History of English Humour Volume II Part 25

"'It's a pudding,' I made answer.

"'Pudding,' he exclaimed, 'why, bless me, so it is. What?' looking nearer at it, 'you don't mean to say it's a batter pudding!'

"'Yes, it is indeed.'

"'Why, a batter pudding,' he said, taking up a tablespoon, 'is my favourite pudding! Aint it lucky? Come on, pitch in, and let's see who'll get most.'

"The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in and win, but what with his tablespoon to my teaspoon, his dispatch to my dispatch, and his appet.i.te to my appet.i.te I was left far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him."

We are all sufficiently familiar with the vast amount and variety of humour with which d.i.c.kens enriched his writings. It is not aphoristic, but flows along in a light sparkling stream. This is what we should expect from a man who wrote so much and so rapidly. His thoughts did not concentrate and crystallize into a few sharply cut expressions, and he has left us scarcely any sayings which will live as "household words."

Moreover, in his bold style of writing he sought to produce effects by broad strokes and dashes--not afraid of an excess of caricature, from which he left his readers to deduct the discount. Taine says he was "too mad." But he was daring, and cared little for the risk of being ludicrous, providing he escaped the certainty of being dull. He was not afraid of improbabilities, any more than his contemporary Lever was, and owing to this they both now seem somewhat old-fashioned. Lever here exceeded d.i.c.kens, and his course was different; his plan was to sow a few seeds of extravagant falsehood, whence he would raise a wonderful efflorescence of ludicrous circ.u.mstances. For instance, he makes a General Count de Vanderdelft pay a visit to the Dodd family, and bring them an invitation from the King of Belgium. Great preparations are of course made by the ladies for so grand an occasion. The day arrives, and they have to travel in their full dress in second and third cla.s.s carriages. They arrive a little late, but make their way to the Royal Pavilion. Here, while in great suspense, they meet the General, who says he was afraid he should have missed them.

"'We've not a minute to lose,' cried he, drawing Mary Ann's arm within his own. 'If Leopold sits down to table, I can't present you.'

"The General made his way through the crowd until he reached a barrier, where two men were standing taking tickets. He demanded admission, and on being refused, exclaimed, 'These scullions don't know me--this canaille never heard my name.' With these words the General kicked up the bar with his foot, and pa.s.sed in with Mary Ann, flourishing his drawn sword in the air, and crying out, 'Take them in flank--sabre them--every man--no prisoners--no quarter.' At this juncture two big men in grey coats burst through the crowd and laid hands on the General, who, it seems, had escaped a week before from a mad-house in Ghent."

The basis of all this is far too improbable, but there was a temptation to construct a very good story upon it.

But d.i.c.kens builds upon much firmer ground, and is only fantastic in the superstructure. This is certainly an improvement, and we admire his genius most when he controls its flight, and when his caricatures are less grotesque. I take the following from "Nicholas Niekleby," Chapter II.

"Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere....

It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark complexioned men, who wear large rings, and heavy watchguards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the opera colonnade, and about the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when they give orders--all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it.

Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the opera band reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening-time round the head of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the Square.... Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries....

"Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four white-washed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys, in which there withers on from year to year a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late in Autumn, when other trees shed theirs, and drooping in the effort, lingers on all crackled and smoke-dried till the following season, when it repeats the same process; and perhaps, if the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirp in its branches."

In the next chapter there is a description of the house of a humble votary of the arts.

"A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt frame screwed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon a black velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress, coats with faces looking out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a young gentleman in a very vermilion uniform flourishing a sabre; and one of a literary character with a high forehead, a pen and ink, six books, and a curtain. There was, moreover, a touching representation of a young lady reading a ma.n.u.script in an unfathomable forest, and a charming whole length of a large-headed little boy, sitting on a stool with his legs foreshortened to the size of salt-spoons. Besides these works of art, there were a great many heads of old ladies and gentlemen smirking at each other out of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card of terms with an embossed border."

When Mr. Crummles, the stage-manager, urges his old pony along the road, the following conversation takes place:--

"'He's a good pony at bottom,' said Mr. Crummles, turning to Nicholas. He might have been at bottom, but he certainly was not at top, seeing that his coat was of the roughest, and most ill-favoured kind. So Nicholas merely observed that he shouldn't wonder if he was. 'Many and many is the circuit this pony has gone,' said Mr. Crummles, flicking him skilfully on the eyelid, for old acquaintance sake. 'He is quite one of us. His mother was on the stage.'

"'Was she?' rejoined Nicholas.

"'She ate apple-pie at circus for upwards of fourteen years,' said the Manager, 'fired pistols, and went to bed in a night-cap; and in short, took the low comedy entirely. His father was an actor.'

"'Was he at all distinguished?'

"'Not very,' said the Manager. 'He was rather a low sort of pony.

