Baron Görz, when being led to death, said to his cook--"It's all over

now, my friend, you will never cook me a good supper again." The poet

Kleist, who was killed in the battle of Kunersdorf, was seized with a

violent fit of laughter just before he expired, when he thought of the

extraordinary faces a Cossack, who had been plundering him, made over

the prize he had found. In the same way a lady told me that a friend of

hers, having had a severe fall from his horse, drew a caricature of the

accident while the litter was being prepared for him. Scarron was

constantly in bodily suffering; and Norman Macleod wrote some humorous

verses "On Captain Frazer's Nose" when he was enduring such violent pain

that he spent the night in his study, and had occasionally to bend over

the back of a chair for relief.

Charles Mathews retained his love of humour to the last. I have heard

that, when dying at Plymouth, he ordered himself to be laid out as if

dead. The doctor on entering exclaimed, "Poor fellow, he's gone! I knew

he would not last long," and was just leaving the room with some sad

reflections, when he heard the lamented man chuckling under the sheet.

Thus, also, a German General relates that after a skirmish a French

hussar was brought in with a huge slash across his face. "Have you

received a sabre cut, my poor fellow?" asked the General. "Pooh, I was

shaved too closely this morning," was the reply. Something may be

attributed in such cases to nervous excitement, which seeks relief in

some counteraction. Mr. Hardy observes that there appears to be always a

superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to

the notice of trifles.

Addison says that false humour differs from true, as a monkey does from

a man. He goes on to say that false humour is given to little apish

tricks, and buffooneries. Now the reason why Addison and cultivated men

in general do not laugh at buffooneries and place them in the catalogue

of false humour, is simply because they do not present to their minds

any complication. When harlequin knocks the clown and pantaloon over on

their backs, "the gods" burst with laughter, unable to understand the

catastrophe, but those who have seen such things often, and consider

that men make a living by such tricks, see nothing at all strange in it,

remain grave and perhaps wearied. It was the want of complication that

probably prevented Uncle Shallow from complying with the simple

Slender's request to "Tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole

two geese out of a pen."

It may be almost unnecessary to observe that all errors in taste are not

ludicrous. "Tea-boardy" pictures do not make us laugh, we only attribute

them to unskilful artists, of whom unfortunately there are too many. Nor

is the ludicrous to be classed under the head of taste; very often that

which awakens it offers no violence to our æsthetic sensibilities. It is

true that in Art, that which appears ludicrous will always be

distasteful, for it will offend the eye or ear, but it is something

more, and we occasionally speak as though it were outside taste

altogether. Thus when we see some very evident failure in a sketch, we

say "this is a most wretched work, and out of all drawing," and add as a

climax of disapprobation "It is perfectly ridiculous." A violation of

taste is never sufficient for the ludicrous, and the ludicrous is not

always a violation of taste.

There is something in humour beyond what is merely unexpected. I

remember a physician telling me that a gentleman objected very much to

some prescriptions given to his wife, and wanted some quack medicines

tried. The doctor opposed him, and on the gentleman calling on him and

telling him he was unfit for his profession, there was an open rupture

between them, and they cut each other in the street. Not long afterwards

the gentleman died, and left him a legacy of £500. The doctor could not

help being amused at the bequest under such circumstances, though, had

it come equally unexpectedly from a mere stranger, he would have been

merely surprised.

In some humorous sayings we find several different complications, which

increase the force. Coincidences of this kind not only add to, but

multiply humour in which when of a high class the complexity is very

subtle. It has much increased since ancient times, there was a large

preponderance of emotion.

CHAPTER XXII.

Imperfection--An Impression of Falsity implied--Two Views taken by

Philosophers--Firstly that of Voltaire, Jean Paul, Brown, the German

Idealists, Léon Dumont, Secondly that of Descartes, Marmontel and

Dugald Stewart--Whately on Jests--Nature of Puns--Effect of Custom and

Habit--Accessory Emotion--Disappointment and Loss--Practical Jokes.

Although a distinction can be drawn in humour between the sense of wrong

and the complication which accompanies it, still, as in any given case,

the two flow out of the same circumstances, there seems to be some

indissoluble link between them. It is not necessary to say that the

sense of the ludicrous is a compound feeling, to maintain that it has

the appearance of containing or being connected with something like a

feeling of disapprobation.

Moreover, all the elements contained must be perfectly fused together

before the ludicrous can be appreciated, just as Sir T. Macintosh

observes of Beauty, "Until all the separate pleasures which create it be

melted into one--as long as any of them are discerned and felt as

distinct from each other--qualities which gratify are not called by the

name of Beauty," and when we say that the humour consists of an emotion

awakened by an exercise of judgment, we do not pretend to determine how

far the emotion has been modified by judgment, and judgment directed by

emotion.

We cannot properly suppose that there is anything really wrong in

external objects brought before us, and did we recognise that everything

moves in a regular pre-ordained course, we should be obliged to consider

everything right, and conclude that the error we observe is imaginary,

and flows from our own false standard. We do so with regard to the

so-called works of Nature, and, therefore, we never laugh at a rock or a

tree--no matter how strange its form. But in the general circumstances

brought before us the reign of law is not so clear, especially when they

depend on the actions of men, which we feel able to pronounce judgment

upon, and condemn when opposed to our ideal. In humorous representations

we are actually beholding what is false; in ludicrous we think we are,

though we cannot avoid at times detecting some infirmity in our own

discernment. Thus, in the case of a child's puzzle, a person unable to

solve it sometimes exclaims, "How dull I am! I ought to be able to do

it," and people occasionally find fault with their senses, as we

sometimes see them laughing when dazzled by rapidly revolving colours.

Such instances may suggest to us that the fault we find really

originates in our own obtuseness.

But before proceeding, we must allow that philosophers and literary men

are divided in opinion as to the existence of any feeling of wrong in

the ludicrous. Voltaire, tilting against the windmills which the old

animosity school had set up, observes, "When I was eleven years old, I

read all alone for the first time the 'Amphitryon' of Molière, and I

laughed until I was on the point of falling down. Was this from

hostility?--one is not hostile when alone!" This will not seem to most

of us more conclusive reasoning than that of his opponents. We seldom

laugh when alone, although we often feel angry.

Dryden says "Wit is a propriety of words and thoughts adapted to the

subject," and Pope gives us a similar opinion in the following words--

"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed,

Something whose truth convinced at sight we find.

That gives us back the image to our mind."

Taking this view of the subject, we should be inclined to think the

Psalms of David especially witty, and to agree with the pretentious

young lady who, being asked what she thought of Euclid, replied at a

hazard that "It was the wittiest book she had ever read." But it seems

probable from other passages in Pope's works that he did not here intend

to give a full definition, but only some characteristics. Moreover, in

former times, Wit was not properly distinguished from Wisdom, and the

above authors probably used the word in the old sense. Young says,

"Well-judging wit is a flower of wisdom," to which we may reply in the

words of an old proverb, "Wit and Wisdom, like the seven stars, are

seldom found together."

