The amiable malice, to use a paradoxical phrase, which is often characteristic of French tales, is capitally displayed in the following:
The wife of a villager in Poitou became ill, and presently fell into a trance, which deceived even the physician, so that she was pronounced dead, and duly prepared for burial. Following the local usage, the body was wrapped in a sheet, to be borne to the burial place on the shoulders of four men chosen from the neighborhood. The procession followed a narrow path leading across the fields to the cemetery. At a turning, a thorn tree stood so close that one of the thorns tore through the sheet and lacerated the woman's flesh. The blood flowed from the wound, and she suddenly aroused to consciousness. Fourteen years elapsed before the good wife actually came to her deathbed. On this occasion, the ceremonial was repeated. And now, as the bearers of the body approached the turn of the path, the husband called to them:
"Look out for the thorn tree, friends!"
The written humor of the Dutch does not usually make a very strong appeal to us. They are inclined to be ponderous even in their play, and lack in great measure the sarcasm and satire and the lighter subtlety in fun-making. History records a controversy between Holland and Zealand, which was argued pro and con during a period of years with great earnestness. The subject for debate that so fascinated the Dutchmen was: "Does the cod take the hook, or does the hook take the cod?"
Because British wit and humor often present themselves under aspects somewhat different from those preferred by us, we belittle their efforts unjustly. As a matter of fact, the British attainments in this direction are the best in the world, next to our own. Moreover, in the British colonies is to be found a spirit of humor that exactly parallels our own in many distinctive features. Thus, there is a Canadian story that might just as well have originated below the line, of an Irish girl, recently imported, who visited her clergyman and inquired his fee for marrying. He informed her that his charge was two dollars. A month later, the girl visited the clergyman for the second time, and at once handed him two dollars, with the crisp direction, "Go ahead and marry me."
"Where is the bridegroom?" the clergyman asked.
"What!" exclaimed the girl, dismayed. "Don't you furnish him for the two dollars?"
It would seem that humor is rather more enjoyable to the British taste than wit, though there is, indeed, no lack of the latter. But the people delight most in absurd situations that appeal to the risibilities without any injury to the feelings of others. For example, Dickens relates an anecdote concerning two men, who were about to be hanged at a public execution. When they were already on the scaffold in preparation for the supreme moment, a bull being led to market broke loose and ran amuck through the great crowd assembled to witness the hanging. One of the condemned men on the scaffold turned to his fellow, and remarked:
"I say, mate, it's a good thing we're not in that crowd."
In spite of the gruesome setting and the gory antics of the bull, the story is amusing in a way quite harmless. Similarly, too, there is only wholesome amusement in the woman's response to a vegetarian, who made her a proposal of marriage. She did, not mince her words: