History of English Humour Volume II Part 29

signifying its unreality. Sometimes we say that an observation "must be a joke," implying that it is false. I have even heard of a man who never laughed at humour because he hated falsehood, and we sometimes say of an untrue statement that it must be taken with a "grain of salt."

It is so very common for men to flinch under ridicule, that it is said to be a good test of courage. An old English poet says,

"For he who does not tremble at the sword, Who quails not with his head upon the block, Turn but a jest against him, loses heart.

The shafts of wit slip through the stoutest mail; There is no man alive that can live down The unextinguishable laughter of mankind."

Aristotle defines the ludicrous to be "a certain error and turpitude unattended with pain, and not destructive," a statement which may refer to moral or physical defects. Cicero and Quintilian, looking probably at satire, consider it to be mostly directed against the shortcomings and offences of men. Bacon in his "Silva Silvarum" says the objects of laughter are deformity, absurdity, and misfortune, in which we trace a certain severity, although he speaks of "jocular arts" as "deceptions of the senses," such as in masks, and other exhibitions, were much in fashion in his day. Descartes says that we only laugh at those whom we deem worthy of reproach; but Marmontel, the celebrated pupil of Voltaire, takes a view which bespeaks greater cultivation and a progress in society. "A fault in manner," he says, "is laughable; a false pretension is ridiculous, a situation which exposes vice to detestation is comic, a _bon mot_ is pleasant."

Dugald Stewart proceeds so far as almost to exclude vice, for he only specifies "slight imperfections in the character and manners, such as do not excite any moral indignation." He says that it is especially excited by affectation, hypocrisy, and vanity.

We trace in these successive opinions of philosophers an improvement in humour, proportionate to the progress of mankind. As men of literature, they drew general conclusions, and from the higher and more cultivated cla.s.ses, probably much from books. Had they taken a wider range, their catalogues would have been more comprehensive.

But the amelioration we have traced is as much in the general tone of feeling as in humour itself, if not more. Bitter reflections upon the personal or moral defects of others are not so acceptable now as formerly; the "glorying" over the downfall of our neighbours is less common.

Thus we mark an improvement in the sentiments which accompany the ludicrous, and which many philosophers seem to have mistaken for the ludicrous itself. Neither hostility, indelicacy, nor profanity can create the ludicrous, but where they do not disgust they vivify and make it more effective. It will be observed that in all of them there is something we condemn and disapprove. The joy of gain and advantage was in very early times sufficient to quicken humour in that childlike mirth which flowed chiefly from delight and exultation, but the "laughter of pleasure" has pa.s.sed away, perhaps we require something more keen or subtle in the maturer age of the world. The accessory emotions are not at present either so joyous or so offensive as they were in bygone times. The "faults in manners" of Marmontel, and the "slight imperfections" of Dugald Stewart, showed that the objectionable stimulants of the ludicrous were a.s.suming a much milder form.

From the views of Archbishop Whately set forth in his "Logic," we might suppose that pleasantries, although not devoid of falsity, were usually of a truly innocuous character--"Jests," he writes, "are mock fallacies, _i.e._ fallacies so palpable as not to be able to deceive anyone, but yet bearing just the resemblance of argument which is calculated to amuse by contrast." Farther on we read again: "There are several different kind of jokes and raillery, which will be found to correspond with the different kinds of fallacy." On this we may observe that some jests, generally of the "manufactured" cla.s.s, are founded on a false logical process, but in most cases the error arises more from the matter than from the form, and often from mistakes of the senses. Although nearly every misconception may be represented under the form of false ratiocination, the imperfection almost always lies in one of the premises, and it is seldom that there is plainly a fault of argument in humour. If we claim everything as a fallacy of which there is no evidence, though there seems to be some, we shall embrace a large area--part of which is usually a.s.signed to falsity, and if we consider every mistake to come from wrong deduction, we shall convict mankind of being so full of fallacies as not to be a rational, but a most illogical animal. Whately says, "The pun is evidently in most instances a mock argument founded on a palpable equivocation of the middle term--and others in like manner will be found to correspond to the respective fallacies."

A pun is the nearest approach to a mere mock fallacy of form, and we see what poor amus.e.m.e.nt it generally affords. To feign that because words have the same sound, they convey the same thoughts or meanings is a fiction as transparent as it is preposterous. A word is nothing but an arbitrary sign, and apart from the thought connected with it, it is an empty unmeaning sound. The link is too slight in puns, the disparity between the things they represent as similar, too great--there is too much falsity. The worst kind of them is where the words are unlike in spelling, and even somewhat so in sound, and where the same reference cannot be made to suit both. Such are puns of the "atrocious" or "villainous" cla.s.s--a fertile source of bad riddles. For instance, "Why is an old shoe like ancient Greece?" "Because it had a sole on (Solon)."

Here the words are very dissimilar and the allusion is imperfect--the description of an old shoe being wrong and forced.

The founders of many of our great families have shown how much this kind of humour was once appreciated by using it in their mottoes. Thus Onslow has "_Festina lente_" and Vernon more happily "_Ver non semper floret_."

Some puns are amusingly ingenious when the reference hinges well on both words, some additional verbal or other connection is shown, and the words are exactly alike. When there are not two words, but one is used in two senses, there is still greater improvement. Thus the Rev. R. S.

Hawker--a man of such mediaeval tastes that he was claimed, falsely, I believe, as a Roman Catholic--made an apt reply to a n.o.bleman who had told him in the heat of religious controversy that he would not be priest-ridden--

"Priest-ridden thou! it cannot be By prophet or by priest, Balaam is dead, and none but he Would choose thee for his beast!"

We also consider that the mendicant deserved a coin, who, knowing the love of wit in Louis XIV., complained sadly to him, _Ton image est partout--excepte dans ma poche_. In such cases the pun is sometimes transformed, for it only invariably exists where the words are equivocal and where the allusion is peculiarly applicable to the double meaning the falsity vanishes, and the verbal coincidence becomes an effective ornament of style. It has been so used by the most successful writers, and it is still under certain conditions approved; but more discrimination is required in such embellishments than was anciently necessary. And when the allusion becomes not only elegant but iridescent, reflecting beautiful and changing lights, it rises into poetical metaphor.

Falsity is necessary to const.i.tute a pun; if no great ident.i.ty is a.s.sumed between the two words, and they are not introduced in a somewhat strained manner, we do not consider the term applicable. If the use of merely similar words in sentences were to be so viewed, we should be constantly guilty of punning. Wordsworth was not guilty of a pun on that hot day in Germany when, his friends having given him some hock, a wine he detested, he exclaimed:

"In Spain, that land of priests and apes The thing called wine doth come from grapes, But where flows down the lordly Rhine The thing called _gripes_ doth come from wine."

No doubt he intended to show a coincidence in coupling together two words of nearly the same sound, but he represented the two things signified as cause and effect, not as identical, so as to form a pun.

The difference between poetical and humorous comparisons may be generally stated to be that the former are upward towards something superior, the latter downwards towards something inferior. Tennyson calls Maud a "queen rose," and when we sing--

"Happy fair, Thine eyes are load stars, and thy tongue sweet air,"

the comparison is inspiring, but, when Washington Irving speaks of a "vinegar-faced woman," we feel inclined to laugh. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Socrates says that to compare a man to everything excellent is to insult him. Sometimes also a dwarf is compared to a giant for the purpose of calling attention to his insignificance. This is often seen in irony. So also, we at times laugh at the sagacity shown by the lower animals, which seems not so much to raise them in our estimation as to lower them by occasioning a comparison with the superior powers of man.

Sometimes in comparisons between things very different, we cannot say one thing is not as good as another, but, with regard to a certain use, purpose, or design, there may be an evident inferiority. Thus comparisons are so often odious, that Wordsworth speaks of the blessing of being able to look at the world without making them. We may observe generally that when an idea is brought before us, which, instead of elevating and enlarging our previous conception, clashes and jangles with it, there is an approach towards the laughable.

We cannot say that enthusiasm in Art or Science should not exist, and yet a manifestation of it seems absurd when we do not sympathise in it.

The most amiable and beneficent of men, it has been remarked, "have always been a favourite subject of ridicule for the satirist and jester." Personal deformities seem absurd to some, but those who have made them their study see nothing extraordinary in them. Sometimes our laughter shows us that something seems wrong, which our highest ideal would approve. I remember seeing an aged man tottering along a rough road in France, with a heavy bag of geese on his back. One of his countrymen, who by the way have not too much reverence for age, came behind him and jovially exclaimed, "_Courage, mon ami, vous etes sur le chemin de Paradis_." The old man ought to have been glad to have been on the road to heaven, but our laughter reminds us that most would prefer to stay on earth.