Brown, in his lectures on "The Human Understanding," observes that in

the ludicrous we do not condemn, but admire, and he cites as an

illustration the case of some friends dining at an hotel. Boniface

smilingly inquires what wine they would like to drink. One says

Champagne, another Claret, another Burgundy, but the last one observes

knowingly that he should like that best for which he should not have to

pay. Now in this there is certainly a fault, for the answer is not

applicable to the question. Brown's theory is that the ludicrous arises

from the contemplation of incongruities, and he finds himself somewhat

puzzled when he considers that the incongruities in science--in

chemistry, for instance--do not make us laugh. He is at some trouble to

explain that the importance of the subject renders us serious. But had

he recognised the fact that the ludicrous implies condemnation, he would

have seen that we could not be amused at incongruities in science,

because we have a strong conviction that they are not real but only

apparent. Some very ignorant persons, as he observes, do occasionally

laugh at philosophic truths. I knew a lady who laughed at being told of

the great distance of the planets, and a gentleman assured me that a

friend of his, a man who had such shrewdness that he rose from the

lowest ranks and acquired £100,000, would never believe that the earth

was round!

Jean Paul, taking the same admiration view, observes that "women laugh

more than men, and the haughty Turk not at all." But are not these facts

referable to comparative excitability and apathy, and also to the

multiplicity and variety of female ideas compared with the dulness of

the Moslem's apprehension. Jean Paul proceeds to say that the more

people laugh at our joke, the better we are pleased, and that this does

not seem as though the enjoyment came from a feeling of triumph. But

what is really laughed at is the humour, and not the humorist, and as a

man wishes the beauty of a poem he has written to be generally

acknowledged, so he desires to see the point of his satire appreciated

by as many as possible.

A fruitful source of error in the investigation of humour arises from

the difficulty in determining where it lies--of localizing it, if I may

be allowed the expression. We hear a very amusing observation, and at

once join heartily in the laugh, but cannot say whether we are laughing

at a circumstance or a person, at a representation or a reality.

We come now to the most important authority on this side of the

question. The systems which the German philosophers have propounded are

more serviceable to themselves than edifying to the ordinary reader.

High abstractions afford but a very vague and indefinite idea to the

mind, nor can their application be fully understood but by those who

have ascended the successive stages by which each philosopher has

himself mounted. On the present subject, their opinions seem to have

been influenced by their views on other subjects. As we have already

observed, Kant and several of the leading German idealists are in favour

of considering the ludicrous as a "resolution" or a "deliverance of the

absolute, captive by the finite," an opinion which reminds us of

Hobbes' old theory of "glorying over others." The difference between

their views and that of most authorities is not so great as it at first

appears; they admit a "negation" of truth and beauty, but found the

ludicrous, not upon this, but upon the rebirth which follows. This step

in advance, taken in accordance with their general philosophy, may be

correct, but it does not seem warranted by the mere examination of the

subject itself. Can we say that at the instant of laughter we regard not

that something is wrong, but that the reverse of it is right? When

humour is brought before us, do we feel in any way instructed? This

rebirth from a negation must seem somewhat visionary. What, for

instance, is the truth to be gathered from the following. "I wish," said

a philanthropic orator, "to be a friend to the friendless, a father to

the fatherless, and a widow to the widowless."

Probably, the philosopher who formed the rebirth theory had looked at

ludicrous events rather than humorous stories--and it may be urged that

we laugh at the former when we are set right, and are convinced of

having been really mistaken. But at the moment what excites mirth is

something that seems wrong. We meet a friend, for instance, in a place

where we little expected to see him, and perhaps smile at the meeting.

Had we known all his movements we should not have been thus surprised,

but we were ignorant of them. Here we may say our views are corrected,

and our amusement comes from a resolution or rebirth. But reflection

will show that whatever our final conclusion may be, we laugh at what

seems to us, at the moment, unaccountable and wrong; and as soon as we

begin to correct ourselves, and to see how the event occurred, our

merriment disappears.

Many instances will occur to us in which what is really right may appear

wrong. Most of us have heard the proverb "If the day is fine take an

umbrella, if it rains do as you like." It may give good advice, but we

should be much inclined to laugh at anyone who adopted it.

Léon Dumont, the latest writer who has added considerably to our

knowledge on this subject, does not admit the existence of imperfection

in the ludicrous. But the arguments which he adduces do not seem to be

conclusive. He says, for instance, that we laugh at love and amatory

adventures because they abound in deceptions! But deception always

implies ignorance or falsity, and the extravagant phraseology of love,

the fanciful names, the griefs and ecstasies, are not only ridiculous

in themselves, but lead us to regard lovers generally as bereft of

reason.

Dumont observes, in support of his theory, that "when a small man bobs

his head in passing under a door, we laugh." But if a puppet or a

pantaloon were to do so we should scarcely be amused, for we could

account for it, and see nothing wrong in his action. He goes on to ask

how the other view is applicable in the case of Ariosto's father, who

rates his son at the very moment when the latter is wanting a model of

an enraged parent to complete his comedy. It is our general idea that

the anger of a father is something alarming and painful to endure, but

here we see it regarded as a most fortunate occurrence. The man is

producing the contrary effect to what he supposes, he is not effecting

what he is intending; here is a strange kind of failure or ignorance.

Suppose we had known that the father was only simulating anger, we

should probably not have laughed, or if we were amused, it would be at

Ariosto's expense, who was being deceived in his model of parental

indignation.

Léon Dumont defines the laughable to be that of which the mind is forced

to affirm and to deny the same thing at the same time. He attributes it

to two distant ideas being brought together. We might thus conclude that

there was something droll in such expressions as "eyes of fire," "lips

of dew."

Everyone is aware that humour is generally evanescent, the feeling goes

almost as soon as it arrives; and the same spell, if repeated, has lost

its charm. It may be said that all repetition is, in its nature,

wearisome, because it is not in accordance with the progress of the

human mind, but we must admit that it is less damaging to poetry in

which there is a perpetual spring and rebirth, and to proverbs which

have ever fresh and useful application.

"Nothing," writes Amelot, "pleases less than a perpetual pleasantry,"

and we all know that a jest-book is dull reading. Humour seems the more

fugitive, because we do not know by what means to reproduce and continue

it. We can, almost at will, call up emotions of love, hatred or sorrow,

and when we feel them we can aggravate them to any extent, but humour is

not thus under our command. We cannot invent or summon it. When we have

heard a "good thing" said, we shall find that the mere repetition of the

words originally uttered are more fully successful in reproducing and

prolonging our mirth than all the attempts we usually make to develop it

and come closer to the point. Sydney Smith was of opinion that much

might be effected by perseverance, and this is the reason that he was

often guilty of that bad and overstrained wit which led Lord Brougham to

call him "too much of a Jack pudding."

We cannot by calculation and design produce anything worthy of the name

of humour. It is generally true that any kind of reflection is inimical

to it. But no doubt the great cause of its evanescence is that it leads

to nothing, and adds nothing to our information. The most fleeting

humour is that which is on unimportant subjects, as in comic poems and

squibs, which may show considerable ingenuity, but have no interest. It

is the nugatory and negative character of humour that makes it so

short-lived. Hence, also, it is best at intervals, and in small

quantities. The fact that when any attempt is made to explain a jest and

glean any information from it the humour vanishes, seems much opposed to

its containing any principle of rebirth.

Many of the philosophers, who have discarded the idea of there being

condemnation in the ludicrous, have been misled either by not

distinguishing between the ludicrous and the gift of humour, or by

regarding the grain of truth which is imbedded in all wit as the entire

or principal cause of our amusement. To form the complication necessary

for humorous sayings there must be, of course, some element of truth to

oppose the falsity in them. The course in forming witty sayings is

generally the following. We remark some real resemblance between things

which has hitherto been unnoticed. We then, upon this foundation, make a

false statement, deriving so much colour from the truth that we cannot

easily disengage one from the other. The resemblance must be something

striking and unusual, or it would not support a statement which opposes

our ordinary experience. As in the ludicrous there is reality, so in

humour there must be some element of truth, or we should regard the

invention as simple falsehood. To this extent we are prepared to agree

with Boileau that "the basis of all wit is truth," but the result and

general impression it gives is falsity.

Addison's Genealogy of Humour:--

Truth

Good Sense

Wit Mirth

Humour

at first seems to be erroneous, but he does not really mean to say that

there is no falsehood in it, but that it does not approach nonsense, and

often contains useful instruction.

Holms exhibits the nature of humour in a passage remarkable for

philosophy and elegance:

"There is a perfect consciousness in every kind of wit that its

essence consists in a partial and incomplete view of whatever it

touches. It throws a single ray separated from the rest, red,

yellow, blue, or any intermediate shade upon an object, never white

light. We get beautiful effects from wit, all the prismatic

colours, but never the object is in fair daylight. Poetry uses the

rainbow tints for special effects, but always its essential object

is the purest white light of truth."

Bacon went further, and considered that even the beauty of poetry and

the pleasures of imagination were derived from falsehood.

"This truth is a naked and open daylight, which doth not show the

masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and

daintily as candle light. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a

pearl that showeth well by day, but it will not rise to the price

of a diamond or carbuncle that shineth best in varied lights. A

mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if

there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering

hopes, false valuations, imagination, and the like, but that it

would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things full

of melancholy indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves."

Mr. Dallas goes so far as to say that "it is impossible that laughter

should be an unmixed pleasure, seeing it arises from some aspect of

imperfection or discordance." The fact that many people would undergo

almost any kind of suffering rather than be exposed to ridicule,

indicates that it contains some very unpleasant reflection. We sometimes

feel uncomfortable even when we hear laughter around us, the cause of

which we do not know, fearing that we may be ourselves the object of

it--even dogs dislike to be laughed at. Our ordinary modes of speech

seem to point to some imperfection or error in humour, as when we say

"there is many a true word spoken in jest," or "life is a jest,"

signifying its unreality. Sometimes we say that an observation "must be

a joke," implying that it is false. I have even heard of a man who never

laughed at humour because he hated falsehood, and we sometimes say of an

untrue statement that it must be taken with a "grain of salt."

It is so very common for men to flinch under ridicule, that it is said

to be a good test of courage. An old English poet says,

"For he who does not tremble at the sword,

Who quails not with his head upon the block,

Turn but a jest against him, loses heart.

The shafts of wit slip through the stoutest mail;

There is no man alive that can live down

The unextinguishable laughter of mankind."

Aristotle defines the ludicrous to be "a certain error and turpitude

unattended with pain, and not destructive," a statement which may refer

to moral or physical defects. Cicero and Quintilian, looking probably at

satire, consider it to be mostly directed against the shortcomings and

offences of men. Bacon in his "Silva Silvarum" says the objects of

laughter are deformity, absurdity, and misfortune, in which we trace a

certain severity, although he speaks of "jocular arts" as "deceptions of

the senses," such as in masks, and other exhibitions, were much in

fashion in his day. Descartes says that we only laugh at those whom we

deem worthy of reproach; but Marmontel, the celebrated pupil of

Voltaire, takes a view which bespeaks greater cultivation and a progress

in society. "A fault in manner," he says, "is laughable; a false

pretension is ridiculous, a situation which exposes vice to detestation

is comic, a _bon mot_ is pleasant."

Dugald Stewart proceeds so far as almost to exclude vice, for he only

specifies "slight imperfections in the character and manners, such as do

not excite any moral indignation." He says that it is especially excited

by affectation, hypocrisy, and vanity.

We trace in these successive opinions of philosophers an improvement in

humour, proportionate to the progress of mankind. As men of literature,

they drew general conclusions, and from the higher and more cultivated

classes, probably much from books. Had they taken a wider range, their

catalogues would have been more comprehensive.

But the amelioration we have traced is as much in the general tone of

feeling as in humour itself, if not more. Bitter reflections upon the

personal or moral defects of others are not so acceptable now as

formerly; the "glorying" over the downfall of our neighbours is less

common.

Thus we mark an improvement in the sentiments which accompany the

ludicrous, and which many philosophers seem to have mistaken for the

ludicrous itself. Neither hostility, indelicacy, nor profanity can

create the ludicrous, but where they do not disgust they vivify and make

it more effective. It will be observed that in all of them there is

something we condemn and disapprove. The joy of gain and advantage was

in very early times sufficient to quicken humour in that childlike mirth

which flowed chiefly from delight and exultation, but the "laughter of

pleasure" has passed away, perhaps we require something more keen or

subtle in the maturer age of the world. The accessory emotions are not

at present either so joyous or so offensive as they were in bygone

times. The "faults in manners" of Marmontel, and the "slight

imperfections" of Dugald Stewart, showed that the objectionable

stimulants of the ludicrous were assuming a much milder form.