The fact is, he had been originally jobbed out by the day, and he never quite got over his old habits. He was clever in melodrama, too, but too broad, too broad. When the mother died he took the port wine business.'

"'The port wine business?' cried Nicholas.

"'Drinking port wine with the clown,' said the Manager; 'but he was greedy and one night bit off the bowl of the gla.s.s and choked himself, so his vulgarity was the death of him at last.'"

It is greatly to the credit of d.i.c.kens that although he wrote so much and salted so freely, he never approached any kind of impropriety. The only weak point in his humour is that he borrows too much from his imagination, and too little from reality.

I trust that those who have accompanied me through the chapters of this work, will have been able to trace a gradual amelioration in humour. We have seen it from age to age running parallel with the history, and varying with the mental development of the times, rising and falling in fables, demonology, word-coining and coa.r.s.eness, and I hope we may add in practical joking and c.o.xcombry.

The remaining chapters will draw conclusions from our general survey.

There can be little doubt that humour cannot be studied in any country better than in our own. The commercial character of England, and its connection with many nations whose feelings are intermingled in our minds as their blood is in our veins, are favourable for the development of fancy and of the finest kinds of wit, while the moderate Government under which we live, tends in the same direction. Humour may have germinated in the darkness of despotism, among the discontented subjects of Dionysius or under "the tyranny tempered by epigrams," of Louis XIV., but it failed, under such conditions to obtain a full expression, and although it has revelled and run riot under republican governments, it has always tended in them to coa.r.s.e and personal vituperation. The fairest blossoms of pleasantry thrive best where the sun is not strong enough to scorch, nor the soil rank enough to corrupt.

CHAPTER XIX.

Variation--Constancy--Influence of Temperament--Of Observation--Bulls--Want of Knowledge--Effects of Emotion--Unity of the Sense of the Ludicrous.

As every face in the world is different, so no two minds are exactly similar, although there is great uniformity in the perceptions of the senses and still more in our primary innate ideas. The variety lies in the one case, in the finer lines and expressions of the countenance, and in the other in those delicate shades and combinations of feeling which are influenced more or less by memory, reflection, imagination, by experience, education and temperament, by taste, morality, and religion.

It was no doubt the view of this great diversity of thought that led Quintilian to say that "the topics from which jests may be elicited are not less numerous than those from which thoughts may be derived!"

Herbert writes to the same purpose--

"All things are full of jest; nothing that's plain But may be witty, if thou hast the vein."

But we are not in the vein except sometimes, and under peculiar circ.u.mstances, so that, practically, few sayings are humorous.

It is more difficult to a.s.sert that there are any jests which would be appreciated by all. The statement that "some phases of life must stir humour in any man of sanity," is probably too wide. There is little of this universality in the ludicrous, but we shall have some reason for thinking that there is a certain constancy in the mental feeling which awakens it. It is also fixed with regard to each individual. If we had sufficient knowledge, we could predict exactly whether a man would be amused at a certain story, and we sometimes say "Tell that to Mr. ---- it will amuse him." But if his nature were not so disposed, no exertions on his part or ours could make him enjoy it. The ludicrous is dependent upon feelings or circ.u.mstances, but not upon the will. It is peculiarly involuntary as those know who have tried to smother a laugh. The utmost advance we can make towards making ourselves mirthful is by changing our circ.u.mstances. It is said that if a man were to look at people dancing with his ears stopped, the figures moving without accompaniment would seem ludicrous to him, but his merriment would not be great because he would know the strangeness he observed was not real but caused by his own intentional act. We may say that for a thing to appear ludicrous to a man which does not seem so at present, he must change the character of his mind.

There is another kind of constancy which should here be noticed. Some humorous sayings survive for long periods, and occasionally are adopted in foreign countries. In some cases they have immortalized a name, in others we know not who originated them, or to whom they first referred.

They seem to be the production, as they are the heritage, not of man but of humanity. It is essential to the permanence of humour that it should refer to large cla.s.ses, and awaken emotions common to many. If Socrates and Xantippe, the philosopher and the shrew, had not represented cla.s.ses, and an ordinary connection in life, we should have been little amused at their differences.[16]

Having mentioned these few first aspects in which humour is constant, we now come to the wider field of its variation. It may be said to vary with the age, with the century, with cla.s.ses of society, with the time of life, nay, it has been a.s.serted, with the very hours of the day! The simplest mode in which we can demonstrate this character of humour is to consider some of those things which although amusing to others are not so to us, and those which amuse us, but not others; we sometimes regard as ludicrous what is intended to be humorous, sometimes on the other hand we view as humorous what is seriously meant, and sometimes we take gravely what is intended to be amusing.

A man may make what he thinks to be a jest, and be neither humorous nor ludicrous, and a man may cause others to laugh without being one or the other; for what he says may be amusing, although he does not intend it to be so, or he may be merely relating some actual occurrence.

Occasionally, there is some doubt as to whether we regard things as ludicrous or humorous. This is seen in some proverbs.

