“‘Present?—or absent?’ she asked. That floored me.”
XXIV
SUNSHINE IS IN DEMAND
Laughter Wanted Everywhere.—Dismal Efforts at Fun.—English Humor.—The Difference Between Humor and Wit.— Composite Merriment.—Carefully Studied “Impromptus.”—National Types of Humor.—Some Queer Substitutes for the Real Article.—Humor is Sometimes “Knocked Out,” Yet Mirth is Medicine and Laughter Lengthens Life.
Perhaps the reason that the true jester is always sunny of heart and manner is that his output is always in demand. Busy though his wits and tongue may be, the demand always exceeds the supply. Laughter, like gold, is never a drug on the market, and, as is true regarding gold, people will endure some frightful substitutes rather than go without it. In countries that have no real fun in them—and there are such countries, the people insist on having laughter provided for them, even if they must depend on the public executioner to do it. It is said that in some Asiatic countries the people become wildly mirthful at the contortions of a criminal’s body from which the head has just been severed; as to that, there are solemn Americans—men who would think it sinful to smile at a comedy, who almost split their sides with laughter over the floppings of a beheaded chicken.
“Split their sides with laughter over the flapping of a beheaded chicken.”
As to that, I assert on my honor that I have seen Englishmen laugh over the pages of Punch and Frenchmen roused gleefully by a copy of Le Petit Journal Pour Rire, though both papers seem as dismal, to the average American, as an old-fashioned German on the doom of the finally impenitent. According to competent judges the best thing that ever appeared in Punch was a poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln, which was not exactly a laughing matter. Yet the English are a good-natured people, and full of laughter. Sometimes it takes them a lot of time to get off a laugh, but, when the climax is really reached, the sound resembles an Indian war-whoop tangled up in a thunder-storm. They don’t take their pleasure sadly, for there are no more cheery-faced people in the world, but their joke-makers are not successful when at work on serious subjects. Punch was never more popular than during the recent war in South Africa, when the greatest and best nation in Europe was being humiliated in plain sight of all the world by a few thousand Boers, not one in ten of whom ever fired a shot. It made me almost wish I could be an Englishman, just to see where the fun came in, for it was plain to see that it came.
But, to get back to my subject, every healthy man likes to laugh; therefore he likes whoever will make him laugh. Ella Wheeler Wilcox voiced a great truth when she wrote “Laugh, and the world laughs with you.” Men are so fond of laughing that they will endure nine wormy chestnuts, badly served, if the tenth effort produces the genuine thing. Much of the best fun comes by accident; that is, from incongruity. Two of the few immortal figures of humorous literature—Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, owe their existence to this double motif; in the knight, by idealized chivalry being put down among pigs and kitchen wenches; while the persistent coarseness and vulgarity of his squire are thrown into juxtaposition with the chivalry and splendor of lords and ladies.
Every soul, man and woman, as well as many who are not, tries to provoke smiles, but not one in a thousand succeeds; as for those who actually create new humor, their name may be called on the fingers of two hands. Almost all humorists, whether amateur or professional, get no further than to evolve variations of old forms and climaxes, but what does it matter so long as they compel a laugh? At this sort of thing Americans beat the world. A cook who can serve a dozen different soups from one kettle is a bungler when compared with the American joker.