From the views of Archbishop Whately set forth in his "Logic," we might

suppose that pleasantries, although not devoid of falsity, were usually

of a truly innocuous character--"Jests," he writes, "are mock fallacies,

_i.e._ fallacies so palpable as not to be able to deceive anyone, but

yet bearing just the resemblance of argument which is calculated to

amuse by contrast." Farther on we read again: "There are several

different kind of jokes and raillery, which will be found to correspond

with the different kinds of fallacy." On this we may observe that some

jests, generally of the "manufactured" class, are founded on a false

logical process, but in most cases the error arises more from the matter

than from the form, and often from mistakes of the senses. Although

nearly every misconception may be represented under the form of false

ratiocination, the imperfection almost always lies in one of the

premises, and it is seldom that there is plainly a fault of argument in

humour. If we claim everything as a fallacy of which there is no

evidence, though there seems to be some, we shall embrace a large

area--part of which is usually assigned to falsity, and if we consider

every mistake to come from wrong deduction, we shall convict mankind of

being so full of fallacies as not to be a rational, but a most illogical

animal. Whately says, "The pun is evidently in most instances a mock

argument founded on a palpable equivocation of the middle term--and

others in like manner will be found to correspond to the respective

fallacies."

A pun is the nearest approach to a mere mock fallacy of form, and we see

what poor amusement it generally affords. To feign that because words

have the same sound, they convey the same thoughts or meanings is a

fiction as transparent as it is preposterous. A word is nothing but an

arbitrary sign, and apart from the thought connected with it, it is an

empty unmeaning sound. The link is too slight in puns, the disparity

between the things they represent as similar, too great--there is too

much falsity. The worst kind of them is where the words are unlike in

spelling, and even somewhat so in sound, and where the same reference

cannot be made to suit both. Such are puns of the "atrocious" or

"villainous" class--a fertile source of bad riddles. For instance, "Why

is an old shoe like ancient Greece?" "Because it had a sole on (Solon)."

Here the words are very dissimilar and the allusion is imperfect--the

description of an old shoe being wrong and forced.

The founders of many of our great families have shown how much this kind

of humour was once appreciated by using it in their mottoes. Thus Onslow

has "_Festina lente_" and Vernon more happily "_Ver non semper floret_."

Some puns are amusingly ingenious when the reference hinges well on both

words, some additional verbal or other connection is shown, and the

words are exactly alike. When there are not two words, but one is used

in two senses, there is still greater improvement. Thus the Rev. R. S.

Hawker--a man of such mediæval tastes that he was claimed, falsely, I

believe, as a Roman Catholic--made an apt reply to a nobleman who had

told him in the heat of religious controversy that he would not be

priest-ridden--

"Priest-ridden thou! it cannot be

By prophet or by priest,

Balaam is dead, and none but he

Would choose thee for his beast!"

We also consider that the mendicant deserved a coin, who, knowing the

love of wit in Louis XIV., complained sadly to him, _Ton image est

partout--excepté dans ma poche_. In such cases the pun is sometimes

transformed, for it only invariably exists where the words are equivocal

and where the allusion is peculiarly applicable to the double meaning

the falsity vanishes, and the verbal coincidence becomes an effective

ornament of style. It has been so used by the most successful writers,

and it is still under certain conditions approved; but more

discrimination is required in such embellishments than was anciently

necessary. And when the allusion becomes not only elegant but

iridescent, reflecting beautiful and changing lights, it rises into

poetical metaphor.

Falsity is necessary to constitute a pun; if no great identity is

assumed between the two words, and they are not introduced in a somewhat

strained manner, we do not consider the term applicable. If the use of

merely similar words in sentences were to be so viewed, we should be

constantly guilty of punning. Wordsworth was not guilty of a pun on that

hot day in Germany when, his friends having given him some hock, a wine

he detested, he exclaimed:

"In Spain, that land of priests and apes

The thing called wine doth come from grapes,

But where flows down the lordly Rhine

The thing called _gripes_ doth come from wine."

No doubt he intended to show a coincidence in coupling together two

words of nearly the same sound, but he represented the two things

signified as cause and effect, not as identical, so as to form a pun.

The difference between poetical and humorous comparisons may be

generally stated to be that the former are upward towards something

superior, the latter downwards towards something inferior. Tennyson

calls Maud a "queen rose," and when we sing--

"Happy fair,

Thine eyes are load stars, and thy tongue sweet air,"

the comparison is inspiring, but, when Washington Irving speaks of a

"vinegar-faced woman," we feel inclined to laugh. There are, however,

exceptions to this rule. Socrates says that to compare a man to

everything excellent is to insult him. Sometimes also a dwarf is

compared to a giant for the purpose of calling attention to his

insignificance. This is often seen in irony. So also, we at times laugh

at the sagacity shown by the lower animals, which seems not so much to

raise them in our estimation as to lower them by occasioning a

comparison with the superior powers of man.

Sometimes in comparisons between things very different, we cannot say

one thing is not as good as another, but, with regard to a certain use,

purpose, or design, there may be an evident inferiority. Thus

comparisons are so often odious, that Wordsworth speaks of the blessing

of being able to look at the world without making them. We may observe

generally that when an idea is brought before us, which, instead of

elevating and enlarging our previous conception, clashes and jangles

with it, there is an approach towards the laughable.

We cannot say that enthusiasm in Art or Science should not exist, and

yet a manifestation of it seems absurd when we do not sympathise in it.

The most amiable and beneficent of men, it has been remarked, "have

always been a favourite subject of ridicule for the satirist and

jester." Personal deformities seem absurd to some, but those who have

made them their study see nothing extraordinary in them. Sometimes our

laughter shows us that something seems wrong, which our highest ideal

would approve. I remember seeing an aged man tottering along a rough

road in France, with a heavy bag of geese on his back. One of his

countrymen, who by the way have not too much reverence for age, came

behind him and jovially exclaimed, "_Courage, mon ami, vous êtes sur le

chemin de Paradis_." The old man ought to have been glad to have been on

the road to heaven, but our laughter reminds us that most would prefer

to stay on earth.

It must be admitted that our feelings with regard to right and wrong are

very shifting and changeable, and that we condemn others for doing what

we should ourselves have done under the same circumstances. We have also

an especial tendency to adopt the view that what we are accustomed to is

right. We sometimes observe this in morals, where it causes a

considerable amount of confusion, but it holds greater sway over such

light matters as awaken the sense of the ludicrous. When anything is

presented to us different from what we have been long accustomed to,

unless it is evidently better, we are inclined to consider it worse. In

the same way, things which at first we consider wrong, we finally come

to think unobjectionable.

In taste and our sense of the ludicrous, we find ourselves greatly under

the influence of habit. What seems to be a logical error is often found

to be merely something to which we are unaccustomed; thus the double

negative, which sounds to us absurd and equivalent to an affirmation, is

used in many languages merely to give emphasis.

