Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek:
Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.'"
"That is the passage I mean, and that is the very company I should like to invite, if the rest have no objection."
All approved of the suggestion, and soon the whole party was busily engaged in various lively games, "Graces," "Battledore and Shuttlecock," "Hunt the Slipper," etc., which combined bodily exercise with healthful excitement of the mirthful organs, which some philosophers assert to be, after all, the distinguishing trait of mankind. Some call man a "thinking animal," but this is so self-evident a slander upon the great majority of the species, that no words are needed to refute it: one attempted to define him as "a biped without feathers," but when a plucked fowl was brought forward as a specimen of his man, he was obliged to give up that definition. Others again describe him as "a cooking animal," but while dogs can act as turnspits, and monkeys can roast chestnuts, he cannot claim this lofty epithet as peculiarly his own; besides, some savages have been found so degraded as to be unacquainted with the use of fire. But wherever man is found, whether under the heats of an African sun, or shivering in the cold of a Lapland winter, upon the steppes of Tartary, or the pampas of South America, his joyful laughter shows that he is a man, intended for social life and for happiness. 'Tis true, we read of the hyena laugh, but we protest against such a misapplication of terms: the fierce, mocking yell of that ferocious creature has nothing in common with hearty, genial, human laughter: other animals can weep, but man alone can laugh. And how great a refreshment is it! It relieves the overtasked brain, and the heart laden with cares; it makes the blood dance in the veins of youth, and gives a new impetus to the spirits; work goes on more briskly, when a gay heart sets the active powers in motion. Well did the Wise King say, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:" it keeps off gray hairs and wrinkles, better than any cosmetic that ever was invented. The ancient Greeks realized its value, when they placed a jester in the society of their gods upon Olympus: as their deities were clothed with human attributes, they did not omit to provide for their amusement.
The young ladies were not too dignified and fastidious, nor Aunt Lucy too wise to join in the sports, and the old lady's spectacles and cap did not feel at all insulted when the handkerchief was tied round them in "Blind Man's Buff," and the hall rang with the jocund shouts of the children, whose greater activity eluded her grasp. When even the youngest acknowledged that they had enjoyed enough romping for one day, Mary proposed a new amusement of a quieter character, which she had just heard of, entitled "the Rhyming Game." As it was found very pleasant, I will give a specimen, that the reader may try it of a winter's evening. One person thinks of a word, but instead of naming it, mentions another with which it rhymes; the next thinks of another rhyme, which is to be described, not spoken, and then the leader of the game, guessing from the description what word is meant, says it is, or it is not, such a thing. And so all round the circle.