A. G. K. L'Estrange

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.

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.