How ridiculous do the manners of our forefathers now seem, their

pig-tails, powder, and patches, the large fardingales, and the stiff and

pompous etiquette. I remember a gentleman, a staunch admirer of the old

school, who, lamenting over the lounging and lolling of the present day,

said that his grandmother, even when dying, refused to relax into a

recumbent posture. She was sitting erect even to her very last hour, and

when the doctor suggested to her that she would find herself easier in a

reposing posture, she replied, "No, sir, I prefer to die as I am," and

she breathed her last, sitting bolt upright in her high-backed chair. So

great indeed is the power of custom that it almost leads us to view

artificial things as natural productions--to commit as great an error as

that of the African King who said that "England must be a fine country,

where the rivers flow with rum."

Speaking theoretically, we may say that the opposition of either custom

or morale is sufficient to extinguish the ludicrous, and that we do not

laugh at what is wrong if we are used to it; or at what is unusual if we

think it right. When there is a collision, we may regard the two as

neutralizing each other. Still, for this to hold good, neither must

predominate, and it will practically be found from the constitution of

our minds, a small amount of custom will overcome a considerable amount

of morale. In illustration of the above remarks, we might appropriately

refer to those strange articles of wearing apparel called hats, the

shape of which might suggest to those unaccustomed to them, that we were

carrying some culinary utensil upon our head; and yet, if we saw a

gentleman walking about bare-headed, like the Ancients, we should feel

inclined to laugh.[24] But we will rather consider the recent fashion of

wearing expanded dresses--those extraordinary "evening bells" which,

until lately, occupied so much public attention, and consumed so many

tons of iron. An octogenarian who could remember the tight skirts at the

end of Queen Charlotte's reign, and had formed his taste upon that

model, might have laughed heartily, if not too much offended at the

change. But by degrees, custom would have asserted its sway to such an

extent that, although he did not approve of them, they would not provoke

his mirth; and yet, when he saw some of the ladies re-introducing tight

dresses, he might not be able to laugh at them, as he still retained his

early notions with regard to their propriety. But most of us are so

influenced by the fashion of the day in dress, that the rights of the

case would not have prevented our laughing at the shrimp-like appearance

of those who first tried to bring in the present reform, and perhaps

some of the stanch supporters of the more natural style could not have

quite maintained their gravity, had one of their antiquated ideals been

suddenly introduced among the wide-spreading ladies of the late period.

To take another illustration. It would perhaps be in accordance with our

highest desires that instinct should approach to reason as nearly as

possible, and that all animals should act in the most judicious and

beneficial way. Naturalists would be inclined to agree in this, and if

this were the view we adopted, we should not laugh at dogs showing signs

of intelligence; neither should we at their acting irrationally,

because experience teaches us that they are not generally guided by

reflection. But most of us are accustomed to consider reason the

prerogative and peculiarity of man. And if we take the view that the

lower animals have it not, we shall be inclined to smile when any of

them show traces of it--any such exhibition seeming out of place, and

leading us to compare them with men. But when we are accustomed to see a

monkey taking off his hat, or playing a tambourine, or even smoking a

pipe, we by degrees see nothing laughable in the performance.

As our emotions are only excited with reference to human affairs, some

have thought that all laughter must refer to them. Pope says, "Laughter

implies censure, inanimate and irrational beings are not objects of

censure, and may, therefore, be elevated as much as you please, and no

ridicule follows." Addison writes to the same purpose. His words

are:--"I am afraid I shall appear too abstract in my speculations if I

shew that when a man of wit makes us laugh, it is by betraying some

address or infirmity in his own character, or in the representation he

makes of others, and that when we laugh at a brute, or even at an

inanimate thing, it is by some action or incident that bears a remote

analogy to some blunder or absurdity in reasonable creatures." It may

be questioned whether we always go so far as to institute this

comparison. Ludicrous events and circumstances seem often such as the

individuals concerned have no control over whatever, and betray no

infirmity. When we see a failure in a work of art, do we always think of

the artist? A lady told me last autumn that when she was walking in a

country town with her Italian greyhound, which was dressed in a red coat

to protect it from cold, the tradespeople and most others passed it

without notice, or merely with a passing word of commendation; but, on

meeting a country bumpkin, he pointed to it, burst out laughing, and

said, "Look at that daug, why, it's all the world like a littl' oss."

Beattie thinks that the derision is not necessarily aimed at human

beings, and probably it is not directly, but indirectly there seems to

be some reference to man. Léon Dumont tells us that he once laughed on

hearing a clap of thunder; it was in winter, and it seemed out of place

that it should occur in cold weather. There can be nothing legitimately

ludicrous in such occurrences. But, perhaps, _lusus naturæ_ are not

regarded as truly natural. Of course, they are really so, but not to us,

for we have an ideal variously obtained of how Nature ought to act, and

thus a man is able for the moment to imagine that something produced by

Nature is not natural--just as we sometimes speak of "unnatural

weather." But we seldom or ever laugh at such phenomena.

We all have a certain resemblance to the old Athenians in wishing to

hear something new. It generally pleases, and always impresses us.

Novelty is in proportion to our ignorance, and can scarcely be said to

exist at all absolutely, for although there is some change always in

progress, it advances too slowly and certainly to produce anything

startling or exciting. Novelty especially affects us with regard to the

ludicrous, and some have, therefore, hastily concluded that it is

sufficient to awaken this feeling.

The strength and vividness of new emotions and impressions are

especially traceable in their outward demonstrations. A very slight

change occurring suddenly will often cause an ejaculation of alarm or

admiration, especially among those of nervous temperament; but upon a

repetition the excitement is less, and the nerves are scarcely affected.

This peculiar law of the nervous system will account for the absence of

laughter on the relation of any old or well-known story. Both pleasure

and facial action are absent; but when we no longer feel the emotion of

humour, we still have some notion that certain ideas awakened it, and

would still do so under favourable circumstances,--that is when persons

first conceived them. Here then we can recognise humour apart from

novelty; but it is dead, its magic is no more. On the same principle, to

laugh before telling a good story lessens its force, just as to break

gradually melancholy tidings enables the recipient to bear them better.

But nothing so effectually damps mirth as to premise that we are going

to say something very laughable. Bacon observes, "Ipsa titillatio si

præmoneas non magnopere in risum valet." Novelty is necessary to produce

what Akenside felicitously calls "the gay surprise," but they are wrong

who maintain that this is the essence of the ludicrous. An ingenious

suggestion has been made that the reason why we cannot endure the

repetition of a humorous story is that on a second relation the element

of falsehood becomes too strong in proportion to that of truth. Such an

explanation can scarcely be correct, for in many instances people would

not be able to show what was the falsity contained. A man may often form

a correct judgment as to the general failure of an attempt, without

being able to show how it could be corrected. Probably after having

heard a humorous story once we are prepared for something whimsical, and

are therefore less affected on its repetition.

