Why we laugh

Preface

The idea which prompted this volume was to string such- humors as were illustrative, upon some philosophic threads, which had been floating in my mind.

Has not humor a philosophy of its own — physical, mental, and moral ? It is said by Hazlitt, in his article on wit and humor, that you can not give a reason why you laugh ; that people must laugh of themselves, or not at all. Without denying that we laugh with spontaneous impulse, and sometimes the more, at any restraint upon this impulse, yet the very categories of the critic himself prove that the laugh has a rational philosophy. They answer the Horatian query — “ Quid Rides ?”

Inquiring of one accomplished in physical science, and an expert in dissecting the parts of the human frame, he, unlike old Burton, found no melancholy in the anatomy. “ What portion of the human body engages in the act of laughing?” I asked him. He responded, “No one part in particular; all parts work. Health is called hearty because it results from the combination of all parts in the laugh.” True, the facial muscles play a prominent role ; just as the face does in a man or a clock ; but in the act of laughing, every part is in exer-

PREFACE.

cise ! Every fibre laughs with the human being, when he condescends to be amused. Hence, when the question, “ Why do you laugh ?” is asked, the answer is vain if it simply shows, as another author undertakes to show, half ironically, that we ought not to laugh at all, but that we ought only to smile.

Laughter is not sardonic. It is not from the Herba sardonica. That vegetable may produce a convulsive twitch. It may make involuntary contractions of the pectoral muscles and lungs ; but these are not dependent on the outward sensation or the inner reflection. Hence, this sardonic philosophy properly regards the man who laughs as a fool. He is a mountebank, a clown, a simple, simpering zany. But laughter has its mental causes, and its logical and moral consequences ; and to answer the question why these causes and effects exist is within the domain of an inquiry which the sages, from Aristotle to Sydney Smith, and from him of Malmesbury down to the rare critic I have quoted, have not disdained to propound.

When, therefore, in our daily routine, and in our American life ; when by highway, as in the Legislature, or by by-way, as at the hearth ; when in the newspaper and on the stage, in the car and in the steamer; when even in the pulpit as well as in the circus, the restless American race makes its music — facial, mental, and moral — and thus unshadows its care, and cheers its anxiety by humors so peculiar as to make a school of its own, the inquiry which has the dignity of philosophy can not be unworthy of illustration and commentary. This I propose in these

PREFACE.

pages. The body of the suggestions, and the lights thrown upon them, are drawn from those experiences with which the writer has been most familiar.

Eliminate from the literature or conduct of any one people the amusing and amused faculty, and you produce a sterility as dull and uninteresting as the cinders and ashes of the volcanic fields of Iceland. But include the amusing element within the experiences and history of mankind, and no description of luxuriance, with grape, olive, nectarine, and orange, clustering and luscious, such as make the vales of Portugal a perennial smile, is adequate to emphasize the contrast.

A friend has raised a personal question, which may be pardonably noticed. Leigh Hunt once said that he was perplexed whether to speak of himself in the singular or plural number, whether to subject himself to the impatience of people vainer by saying “ I,” or to hamper himself with saying, “ we were,” “ we would,” and “ we once.” But resolutely; under Montaigne’s advice, he concluded that he had plenty of imperfections to set off self-love ; so that he courageously wrote of himself, regardless of any imputed egoism.

In this book, it is impossible not to recall the writer’s experience, and to impress somewhat of his personality upon the analysis. “ We ” beg, however, to disavow any intention or expectation of making this subtle essence called humor. The only object is, by collation and generalization, to show the humor of classes and individuals. Should we be forbidden to do this because now and then the writer has himself been suspected, though never fairly

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PREFACE.

convicted, of a joke? Especially in the delineation and demonstration of legislative humors, in recalling those diversions of staid Solons in whose midst many years have been passed, can there be entire impersonality?

There is an account of a dramatic Maecenas who took a steady boy from his parents, and, ignorant of any humorous or other propensity, solemnly dedicated him to the Comic Muse. The boy, however, did ripen into a capital comedian. Perhaps this was an exceptional case, for there is no special chrism whose anointing will induce the jolly genius ; but a little discipline and some research may enable a serious soul to group and illustrate the humor of others.