It must be admitted that our feelings with regard to right and wrong are very shifting and changeable, and that we condemn others for doing what we should ourselves have done under the same circ.u.mstances. We have also an especial tendency to adopt the view that what we are accustomed to is right. We sometimes observe this in morals, where it causes a considerable amount of confusion, but it holds greater sway over such light matters as awaken the sense of the ludicrous. When anything is presented to us different from what we have been long accustomed to, unless it is evidently better, we are inclined to consider it worse. In the same way, things which at first we consider wrong, we finally come to think un.o.bjectionable.

In taste and our sense of the ludicrous, we find ourselves greatly under the influence of habit. What seems to be a logical error is often found to be merely something to which we are unaccustomed; thus the double negative, which sounds to us absurd and equivalent to an affirmation, is used in many languages merely to give emphasis.

How ridiculous do the manners of our forefathers now seem, their pig-tails, powder, and patches, the large fardingales, and the stiff and pompous etiquette. I remember a gentleman, a staunch admirer of the old school, who, lamenting over the lounging and lolling of the present day, said that his grandmother, even when dying, refused to relax into a rec.u.mbent posture. She was sitting erect even to her very last hour, and when the doctor suggested to her that she would find herself easier in a reposing posture, she replied, "No, sir, I prefer to die as I am," and she breathed her last, sitting bolt upright in her high-backed chair. So great indeed is the power of custom that it almost leads us to view artificial things as natural productions--to commit as great an error as that of the African King who said that "England must be a fine country, where the rivers flow with rum."

Speaking theoretically, we may say that the opposition of either custom or morale is sufficient to extinguish the ludicrous, and that we do not laugh at what is wrong if we are used to it; or at what is unusual if we think it right. When there is a collision, we may regard the two as neutralizing each other. Still, for this to hold good, neither must predominate, and it will practically be found from the const.i.tution of our minds, a small amount of custom will overcome a considerable amount of morale. In ill.u.s.tration of the above remarks, we might appropriately refer to those strange articles of wearing apparel called hats, the shape of which might suggest to those unaccustomed to them, that we were carrying some culinary utensil upon our head; and yet, if we saw a gentleman walking about bare-headed, like the Ancients, we should feel inclined to laugh.[24] But we will rather consider the recent fashion of wearing expanded dresses--those extraordinary "evening bells" which, until lately, occupied so much public attention, and consumed so many tons of iron. An octogenarian who could remember the tight skirts at the end of Queen Charlotte's reign, and had formed his taste upon that model, might have laughed heartily, if not too much offended at the change. But by degrees, custom would have a.s.serted its sway to such an extent that, although he did not approve of them, they would not provoke his mirth; and yet, when he saw some of the ladies re-introducing tight dresses, he might not be able to laugh at them, as he still retained his early notions with regard to their propriety. But most of us are so influenced by the fashion of the day in dress, that the rights of the case would not have prevented our laughing at the shrimp-like appearance of those who first tried to bring in the present reform, and perhaps some of the stanch supporters of the more natural style could not have quite maintained their gravity, had one of their antiquated ideals been suddenly introduced among the wide-spreading ladies of the late period.

To take another ill.u.s.tration. It would perhaps be in accordance with our highest desires that instinct should approach to reason as nearly as possible, and that all animals should act in the most judicious and beneficial way. Naturalists would be inclined to agree in this, and if this were the view we adopted, we should not laugh at dogs showing signs of intelligence; neither should we at their acting irrationally, because experience teaches us that they are not generally guided by reflection. But most of us are accustomed to consider reason the prerogative and peculiarity of man. And if we take the view that the lower animals have it not, we shall be inclined to smile when any of them show traces of it--any such exhibition seeming out of place, and leading us to compare them with men. But when we are accustomed to see a monkey taking off his hat, or playing a tambourine, or even smoking a pipe, we by degrees see nothing laughable in the performance.