We have already observed that certain emotions and states of mind are

adverse to the ludicrous, and we now pass on to those which, like

novelty, are favourable to it and have been at times considered elements

of the ludicrous, but are really only concomitant and accessory. As we

have observed, indelicacy, profanity, or a hostile joy at the downfall

or folly of others is not in itself humorous. Pleasantry without pungent

seasoning may be seen in those "facetious" verbal conceits which our

American cousins, and especially "yours trooly," Artemus Ward, have been

fond of framing. But accessory emotions are necessary to render humour

demonstrative. They are generally unamiable, censorious, or otherwise

offensive, perhaps in keeping with the disapproval excited by falsity.

In some cases the two feelings of wrong are almost inextricably

connected, but in others we can separate them without much difficulty.

In the following instances the presence of an accessory emotion can

easily be traced:--

"'What have you brought me there?' asks a French publisher of a young

author, who advances with a long roll under his arm. 'Is it a

manuscript?' 'No, Sir,' replies the man of letters, pompously, 'a

fortune!' 'Oh, a fortune! Take it to the publisher opposite, he is

poorer than I am.'"

(The disappointment of the author here adds considerably to our

amusement at the ingenious answer of the publisher.)

Two men, attired as a bishop and chaplain, entered one of the great

jewellery establishments in Bond Street and asked to be shown some

diamond rings. The bishop selected one worth a hundred pounds, but said

he had only a fifty-pound note with him, and that he wished to take the

ring away. The foreman took the note, and the bishop gave his address;

but he had scarcely left when a policeman rushed in and asked where the

two swindlers had gone. The foreman stood aghast, but said he had at

least secured a fifty-pound note. The policeman asked to see it, and

saying it was a flash note and that he would have it tested, left the

shop and never returned.

The amusement afforded by practical jokes is also largely dependent upon

the discomfort of the victims. This kind of humour, happily now little

known in this country, has been much in favour with Italian bandits, who

occasionally unite whimsical fancy with great personal daring. A

Piedmontese gentleman told me an instance in which two Counts, who were

dining at an albergo, met a strange-looking man whom they took to be a

sportsman like themselves. The conversation turned upon bandits, and the

Counts expressed a hope that they might meet some, as they were well

armed and would teach them a lesson. Their companion left before them,

and walking along the road they were to take, ordered a labouring man

whom he met to stand in an adjoining vineyard and hold up a vine-stake

to his shoulder like a gun. As soon as the Counts' carriage came to the

place the bandit rushed out, seized the horses, and called upon the

Counts to deliver up their arms or he would order his men, whom they

could see in the vineyard, to fire. The Counts not only obeyed the

summons, but began to accuse one another of keeping something back.

Shortly afterwards, on a doctor boasting in the same way, the bandit

went out before him and stuck a bough in the road on which he hung a

lantern. The doctor called out who's there? and was taking a deadly aim

with his gun, when he was seized from behind and pinioned. The bandit

said he should teach him a different lesson from that he deserved, and

only deprived him of his gun.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Nomenclature--Three Classes of Words--Distinction between Wit and

Humour--Wit sometimes dangerous, generally innocuous.

The subject of which we have been treating in these volumes will suggest

to us the logical distinctions to be drawn between three classes of

words. First, we have those which imply that we are regarding something

external, awakening laughter as the _ludicrous_ from _ludus_, a game,

especially pointing to antics and gambols; the _ridiculous_ from _rideo_

to laugh, referring to that which occasions a demonstrative movement in

the muscles of the countenance--implying a strong emotion, often of

contempt, and generally applied to persons, as the ludicrous is to

circumstances; the _grotesque_ referring to strangeness in form, such as

is seen in fantastic _grottoes_, or in the quaint figures of sylvan

deities which the Ancients placed in them, and the _absurd_, properly

referring to acts of people who are defective in faculties.

The ludicrous is often used in philosophical works to signify a

feeling, and our second class will contain words which may refer either

to something external or to the mind, such as _droll_, (from the German)

_comical_, _amusing_, and _funny_. To say "I do not see any fun in it,"

is different from saying "I do not see any fun in him," and a man may be

called funny, either in laudation or disparagement.

In the third class we place such words as refer to the mind alone as the

source of amusement, and under this head we may place Humour as a

general and generic term. Raillery and sarcasm (from a Greek word "to

tear flesh") refer especially to the expression of the feeling in

language, and irony from its covert nature generally requires assistance

from the voice and manner. Some words refer especially to literature,

and never to any attacks made on present company. Of these, satire aims

at making a man odious or ridiculous; lampoon, contemptible. Satire is

the rapier; lampoon the broadsword, or even the cudgel--the former

points to the heart and wounds sharply, the latter deals a dull and

blundering blow, often falling wide of the mark. In general a different

man selects a different weapon; the educated and refined preferring

satire; the rude and more vulgar, lampoon--one adopting what is keen and

precise, the other seeking rough and irrelevant accessories. But clever

men, to gain others over to them by amusement, have sometimes taken the

clumsier means, and while placing their victim nearer the level of the

brutes than of humanity, have not struck so straight; for the

improbability they have introduced has in it so much that is fantastic

that their attack seems mostly playful, if not bordering on the

ludicrous.

Lampoon was the earliest kind of humorous invective; we have an instance

of it in Homer's Thersites. Buffoonery differs from lampoon in being

carried on in acting, instead of words. The latter is rather based upon

some moral delinquency or imperfection; the former aims merely at

amusement, and resembles burlesque in being generally optical, and

containing little malice. Both come under the category of broad humour,

which is excessive in accessory emotion, and in most cases deficient in

complication. Caricature resembles them both in being often concerned

with deformity. It appeals to the senses rather than to the emotions.

The complication in it is never very good when it is confined to

pictorial representation, as we may observe that without some

explanation we should seldom know what a design was intended to portray;

and when the word means description in writing it still retains some of

its original reference to sight, and is concerned principally with form

and optical similitudes.

Although Wit and Humour are often used as synonymous, the fact of two

words being in use, and the attempts which have been made to

discriminate between them, prove that there must be a distinction in

signification.[25] It is so fine that many able writers have failed to

detect it. Lord Macaulay considered wit to refer to contrasts sought

for, humour to those before our eyes--but such an explanation is not

altogether satisfactory. Humour originally meant moisture, or any limpid

subtle fluid, and so came to signify the disposition or turn of the

mind--just as spirit, originally breath or wind, came to signify the

soul of man. In Ben Jonson's time it had this signification, as in one

of his plays entitled "Every Man in his Humour." Dispositions being very

different, it came to signify fancy--as where Burton, author of the

"Anatomy of Melancholy," is called humorous--and also the whimsical Sir

W. Thornhill in the "Vicar of Wakefield"--and finally meant the feeling

which appreciates the ludicrous, though we sometimes use the old sense

in speaking of a good-humoured man.