But the most common and strongly marked instances of variation are where what is seriously taken by one person is regarded as ludicrous by another. Thus the conception of the qualities desirable in public speaking are very different on this side to the Atlantic from what they are on the other, and what appears to us to partake of the ludicrous, seems to them to be only grand, effective, and appropriate. "In patriotic eloquence," says a U.S. journal, "our American stump-speakers beat the world. They don't stand up and prose away so as to put an audience to sleep, after the lazy genteel aristocratic style of British Parliamentary speech-making." This boast is certainly just. There is a vigour about the popular style of American oratory that we are sure has never been equalled in the British Parliament. A paper of the interior in paying a glowing tribute to the eloquence of the Fourth of July orator who officiated in the town where the journal is published, says--"Although he had a platform ten feet square to orate upon, he got so fired up with patriotism that it wasn't half big enough to hold him: his fist collided three times with the President of the day, besides bunging the eye of the reader of the Declaration, and every person on the stage left it limping." Such a style of oratory would leave durable impressions, and be felt as well as heard.

It cannot be doubted that our mental state, whether temporary or habitual, exercises a great influence over us in regard to humour.

Temperament must modify all our emotional feelings, some are naturally gay and hilarious, some grave and austere, children laugh from little more than exuberance of spirits, and joyousness causes us to seek pleasure, to notice ludicrous combinations which would otherwise escape us, and renders us sensitive of all humorous impressions. But the cares of life have generally the effect of making men grave even where there is no lack of imagination. Some have been so serious in mood that it has been recorded that they were never known to laugh, as it is said of Philip the Third of Spain that he only did so once--on reading Don Quixote.

How little attempt at humour is there in most of our literary works!

True, humour is rather the language of conversation, and we may expect it as little in writing, as we do sentiment in society. But even in its own special province it is lacking, there is generally in our festive gatherings more of what is dull than of what is playful and pleasant.

Perhaps our cloudy skies may have some influence--it is impossible to doubt that climate affects the mental disposition of nations. The natives of Tahiti in their soft southern isle are gay and laughter-loving; the Arab of the desert is fierce and warlike, and seldom condescends to smile. Sydney Smith said "it would require a surgical operation to get a joke into the understanding of a Scotchman;"

but the Irishman in his mild variable climate is ready to be witty under all circ.u.mstances. Flogel, writing in Germany, observes that "humour is not a fruit to be gathered from every bough; you can find a hundred men able to draw tears for every one that can raise a laugh."

There is also a great difference between individuals in this respect.

Some are naturally bright and jocund, and others are misanthropic and manufacture out of very trite materials a sort of snap-dragon wit, which flares up in an instant, is as soon out, and generally burns somebody's fingers. It may be urged on the contrary that many celebrated wits as Mathews, Leech, and others, have been melancholy men. But despondency is often found in an excitable temperament which is not unfavourable to humour, for the man who is unduly depressed at one moment is likely to be immoderately elated at another. Old Hobbes was of opinion that laughter arose from pride, upon which Addison remarked that according to that theory, if we heard a man laugh, instead of saying that he was very merry, we should say that he was very proud. We have already observed that some men are disinclined to laugh because they are of an earnest turn of mind, constantly pondering upon their affairs and the possibility of transforming a shilling into a pound. Such are those to whom Carlyle referred when he said that "the man who cannot laugh is only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." But there are a few persons who follow Lord Chesterfield in systematically suppressing this kind of demonstration. They think it derogatory, and in them pride is antagonistic to humour. A man who is free and easy and talkative, gains in one direction what he loses in another. We love him as a frank, genial fellow, but can never regard him with any great reverence.

Laughter seems to bespeak a simple docile nature, such as those who a.s.sume to rule the world are not willing to have the credit of possessing. It belongs more to the fool than to the rogue, to those who follow than to those who lead. Eminent men do not intentionally avoid laughter; they are not inclined to it; and there are some, who, from being generally of a profound and calculating turn of mind are not given to any exhibition of emotion. It has been said that Diogenes never laughed, and the same has been a.s.serted of Swift. And although we may safely conclude that these statements were not literally true, there was probably some foundation for them. No doubt they appreciated humour, but their minds were earnest and ambitious. Moreover, great wits are accustomed to the character of their own humour, and are often merely repeating what they have heard or said frequently.

Nature has endowed few men with two gifts, and emotional joyousness and high intellectual culture form a rare combination, such as was found in Goldsmith with his hearty laughter, and in Macaulay, who tells us that he laughed at Mathews' comic performance "until his sides were sore."

Bishop Warburton said that humorists were generally men of learning, but although those who were so would have been most prominent, we scarcely find the name of one of them in the course of these volumes; many of those mentioned sprang from the humbler paths of life, but all were men of study. Still those who are altogether unable to enjoy a joke are men of imperfect sympathies.