Some of those who have attempted the elusive feat of analyzing the causes and origin of humor lay down that it lies in a perception of the incongruous, the less fit. I should be sorry to think that a complete account of the matter. No doubt it describes the occasion of much of our laughter, though not, I refuse to believe, of all.
That sense of humor implies little charity, and a good deal of conscious superiority. It makes us laugh at accidents not agreeable to those who suffer them, at uncouthness, ignorances, solecisms, inferiorities, follies, blunders, stupidities, unconsciously displayed weaknesses and faults. It is the sort of humor that sets us laughing at a smartly dressed person fallen into a filthy drain, at a man who does not know how to eat decently, at mispronunciation of names, and misapplication or oblivion of aspirates, at greediness not veiled by politeness, at a man singing who doesn't know how. Now Mariquita had no conceit and was steeped in charity in big and little things. In that sort of humor she would have been lacking, for she would have thought too kindly of its butt to be able to enjoy his misfortune. And, as has been already said, she had no habit of the thing.
Gore, in accusing her of lack of humor, felt that the accusation was a heavy one. It was not quite unjust: we have partly explained Mariquita's deficiency without entirely denying it, or pretending it was an attraction. No doubt, she would have been a greater laugher if she had been more ill-natured, had had wider opportunities of perceiving the absurdity of her contemporaries.
As for those queer and quaint quips of circumstance that make the oddity of daily life for some of us, few of them had enlivened Mariquita. The chief occasion of general gathering was round the table, where hunger and haste were the most obvious characteristics of the meeting. Till Gore came, there had been little conversation. It was not Mariquita's fault that she had been used neither to see or hear much that was entertaining. Perhaps the facility of being amused is an acquired taste; and even so, the faculty of humor is almost of necessity dormant where scarcely anything offers for it to work or feed upon.
CHAPTER XVI.
The projected visit to Maxwell did not immediately take place. Don Joaquin was seldom hasty in action, having a chronic, habitual esteem for deliberation and deliberateness too.
Sarella would have been impatient had she not been sufficiently unwell to shrink for the moment from the idea of a very long ride. For the mere pleasure of riding she would never have mounted a horse; she would only ride when there was no other means of arriving at some object or place not otherwise attainable.
Gore, however, was again absent on the second Saturday after his first visit to Maxwell. And on this occasion his place was vacant at breakfast. Nor did he return till Monday afternoon.
On that afternoon Mariquita had walked out some distance across the prairie. Not in the direction of the Maxwell trail, but quite in the opposite direction. Her way brought her to what they called Saul Bluff—a very low, broken ridge, sparsely overgrown with small rather shabby trees. It would scarcely have hidden the chimneys of a cottage had there been any cottage on its farther side; but there was none anywhere near it. For many miles there was no building in any direction, except "Don Jo's," as, to its owner's annoyance, his homestead was called.