Wit is a Saxon word, and originally signified Wisdom--a witte was a wise

man, and the Saxon Parliament was called the Wittenagemot. We may

suppose that wisdom did not then so much imply learning as natural

sagacity, and came to refer to such ingenious attempts as those in the

Exeter Book. Here would be a basis for the later meaning, especially if

some of the old saws came to be regarded as ludicrous, but for a long

time afterwards wit signified talent, whether humorous or otherwise, and

as late as Elizabeth the "wits" were often used as synonymous with

judgment. Steele, introducing Pope's "Messiah" in the Spectator, says

that it is written by a friend of his "who is not ashamed to employ his

wit in the praise of of his Maker." Addison introduced the word genius,

and the other was relegated to humorous conceits--a change no doubt

facilitated by the short and monosyllabic form and sound. The word

_facetus_ seems to have undergone the same transition in Latin, for

Horace speaks of Virgil having possessed the _facetum_ in poetry.

Humour may be dry--may consist of subtle inuendoes of a somewhat

uncertain character not devoid of pleasantry, perhaps, but indistinctly

felt, and not calculated to raise laughter. This has led some to observe

that in contradistinction to it--"Wit is sharply defined like a

crystal." So Mr. Dallas writes, "Wit is of the known and definite;

humour is of the unknown and indefinable. Wit is the unexpected

exhibition of some clearly defined contrast or disproportion; humour the

unexpected indication of a vague discordance, in which the sense or the

perception of ignorance is prominent." "Wit is the comedy of knowledge,

humour of ignorance." But we must observe in opposition to this view

that humour may be too clearly defined, as in puns or caricatures, it

may be broad--but who ever heard of broad wit. The retort often made by

those who have been severely hit, "You're very witty," or "You think

you're very witty," could not be expressed by, "You're very humorous,"

which would have neither irony nor point, not implying any pretension.

Nothing that smells of the lamp, or refers much to particular

experience, or second-hand information, deserves the name of wit, and

although it may be recorded in writing, it generally implies impromptu

speech. There seems to be a kind of inspiration in it, and we are

inclined to regard it, like any other great advantage, as a natural

gift. "If you have real wit," says Lord Chesterfield, "it will grow

spontaneously, and you need not aim at it, for in that case the rule of

the gospel is reversed and it will prove, 'Seek, and ye shall not

find.'" Thus, we speak of a man's mother wit, _i.e._ innate, but we do

not call a story witty, as much in it is due to circumstances, and does

not necessarily flow from talent. To speak of a woman as "of great wit

and beauty" is to pay a high compliment to her mental as well as

personal charms.

As wit must be always intellectual it must be in words, and hence as

well as because it must imply impromptu talent, the comic situations of

a farce or pantomime are not witty. When Poole represents Paul Pry as

peeping through a gimlet hole, as attacked with a red hot poker, or

blown out of a closet full of fireworks, and where Douglas Jerrold on

the Bridge of Ludgate makes the innkeeper tells Charles II., in his

disguise, all the bad stories he has heard about his Majesty, we merely

see the humour, unless we are so far abstracted as to regard the scene

as ludicrous. In the same way a conversation between foolish men on the

stage may be amusing, but cannot be witty.

An old stanza tells us--

"True wit is like the brilliant stone

Dug from the Indian mine.

Which boasts two various powers in one

To cut as well as shine."

Bacon observes that those who make others afraid of their wit had need

be afraid of others' memory. And Sterne says that there is as great a

difference between the memory of jester and jestee as between the purse

of the mortgager and mortgagee. Humour is fully as unamiable as wit, but

the latter has obtained the worse character simply because it is the

more salient of the two. There is always a jealous and ill-natured side

to human nature which gives a semblance of truth to Rochefoucauld's

saying that we are not altogether grieved at the misfortunes even of our

friends; and wit often, from its point and the element of truth it

possesses, has been used to add a sting and adhesiveness to malevolent

attacks. Writers therefore often remind us to be sparing and circumspect

in the use of wit, as if it were necessarily, instead of accidentally

offensive.

As an instance of the danger of wit, I may mention a case in which two

celebrated divines, one of the "high" church, and the other of the

"broad" church school, had been attacking and confuting one another in

rival reviews. They met accidentally at an evening party, and the high

churchman, who was a well-known wit, could not forbear exclaiming, as he

grasped the other's hand, "The Augurs have met face to face"--an

observation which, if it implied anything, must have meant that they

were both hypocrites.

Those who consider humour objectionable, have no idea of the variety of

circumstances under which our emotions may be excited. A man may smile

at his own misfortunes after they are over--sometimes our laughter seems

scarcely directed against anyone, and in the most profane and indelicate

humour there is often nothing personal.

Occasionally it is too general to wound, being aimed at nations, as in

my old friend's saying, "The French do not know what they want, and will

never be satisfied until they get it," or it may strike at the great

mass of mankind, as when one of the same dissatisfied nation calls

marriage "a tiresome book with a very fine preface." There is nothing

unamiable in Goldsmith's reflection upon the rustic simplicity of the

villagers, when he says of the schoolmaster--

"And still the wonder grew,

How one small head could carry all he knew."

Again, we may ask, what person can be possibly injured by most of the

humorous stories in which our Transatlantic cousins delight, such as

that an American, describing a severe winter said, "Why I had a cow on

my farm up the Hudson river, and she got in among the ice, and was

carried down three miles before we could get her out again. And what do

you suppose has been the consequence? why, she has milked nothing but

ice-cream ever since."

How little of the humour, which is always floating around and makes life

and society enjoyable, ever gives pain to anybody; how few men there

really are who, as it is said, would rather lose a friend than a joke.

Most strokes are directed against imaginary persons, it is generally

recognised that what seems wrong to one may seem right to another, and

no man of common honesty can deny that he has often ridiculed others for

faults which he would have committed himself. This confession might be

well made by the most of our humorists.

But although humour should not be offensive, it would be wrong to

consider that its proper duty is to inculcate virtue. This is no more

its office than it is that of a novel to give sage advice, or of a poem

to teach science. Herein Addison's excellent feelings seem to have led

him astray, for speaking of false humour he says that "it is all one to

it whether it exposes vice and folly, luxury and avarice, or, on the

contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty." From what he says, we

might conclude that true humour was that which attacks vice, and false

that which makes against virtue. But although it is good to have a

worthy object, this has nothing to do with the quality of humour. We

have less enjoyment of ridicule when it is directed against a virtuous

man, but we also feel little when the principal element in it is moral

instruction.

There is no reason why we should view laughter at what is ludicrous as

something objectionable. The more intelligent portion of the civilised

world is not now amused at the real sufferings or misfortunes of others.

If a man be run over in the street, and have his leg broken, we all

sympathise with him. But some pains which have no serious result are

still treated with levity, such as those of a gouty foot, of the

extraction of a tooth, or of little boys birched at school.

