It is often more prudent to suppress our sentiments, than either to flatter or to rail.
THE PARTIAL JUDGE
A Farmer came to a neighbouring Lawyer, expressing great concern for an accident which he said had just happened. “One of your oxen,” continued he, “has been gored by an unlucky bull of mine, and I shall be glad to know how I am to make you a reparation.” “Thou art a very honest fellow,” replied the Lawyer, “and wilt not think it unreasonable that I expect one of thy oxen in return.” “It is no more than justice,” quoth the Farmer, “to be sure: but what did I say!—I mistake—It is your bull that has killed one of my oxen.” “Indeed,” says the Lawyer, “that alters the case: I must inquire into the affair; and if”—“And if!” said the Farmer, “the business I find would have been concluded without an if, had you been as ready to do justice to others as to exact it from them.”
Reflection
The injuries we do, and those we suffer, are seldom weighed in the same scales.
It is all very well for some wiseacres to say, “Humor came in with civilization,” for others to say, “Humor took its rise in the Middle Ages,” or to set any other arbitrary time.
The truth is that Humor, is an innate emotion, and in a general sense, it is the child of religion.
The primitive religions were conducted with Festival Ceremonies, whose celebrations were of such symbolic nature, and later, such burlesque of symbolism that gaiety ensued and then ribaldry.
The worship of the god Dionysus,—later mixed up in tradition with Bacchus,—was responsible for much reckless license that was the earliest form of comedy.
Dionysus, being deity of the vineyard, as well as of phallic worship, lent himself readily to the grotesque representations and hysterical orgies of his followers and Greek Comedy was probably the outcome of this.