Preface To New Edition

Since the earlier editions of this volume, the author is convinced that it was not altogether written in vain ; certainly it was not the offspring of vanity. The public have read something in it, between the lines, otherwise they would not have accepted it so cheerfully. Had there not been a rational object in the concatenation of certain incidents, anecdotes, and humors, the design of the volume would have failed.

Much new matter has been added to this edition. From that abundant source of humor— the Celtic race, indigenous and exotic — the author has drawn, to illustrate the philosophy of laughter.

The distinguished favor with which former editions have been received has been the encouragement for the present issue.

Contents

PAGE

I. — Humor in General 13

II. — American Humor in Particular 34

I. Humor In General

fi< Manners with fortunes, hunrors turn with climes.

Tenets with books, and principles with times.” — Pope.

Humor, in its literal meaning, is moisture. Its derived sense is different ; but while it is now a less sluggish element than moisture, we still associate with humor some of its old relations. In old times, physicians reckoned several kinds of moisture in the human body — phlegm, blood, choler, and melancholy. They found one vein particularly made for a laugh to run in, the blood of which being stirred, the man laughed, even if he felt like crying, whether he would or no. Tasso describes in his serious epic, “ Jerusalem Delivered,” the death of the knight Ardonio, who, at the taking of Jerusalem, was slain by a Persian lance, which

“ Pierced him through the vein Where Laughter has her fountain and her seat,

So that (a dreadful bane)

He laughed for pain, and laughed himself to death.”

The temper of the mind seemed to the old doctors to change as one or the other of these kinds of moisture predominated. Thus the mind received its prevailing

WHY WE LAUGH.

tone. As the current of moisture changed from time to time, humor began to mean the present disposition of the man. His characteristic peculiarities seemed to depend on these mercurial influences of the body; and as men never laugh at that which is common to them all, as they never raise a laugh to disparage themselves, and as they must laugh, they seized upon the oddities, whims, and the angularities of the “other man,” his out-of-the-way talk and conduct, and made these human ficklenesses the sources of jocularity. So humor in our tongue reached its present signification.

It has, however, a more restricted meaning. Various definitions have been given of it. Some consider the essence of humor to be in its serio-jocoseness, as if it were a scarf of mock gravity cast over pleasantry to make it more attractive. But this can be affirmed of humor only in part.

Others confound it with wit. They define humor as the point in which pain and pleasure meet to produce a third element, which partakes of both— a sort of voluptuous torture, like being pinched by a pretty girl. Hence some humor makes us cry, and some makes us laugh. Less prettiness and more pinching bring tears ; more prettiness and less pinching, smiles. It is the identity of contraries — candied ill temper, pickled good nature. They hold that contrast alone is the element of humor. This does not square with our theory. Humor has no sting. It is not poisonous, like the Stygian waters, which no other vessel but a mule’s hoof could hold. The humorous man is, from his very sensibility, likely to be gentle and pathetic, but not malignant. He can rain tears as well as bring smiles. The tear, too, may have its prism of humor. But pathos has a law and an orbit of its own, though it may often meet in conjunction with humor.

Humor lies in a forged tale; in puns and phrases; in ambiguities of sense, or affinity of sound; in humorous expression, without the humorous sense ; in an odd trope ; in a sly question ; in a smart answer; in a quirkish reason ; in a shrewd intimation ; in cunning diversion, clever retort, bold speech, tart irony, lusty hyperbole, plausible reconciliation of contradictions, acute nonsense, counterfeit speech, scenic representation of persons or things, affected simplicity, presumptuous bluntness, lucky and strange hits, crafty wresting of obvious matter to the purpose, and rovings of fancy and windings of language : in fine, it breeds delight sometimes by surprises, and often by uncouthness. It is a monster for rarity, and not for beauty— a juggling trick, not for use, but for pleasure, and a seasoning spice for matters distasteful. It has an unusual and grateful tang, instilling gayety and airiness of spirit. This exhaustive exposition is from Dr. Barrow. It leaves nothing to be said. It answers — Quid Rides? Addison, in his w Genealogy of Humor,” is not so comprehensive when he says that Truth is the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense; that Good Sense fathered Wit, who married a lady of collateral line, called Mirth; by whom she had issue, Humor! These logical and fanciful definitions are more genial than the definition of Hobbes. He attributed all laughter to a sense of exulting superiority, and even pleasure in the pain of another. That sort of laughter may do for fiends, not for men.