The actions of people in pain are strange and abnormal, and sometimes

seem unaccountable; it is not the mere suffering at which any are

amused. We can sometimes laugh at a person, although we feel for him,

where the incentive to mirth is much stronger than the call for

sympathy. Still we confess that some of the old malice lingers among us,

some skulking cruelty peeps out at intervals. Fiendish laughter has

departed with the Middle Ages, but what delights the schoolboy more than

the red-hot poker in the pantomime?

Wit is chiefly to be recommended as a source of enjoyment; to many this

will seem no great or legitimate object, for we cannot help drawing a

very useful distinction between pleasure and profit. The lines,

"There are whom heaven has blessed with store of wit

Yet want as much again to manage it;

For wit and judgment ever are at strife,

Though meant, each others, and like man and wife,"

teach us that talent of this kind may be often turned into a fruitful

channel. The politician can by humour influence his audience; the man of

society can make himself popular, and perhaps without this

recommendation would never have had an opportunity of gaining his

knowledge of the world. When by some happy turn of thought we are

successful in raising a laugh, we seem to receive a kind of ovation, the

more valuable because sincere. We are allowed a superiority, we have

achieved a victory, though it may be but momentary and unimportant.

In daily life our sense of the ludicrous leads us to mark many small

errors and blemishes, which we should have overlooked had it not given

us pleasure to notice them, and thus from observing the failures of

others we learn to correct our own. Much that would be offensive, if not

injurious, is thus avoided, and those little angles are removed which

obstruct the onward course of society. A sensible man will gain more by

being ridiculed than praised, just as adverse criticism, when judicious,

ought to raise rather than depress. Lever remarks, with regard to

acquiring languages, that "as the foreigner is too polite to laugh, the

stranger has little chance to learn." A compendium of humorous sayings

would, if rightly read, give a valuable history of our shortcomings in

the different relations of life. Louis XII., when urged to punish some

insolent comedian, replied, "No, no; in the course of their ribaldry

they may sometimes tell us useful truths; let them amuse themselves,

provided they respect the ladies."

Finally, what presage can we form of the future from the experience of

the past? We may expect the augmenting emotion in humour to become less,

and of a more æsthetical character, indelicacy, profanity, and hostility

have been considerably modified even since the commencement of this

century. Humour will, by degrees, become more intellectual and more

refined, less dependent upon the senses and passions. At some time far

hence allusions will be greatly appreciated, the complexity of which our

obtuser faculties would now be unable to understand. Still, as keen and

excellent wit is a rare gift, some even of the ancient sayings will

doubtless survive.

By some, humour has been called a "morbid secretion," and its extinction

has been foretold, but history, the only unerring guide, teaches us that

it will increase in amount and improve in quality. Man cannot exist

without emotion, and as we have seen various forms and subjects of

humour successively arising, so we may be sure in future ages fresh

fields for it will be constantly opening. When we consider how necessary

amusement is to all, and how bounteously it has been supplied by

Providence, we shall feel certain that man will always have beside him

this light, which although it cannot lead as a star, can still brighten

his path and cheer his spirits upon the pilgrimage of life.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Properly Centrones, from a Greek word signifying patchwork.

[2] In which the various kinds of fish are introduced in mock heroic

verse. It dates from the fifth century B.C.

[3] About this time Addison and Bishop Attenbury first called attention

to the beauties of Milton.

[4] Ale-houses at Oxford.

[5] A game at cards.

[6] Haynes writes, "I have known a gentleman of another turn of humour,

who despises the name of author, never printed his works, but contracted

his talent, and by the help of a very fine diamond which he wore on his

little finger, was a considerable poet on glass." He had a very good

epigrammatic wit; and there was not a parlour or tavern window where he

visited or dined for some years, which did not receive some sketches or

memorials of it. It was his misfortune at last to lose his genius and

his ring to a sharper at play, and he has not attempted to make a verse

since.

[7] This seems taken from a Spanish story.

[8] Supposed to be Mrs. Manley, against whom Steele had a grudge.

[9] He was buried in Portugal Street graveyard, but was removed in 1853

on the erection of the new buildings of King's College Hospital.

[10] Smollett, of whom we shall speak in the next chapter, published

before Sterne, though a younger man.

[11] Dodsley was never averse from having a hit at the church, as in the

epigram:

"Cries Sylvia to a reverend dean

What reason can be given,

Since marriage is a holy thing,

That there are none in heaven?

"'There are no women,' he replied,

She quick returns the jest,

'Women there are, but I'm afraid

They cannot find a priest.'"

[12] There was a considerable amount of humour in it. Among the articles

offered for sale in the toy-shop is, "the least box that ever was seen

in England," in which nevertheless, "a courtier may deposit his

sincerity, a lawyer may screw up his honesty, and a poet may hoard up

his money."

[13] This introduction to popularity reminds us of the poet Lover, who

would never have been so well known had not Madame Vestris, when in want

of a comic song, selected "Rory O'More," which afterwards became so

famous. The celebrated enigma on the letter H was also produced by a

suggestion accidentally made overnight, and developed before morning by

Miss Fanshawe into beautiful lines formerly ascribed to Byron.

[14] A girl, who had been unfortunate in love.

[15] Byron showed his love of humour even in some of these early

effusions, speaking of his college he says:

"Our choir would scarcely be excused,

Even as a band of raw beginners:

All mercy, now, must be refused

To such a set of croaking sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended

Had heard these blockheads sing before him,

To us his psalms had ne'er descended;

In furious mood, he would have tore 'em."

[16] The saying "He that fights and runs away, shall live to fight

another day," is as old as the days of Menander.

[17] Beattie was unfortunate in selecting Molière for his comparison,

for his humour is especially that of situation and can be tolerably well

understood by a foreigner.

[18] Thus we speak of "fried ice" or "ice with the chill off."

[19] It may be observed that as men's perceptions of humour are

different, so in the expression of them there is a character about

laughter in accordance with its subject, and with the person from whom

it comes.

[20] This term seems the nearest, though not quite accurate.

[21] Ruskin observes that the smile on the lips of the Apollo Belvedere

is inconsistent with divinity.

[22] The false generalisations of childhood are well represented by

Dickens when, in "Great Expectations," he makes Pip discover a singular

affinity between seeds and corduroys. "Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys,

and so did his shopman, and somehow there was a general air and flavour

about the corduroys so much in the nature of seeds, and such a general

air and flavour about the seeds in the nature of corduroys that I hardly

knew which was which."

[23] Critias was one of the thirty tyrants who condemned him.

[24] That the present style of men's dress is unbecoming strikes us

forcibly when we see it reproduced in statues, where we are not used to

it.

[25] Cicero uses two corresponding words cavillatio and dicacitas, the

former signifying continuous, the latter aphoristic humour.

END.

London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13 Poland Street.