As our emotions are only excited with reference to human affairs, some have thought that all laughter must refer to them. Pope says, "Laughter implies censure, inanimate and irrational beings are not objects of censure, and may, therefore, be elevated as much as you please, and no ridicule follows." Addison writes to the same purpose. His words are:--"I am afraid I shall appear too abstract in my speculations if I shew that when a man of wit makes us laugh, it is by betraying some address or infirmity in his own character, or in the representation he makes of others, and that when we laugh at a brute, or even at an inanimate thing, it is by some action or incident that bears a remote a.n.a.logy to some blunder or absurdity in reasonable creatures." It may be questioned whether we always go so far as to inst.i.tute this comparison. Ludicrous events and circ.u.mstances seem often such as the individuals concerned have no control over whatever, and betray no infirmity. When we see a failure in a work of art, do we always think of the artist? A lady told me last autumn that when she was walking in a country town with her Italian greyhound, which was dressed in a red coat to protect it from cold, the tradespeople and most others pa.s.sed it without notice, or merely with a pa.s.sing word of commendation; but, on meeting a country b.u.mpkin, he pointed to it, burst out laughing, and said, "Look at that daug, why, it's all the world like a littl' oss."

Beattie thinks that the derision is not necessarily aimed at human beings, and probably it is not directly, but indirectly there seems to be some reference to man. Leon Dumont tells us that he once laughed on hearing a clap of thunder; it was in winter, and it seemed out of place that it should occur in cold weather. There can be nothing legitimately ludicrous in such occurrences. But, perhaps, _lusus naturae_ are not regarded as truly natural. Of course, they are really so, but not to us, for we have an ideal variously obtained of how Nature ought to act, and thus a man is able for the moment to imagine that something produced by Nature is not natural--just as we sometimes speak of "unnatural weather." But we seldom or ever laugh at such phenomena.

We all have a certain resemblance to the old Athenians in wishing to hear something new. It generally pleases, and always impresses us.

Novelty is in proportion to our ignorance, and can scarcely be said to exist at all absolutely, for although there is some change always in progress, it advances too slowly and certainly to produce anything startling or exciting. Novelty especially affects us with regard to the ludicrous, and some have, therefore, hastily concluded that it is sufficient to awaken this feeling.

The strength and vividness of new emotions and impressions are especially traceable in their outward demonstrations. A very slight change occurring suddenly will often cause an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of alarm or admiration, especially among those of nervous temperament; but upon a repet.i.tion the excitement is less, and the nerves are scarcely affected.

This peculiar law of the nervous system will account for the absence of laughter on the relation of any old or well-known story. Both pleasure and facial action are absent; but when we no longer feel the emotion of humour, we still have some notion that certain ideas awakened it, and would still do so under favourable circ.u.mstances,--that is when persons first conceived them. Here then we can recognise humour apart from novelty; but it is dead, its magic is no more. On the same principle, to laugh before telling a good story lessens its force, just as to break gradually melancholy tidings enables the recipient to bear them better.

But nothing so effectually damps mirth as to premise that we are going to say something very laughable. Bacon observes, "Ipsa t.i.tillatio si praemoneas non magnopere in risum valet." Novelty is necessary to produce what Akenside felicitously calls "the gay surprise," but they are wrong who maintain that this is the essence of the ludicrous. An ingenious suggestion has been made that the reason why we cannot endure the repet.i.tion of a humorous story is that on a second relation the element of falsehood becomes too strong in proportion to that of truth. Such an explanation can scarcely be correct, for in many instances people would not be able to show what was the falsity contained. A man may often form a correct judgment as to the general failure of an attempt, without being able to show how it could be corrected. Probably after having heard a humorous story once we are prepared for something whimsical, and are therefore less affected on its repet.i.tion.

We have already observed that certain emotions and states of mind are adverse to the ludicrous, and we now pa.s.s on to those which, like novelty, are favourable to it and have been at times considered elements of the ludicrous, but are really only concomitant and accessory. As we have observed, indelicacy, profanity, or a hostile joy at the downfall or folly of others is not in itself humorous. Pleasantry without pungent seasoning may be seen in those "facetious" verbal conceits which our American cousins, and especially "yours trooly," Artemus Ward, have been fond of framing. But accessory emotions are necessary to render humour demonstrative. They are generally unamiable, censorious, or otherwise offensive, perhaps in keeping with the disapproval excited by falsity.