Akin to this is the definition, that humor is the acme of wit — the point of the sword of which humor is the edge. But this is not humor as we understand it. True, i6

WHY WE LAUGH.

men laugh at wit as well as at humor. So they do at farce. There is much of humor in both wit ancl farce. They are divided from humor by no very clear lines ; yet humor is neither wit nor farce. Wit cuts, humor tickles; farce grins, humor smiles. Wit is polished and sharp, an edge-tool dangerous to handle in the most practiced hands. When Jerrold heard a foolish stranger say, at dinner, “ Sheep’s head forever,” he exclaimed, “ What egotism !” This was a witty flash, and it hurt. Humor may be rusty, though never dull. While wit uses the scalpel, brings blood, divides our members, cuts out the gangrene, and oftentimes the healthy parts, humor manipulates- gently, or gestures with the playful finger under the ribs of jollity, never drawing blood, but pumping up the moisture until the eyes run over with gladness. There was more humor in Jerrold than wit, when he exclaimed, as he saw a tall man dance with a short lady, “There’s a mile dancing with a mile-stone !” Farce, on the other hand, is the caricature of humor. It shakes one rather roughly, disturbs the gentler currents, until they lose their lucid mirthfulness in the turbulent rush of broad guffaw.

Wit is not always a desirable quality. The worst men often use it. The devil generally monopolizes it. John Randolph had it, and used it. Voltaire, that embodied epigram, curt and unconscionable, wrote and talked in that vein. The lustre of humor never tingled in his blood, nor shed its geniality on his lime. He became a thin stick of caustic, withering and blackening whatever he touched. Cervantes, however, wrote in a different vein, and made men merry at the incongruities of the Don and Sancho, while he strove to better human nature. His humor wears the sterling stamp of humanity.

HUMOR IN GENERAL.

Genuine humor is founded on a deep, thoughtful, and manly character. It would make men laugh more heartily, in order to make them live more happily. Wit is not careful of moral consequences. It looks only to its own brilliant flash. It admires the jewel in the hilt, and the glitter of the steel, only that they may give a glory to the stroke. Your humorless man, however witty, is not the best man. Indeed, the Italians have the same word ( tristezza ) for melancholy and malignity. Pope was witty, sad, and bad. Humor, if true, is kind and reformatory. Thackeray is wit all compact ; but, unlike Pope’s wit, it is relieved by lustrous fringes of humor. Dickens is humor— radiant and benevolent.

Blessed be that man or that nation, which, like Ireland, has more humor than wit ; blessed if the wit be tempered with humor ; blessed if that humor, like the juice of the grape, mingles with the blood, to warm the heart and generously fructify the life !

The Declaration of American Independence has been called a self-evident lie. So it is, if it is meant to declare that all men are created equal, and if by that phrase is meant equality in the endowments of mind. No axiom in Euclid is so self-evident as the diversity of men in the quality of humor alone. But whether men laugh, or whether they forbear, they are certainly equal in their right to do either. May not Mr. Glum, who wears his suit of sombre, and draws down the corners of his mouth, and opens his lachrymose sluices, and laments, like a maiden in sackcloth, “ for the husband of her youth,” as he walks through this vale of tears, stand upon the same equality of right as his neighbor, Mr. Glee, whose words are a squad of rattling jokes, and whose mouth is ever on the stretch with smiles, as he reads in every thing about i8

WHY WE LAUGH.

him glad tidings of great joy? This is what all Declarations of Independence should say. It is not true that all are created equal, in their faculties, whether of reason or of fun. All men have fun in their nature ; some more than others, too much ; some less than others, and too little. But there is more fun in our sourish people, and more sourness in our pleasant people, than we are apt to suppose. There is more sugar in vinegar, and more acid in cider, than we are wont to believe. Fermentation brings them out.

