“The ludicrous has its place in the Universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys, long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare.”—Holmes.
“TOUCHES OF NATURE.”
“To explain the nature of laughter and tears is to account for the condition of human life; for it is in a manner compounded of these two. It is tragedy or comedy, sad or merry, as it happens.”—Hazlitt.
“One touch of nature,” says Shakespeare, “makes the whole world kin;” but the great dramatist did not define exactly what he meant by “touch of nature,” and the critics of many generations have been at war over the question. Perhaps he could not have told us, even if he had tried,—any more than the critics can tell us. When Democritus was asked his definition of a man, his only reply was, “A man is that which we all see and know.” Further than this the philosopher could not proceed. But while Shakespeare has not given us a definition, he has given us an illustration:
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,—
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Tho’ they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’erdusted.”
The whole world is kin in this, that all with one consent inexcusably forget the substantial past and praise the present folly, if that folly be well tricked out. Humanity proves its oneness by its foibles as well as by its virtues. “Foolery, sir, doth walk about the orb; like the sun it shineth everywhere.” Things deserving of laughter and things intended to provoke it have always been happening; and the faculties by which men perceive the foolish and ludicrous have always existed in human nature.
“Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And laughter holding both his sides,”—
all these were in the past as well as in the present. They are “touches of nature” that “make the whole world kin.”