UNCONSCIOUS HUMOR
BY J.K. WETHERILL
Perhaps unconscious humor does not appeal to the more amiable side of our sense of mirth, for it excites in us a conceited feeling of superiority over those who are making us laugh,—but its unexpectedness and infinite variety render it irresistible to a certain class of minds. The duly labeled "joke" follows a certain law and rule; whereas no jester could invent the grotesqueries of the unconscious humorist.
As a humble gleaner after the editorial scythe,—or, to be truly modern, I should say mowing-machine,—I have gathered some strange sheaves of this sort of humor. Like many provincial newspapers, that to which I am attached makes a feature of printing the social happenings in villages of the surrounding country, and these out-of-town correspondents "don't do a thing to" the English language. One of them invariably refers to the social lights of his vicinity as "our prominent socialists," and describes some individual as "happening to an accident." To another, every festal occasion is "a bower of beauty and a scene of fairyland." Blue-penciling they resent, and one of them wrote to complain that a descriptive effort of his had been "much altered and deranged." The paper also publishes portraits of children and young women, and it is in the descriptions accompanying these pictures that the rural correspondent excels himself. One wound up his eulogy in an apparently irrepressible burst of enthusiasm: "She is indeed a tout ensemble." A child of six months was described as "studious"; and another correspondent went into details thus: "Little Willie has only one large blue eye, the other having been punched out by his brother with a stick, by accident." A small child was accredited with "a pleasing disposition and a keen juvenile conception."
The following are some of the descriptive phrases applied to village belles: "She is perfectly at home on the piano, where her executions have attained international celebrity." ... "She possesses a mine of repartee and the qualities which have long rendered illustive her noble family." ... "Her carriage and disposition are swan-like." ... "Her eyes can express pathetic pathos, but flash forth fiery independence when her country's name is traduced." ... "She has a molded arm, and her Juno-like form glides with a rhythmic move in the soft swell of a Strauss." ... "Her chestnut hair gives a rich recess to her lovely, fawnlike eyes, which shine like a star set in the crown of an angel." ... One writer becomes absolutely incoherent in his admiration, and lavishes a mixture of metaphors upon his subject: "She portrays a picture worthy of a Raphael. She dances like the fairies before the heavenly spirits. She looks like a celestial goddess from an outburst of morning-glories; her lovely form would assume a phantomlike flash as she glides the floor, as though she were a mystic dream."
Scarcely less rich in unconscious humor are some of the effusions of those who have literary aspirations. A descriptive article contains a reference to "a lonely house that stood in silent mutiny." "Indians who border on civilization, an interesting people in their superstitious way," infested the vicinity, and one of the points of interest was the Wild Man's Leap, "so called from an Indian who is said to have leaped across to get away from some men who were trying to expatriate him." An aspirant made this generous offer: "I will write you an article every week if you so wish it, as I have nothing to do after supper." Modest was the request of another, concerning remuneration: "I do not ask for money, but would like you to send me a small monkey. I already have a parrot."
But no finer specimen of unconscious humor has ever fallen under the sub-editorial eye than "The Beautiful Circus Girl." In these enterprising days rising young authors sometimes boast in print of their ignorance of grammar and spelling, but the author of the aforementioned bit of fiction surpasses them all in that respect. It seems only just that such a unique gem should be rescued from the dull obscurity of the waste-basket.