Humor differs only in degree, not in kind. The white man and black man both have fun in them, just as the diamond and charcoal are of the same material — carbon. In one it is crystallized and concentrated ; in the other it is diffusive and combustible. Try each under the blow-pipe : the charcoal will glow with plentiful scintillations long before the diamond releases a sparkle of its light.

Efforts have been made in France, and perhaps in this country, to transmute charcoal into diamonds ; but I think the result was not worth the pains and expense.

There are some phases in life which would stir humor in every man of sanity. Not that every one would laugh at the same object, but every one would laugh at some time of his life at some object. What would be a homeopathic pellet of humor to one would furnish another with a ton of fun, and vice vcrsfr.

Again, the humor of men differs at different hours of the day, and at different epochs of their lives. Men are like some flowers. The common pink is blue early in the morning, and bright pink as the sun advances. Others are white in the morning, pink at noon, and red at sunset, as if they took their hues from the sun in his motions.

HUMOR IN GENERAL.

Moreover, what is amusing to a boy is puerile to a man, and what is painful to a boy may be pleasant to a man. Who does not remember that nothing was so dreaded by him at school as to be punished by sitting between two girls ? But ah ! the force of habit and the lapse of time ! In after-years we learn to submit to it without shedding a tear !

These varieties must be so from the variety of human vicissitude. An Englishman laughs at the untoward effort of a Frenchman to speak English, though a Frenchman would not laugh at John Bull’s awkwardness at French ; yet Johnny Crapaud never laughs more than at an Englishman’s surly airs of assumed consequence. An African bursts into irrepressible glee at the faintest approach of the ludicrous, as if his mind had but one side, and it were all smitten and quivering with jollity ; yet the grave Spaniard, his master, composedly smokes his cigarette and twirls his mustache, utterly impervious to the stroke. The one, like jelly, shakes with every motion around ; the other is frigid, like ice, and thaws with a cold trickle of pleasure.

This diversity in humor is independent of education. It is not superficial either. No outside show can hide it. The spiritual tentacula are always vital and vibratory in some ; ever dormant, if not dead, in others. Some would have a perpetual jubilee of life ; their muscles are ever ready to relax at the absurdities of others ; they have amusing scouts and sentries ever on the alert to catch fun ; while others are so indifferent that it seems as if nature were shrouded at their birth. Observe these two men on the cars. They buy Haiper's Magazine. The one begins with the Scientific article, the other begins at the “ Drawer end,” and reads, like a Hebrew, backward.

WHY WE LAUGH.

Shall we say, then, that there is no law for humor? Like the comet or the cholera, it comes — God only knows whence — and its very orbit is an eccentricity. It is very often humor only because it is exceptional. Queerness is the badge of its "genuineness. Undertake to bring it into orbits, measure it by geometry, test it by equations, appreciate it by figures, or square it with roots and logic, and it is off! Its law is to have no well-defined code, and all attempts to philosophize about its essence were as well omitted. We know that it is , that it is different in different minds ; but why, it is beyond philosophy to tell.

“ Fat men are always humorous,” says one who has a theory, and Falstaff is introduced as the illustration. The analogies of nature are pressed into the service of this oleaginous theory. Tom Hood is quoted where he says of the Australian soil that “it is so fat that, tickle it with a hoe, and it will Hugh with a harvest.” But fun and fat do not necessarily go together. Moisture of the muscles and layers of lard have no more to do with humor than meat has with manhood. Little Dr. Holmes would show you that by one turn of his “ tread -mill.” The beasts which feed most are the dullest. We must reject, then, the adipose theory. If we are to judge of a man’s jollity by the juiciness of his body, one would think an American to be the jolliest of mortals, for his salivary glands are in perpetual flux.

