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, Leon 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 Moliere, 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 L100,000, 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.

Leon 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.

Leon 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 mediaeval 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—excepte 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 etes 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. Leon 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 naturae 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 praemoneas 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 aesthetical 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 Moliere 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.