“Much of this,” interposed the Professor, in her ruthless way, “might, it seems to me, be said with equal propriety of any civilized people.”
“I think, Professor, that there are some significant points of difference—points of difference associated very largely, I think, with the American sense of humor, which we are in the habit of complacently arrogating. I think, Professor, that your philosophical hiatus is occupied very largely by a sense of humor.”
“That,” laughed the Professor, “reminds me of that story of the boy who was seeking to explain to his companion the characteristics of spaghetti. ‘You know maccaroni?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you know the hole through it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, spaghetti’s the hole.’ I do wish I could believe more completely in your sense of humor theory. In the first place it is hard to explain some of the things the young people do by their possession of a sense of humor.”
“On the contrary, Professor, I think American young folks develop a sense of humor earlier than any other in the world, which is a Yankee enough thing to say. This may be an odd contention from me, but to me one of the most distinctive traits of the American girl is her gift for being unserious. It is not always a sense of humor, either; if it is, it is a sense entirely her own, for it certainly is not associated with traits which we ascribe to a sense of humor in men. In any case it is a saving sense, a sense that keeps her from taking things so tragically as the unknowing or unsympathetic spectator might expect. The American has a genius for radicalism, a creative defiance of logic and tradition. Once in a while some philosopher discovers that the frivolities of life have an immense importance. Scientifically the physical distortions of a laugh are ridiculous. Yet we almost have ceased to defend it, even in young ladies.”
“A ready laugh,” the Professor said, “is no indication of a sense of humor. The comic and the humorous are sometimes even antagonistic. You have heard me defend irreverence in girls, but a want of seriousness often indicates a want of humor, for a sense of humor, my friend, is essentially a sense of proportion. Now, to my mind, the American girl does not indicate so keen a sense of proportion in her golf, for instance, as in her clubs.”
“Well,” I ventured, “she is serious enough in them, surely.”
“Only to those who do not understand her,” returned the Professor severely. “That women take their clubs too seriously, too improvingly, has been a matter of complaint for a long time. There has been almost a missionary spirit among those who have sought to save our girls from clubs. Some of the missionaries have preached total abstinence among the girls. ‘If you take one club,’ they have said, ‘you will take another. The appetite will grow on you. You pride yourself on your power of resistance now; but after you have taken a club, a dreadful, unappeasable craving will spring up within you, and you will want more. You will not be able to pass a club without wanting it. Even after you have yielded to a morning, afternoon, and evening indulgence, you will find a temptation to take a luncheon club too,—and when you take them with your meals they have a particularly insidious effect. From this it is but a step to a Browning bracer at nine A. M. and a Schopenhauer cocktail just before dinner. Take no clubs at all—especially the subtle, supposed-to-be-innocuous reading club—’”
“Look not upon the club when it is read,” I murmured.
“‘—for these,’” the Professor continued, with her inimitable chuckle, “‘for these lead surely to more deadly stimulants. Indeed, these are, to those who truly know them, more deadly than many another sort.’ Then there is the more moderate school of missionaries which is for limiting the number of clubs to so many a week, or to cutting them down gradually on the theory that a girl who has been taking clubs right along cannot stop short without peril to her health. By dropping, say, one club a week for a whole season, a girl may, from a repulsive intellectual sot be brought back, by patient nursing, and in due time, to decency and three clubs a week.”