“ Laziness begets laughter,” says another theorist. Industrious people are too earnest and serious for jokes. Leisure leads to levity, and a nation that is always bending its sinews to labor can not unbend them to laugh. This is measurably true, but it will not hold as a general rule. There is something more radical, something

HUMOR IN GENERAL.

too evauescent for apprehension, which determines the humorous temper of the mind. All that we can say is, that physical influences may, and do, modify its development; but the germinal principle in every man is different. What Mozart said of himself and his composing will illustrate what is meant: “I do not know in what my originality consists. Why my productions take that particular form or style which makes them Mozartish is probably owing to the same cause which makes my nose thus and so— makes it, in short, Mozart’s nose.

COSMOPOLITAN HUMOR.

But as the people of one country may be alike even in their differences of body and mind, so there are peculiarities in the humor of different nations as marked as the geographical peculiarities of their country, or as their food. An Englishman loves roast beef; a German, sourkrout ; a Patagonian, red mud ; a Kamtchatkan, blubber ; a South Sea Islander, cold clergyman ; a Peruvian Indian, the abominable chica ; and the American, the weed! Their humorous taste is not less diverse.

To the eye of a comprehensive philosophy every thing is laughable, ludicrous, or ridiculous except that which is the proper attribute and investment of an honest heart and a pure soul. It was long ago said by Coleridge that whatever must be misrepresented in order to be ridiculed is not ridiculed in fact, but the thing substituted for it. It is a satire on something else, coupled with a lie on the part of the satirist. If, however, the lie is excessively great, and the intent to deceive is playful and apparent, there is humor. The more incredible the story, the greater the fun. There may be an honest hyperbole and a sincere mockery of heroism.

WHY WE LAUGH.

Sir Thomas More, in his ideal commonwealth, says that when the foreign embassadors came into Utopia, and found that their gold, gems, and finery produced nothing but laughter, they were amazed. And if we ever have a perfect Utopian society, such amazement will salute every such mere ostentatious adornment. I never doubted the story of an emperor of Japan who died of immoderate laughter when told that the Americans governed themselves without a king, for, at that time, to the Japanese sense of humor perhaps no more comical idea was entertainable. Indeed, it has sometimes become farcical to elector and elected, successful and defeated, in this country.

It is alleged that some nations have little or no humor, as the Dutch and Scotch. The solidity of the Dutch prevents a joke from getting through their sevenfold pile of clothing and flesh. As prone as we are in America to divide into parties and sects on every issue, we could never have divided on such a question as divided Holland and Zealand for two centuries. Their whole population were arrayed one against the other in a dispute which arose between two persons at a feast. The Hocks maintained one side, the Kaalbejanoos the other. The agitation grew to such a pitch that the nobles and towns took sides. Each were ready to die for their colors, though the W'orld wTas ready to die laughing at their dullness : and the vexed question w'as, whether the cod-fish took the hook, or the hook took the cod-fish.

As to the Scotch, notwithstanding the humor of Burns, Smollett, and Scott, yet I think that Sydney Smith wras not far from the truth when he said that it required a surgical operation to get a joke into a Scotch understanding. Indeed, the same idea is conveyed in some of Black’s recent Scottish novels.

HUMOR IN GENERAL.

I am not, however, prepared to agree that their only idea of humor is infinitely distressing, inasmuch as it consists in immoderately laughing at stated, or what may be called geometrical, intervals. If the Scotch were not so “canny,” they might be more comically inclined. It would not then require the point of a gimlet to reach the objective point. The possession of keenness and intelligence, and their constant use, render them too serious to jest. They want the ardor and impulses which the Irish have in abundance, and which give to them an unresisting flow of mirth. Ireland makes up for her want of practical sagacity by the wit of her writers, the readiness of her repartees, and the drollery of her bulls. Macaulay hit the white when he said that Ireland was more interesting than prosperous.

Art is cosmopolitan. Painting, sculpture, and eloquence— all forms of literature and expression — are possible to each nation. There is, however, something about humor unmistakably national as well as periodical. It is said that no one but an Englishman — nay, no one but Douglas Jerrold — could have made his wit, any more than any one else but Hood could have made Hood’s puns. “It is better to be witty and wise, than witty and otherwise,” is a witticism of the Anglo-Jerrold type; while no one but Hood could have fancied the Mrs. F., who was so very deaf that she might have worn a percussion-cap, and been knocked on the head, without hearing it snap ; and whose ear-trumpet was so wonderful that she heard from her husband at Botany Bay ! It was a pleasing exaggeration of Charles Lamb to pity that solemn English ancestry who lived before candles were common, and who, when a joke was cracked in the dark, had to feel around for the smile. Could any one but an American

WHY WE LAUGH.

make Shakspeare a “boss poet?” or add to Thackeray’s remark about the baby size of an oyster — that he had eaten one so large that it took three men to swallow it whole ?

The national paternity of these bits of fun is as clearly traceable as a bull would be to Ireland. “ Where,” exclaimed a Hibernian, “will you find a modern building which has lasted as long as the ancient ones?” “They never could be forgotten,” said De Quincey, “ for no man had ever remembered them.” This was the logic of the intellectual man, incapable of making the Celtic phrase.

Humor changes with different eras. It is as impossible to make Cervantes and “ Hudibras ” popular nowadays as to make Punch American, or President Lincoln amusing to a Laplander. Paris laughs perpetually at Charivari ; but no cacographic wit could make Billings acceptable to a cafe chantant . Artemus Ward pleased the English ; but is he not exceptional ? The native roughness of his style was wonderfully rounded and polished by a sense as universal as that of Rabelais. As a Louisville friend has said, “ We have a humor racy of the soil, quaint and characteristic, very primitive and provincial, and more independent of classic inspiration and foreign models than any of our contemporaries!” Quoting Pope, however, he still confesses that humor is like our watches : none go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Unmistakable in its refinement was the wit of Charles O’Conor once, in answer to Judge Henry E. Davies: “It is difficult,” said the latter, “to do justice to more than one side.” Response from the American Celt — to wit : “Your infernal ingenuity makes it often certain that you do injustice to both sides.” Sheridan’s memory for jests,

HUMOR IN GENERAL.

and imagination for facts, were not less accurate and acute, as tests of the national sheath in which his dirk of wit was incased. I knew a Western lawyer, of the Hardin-Corwin type, whose fun colors Lethe with sunshine. It would not allow him even to indulge in the ordinary fictions of an ejectment. It was not John Doe or Richard Roe, but Timothy Peaceable, on the demise of his client, v. Thomas Troublesome, tenant in possession, on whom a humorous notice was served.

HUMOROUS NATIONAL PECULIARITIES.

The mode of courting and marrying is as various among different nations as it is humorous. In some countries the woman has a sham -fight before she succumbs to the pertinacious suitor. In ancient Sparta and Rome, the bride had to be lifted across the marital threshold. Among the people of Khoond, in India, the Kalmucks, the Kirghis, and the Nogay Tartars, the young women, while they are really acquiescent, demonstrate a reluctance to be won by no means debonair or coy. Among the Bedouins of Mount Sinai, the girl gets ready for a battle when her expected bridegroom approaches. She will fight with tooth and nail. In other countries this custom is more serious, and occurs after marriage. In Thibet, the bride straddles a horse, and there is a race for the altar, or, rather, from it. The best man wins.

“Was ever woman in this humor woo’d?

Was ever woman in this humor won?”

This pleasing recreation is called kalbwi. It is a word in several tongues, and indicates some relation to maidenhood or affection. The Norsemen and Frisians had a similar way of wooing and winning. It was called

WHY WE LAUGH.

quail-fang, or “ woman-catching.” Many humors, in addressing the elect, or proposing, are related in verse and prose. New England, in the last century, if not in this, has given us many quaint, if not funny, descriptions. The stage, from the “ Elder Brother ” of Beaumont and Fletcher down to the last novelty of the “ Mighty Dollar,” presents the comic embarrassments of courting; and this has generally consisted not so much in endurance on horseback, or main strength, as in absolute awkwardness, or gaucherie.