In some cases the two feelings of wrong are almost inextricably connected, but in others we can separate them without much difficulty.

In the following instances the presence of an accessory emotion can easily be traced:--

"'What have you brought me there?' asks a French publisher of a young author, who advances with a long roll under his arm. 'Is it a ma.n.u.script?' 'No, Sir,' replies the man of letters, pompously, 'a fortune!' 'Oh, a fortune! Take it to the publisher opposite, he is poorer than I am.'"

(The disappointment of the author here adds considerably to our amus.e.m.e.nt at the ingenious answer of the publisher.)

Two men, attired as a bishop and chaplain, entered one of the great jewellery establishments in Bond Street and asked to be shown some diamond rings. The bishop selected one worth a hundred pounds, but said he had only a fifty-pound note with him, and that he wished to take the ring away. The foreman took the note, and the bishop gave his address; but he had scarcely left when a policeman rushed in and asked where the two swindlers had gone. The foreman stood aghast, but said he had at least secured a fifty-pound note. The policeman asked to see it, and saying it was a flash note and that he would have it tested, left the shop and never returned.

The amus.e.m.e.nt afforded by practical jokes is also largely dependent upon the discomfort of the victims. This kind of humour, happily now little known in this country, has been much in favour with Italian bandits, who occasionally unite whimsical fancy with great personal daring. A Piedmontese gentleman told me an instance in which two Counts, who were dining at an albergo, met a strange-looking man whom they took to be a sportsman like themselves. The conversation turned upon bandits, and the Counts expressed a hope that they might meet some, as they were well armed and would teach them a lesson. Their companion left before them, and walking along the road they were to take, ordered a labouring man whom he met to stand in an adjoining vineyard and hold up a vine-stake to his shoulder like a gun. As soon as the Counts' carriage came to the place the bandit rushed out, seized the horses, and called upon the Counts to deliver up their arms or he would order his men, whom they could see in the vineyard, to fire. The Counts not only obeyed the summons, but began to accuse one another of keeping something back.

Shortly afterwards, on a doctor boasting in the same way, the bandit went out before him and stuck a bough in the road on which he hung a lantern. The doctor called out who's there? and was taking a deadly aim with his gun, when he was seized from behind and pinioned. The bandit said he should teach him a different lesson from that he deserved, and only deprived him of his gun.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Nomenclature--Three Cla.s.ses of Words--Distinction between Wit and Humour--Wit sometimes dangerous, generally innocuous.

The subject of which we have been treating in these volumes will suggest to us the logical distinctions to be drawn between three cla.s.ses of words. First, we have those which imply that we are regarding something external, awakening laughter as the _ludicrous_ from _ludus_, a game, especially pointing to antics and gambols; the _ridiculous_ from _rideo_ to laugh, referring to that which occasions a demonstrative movement in the muscles of the countenance--implying a strong emotion, often of contempt, and generally applied to persons, as the ludicrous is to circ.u.mstances; the _grotesque_ referring to strangeness in form, such as is seen in fantastic _grottoes_, or in the quaint figures of sylvan deities which the Ancients placed in them, and the _absurd_, properly referring to acts of people who are defective in faculties.

The ludicrous is often used in philosophical works to signify a feeling, and our second cla.s.s will contain words which may refer either to something external or to the mind, such as _droll_, (from the German) _comical_, _amusing_, and _funny_. To say "I do not see any fun in it,"

is different from saying "I do not see any fun in him," and a man may be called funny, either in laudation or disparagement.

In the third cla.s.s we place such words as refer to the mind alone as the source of amus.e.m.e.nt, and under this head we may place Humour as a general and generic term. Raillery and sarcasm (from a Greek word "to tear flesh") refer especially to the expression of the feeling in language, and irony from its covert nature generally requires a.s.sistance from the voice and manner. Some words refer especially to literature, and never to any attacks made on present company. Of these, satire aims at making a man odious or ridiculous; lampoon, contemptible. Satire is the rapier; lampoon the broadsword, or even the cudgel--the former points to the heart and wounds sharply, the latter deals a dull and blundering blow, often falling wide of the mark. In general a different man selects a different weapon; the educated and refined preferring satire; the rude and more vulgar, lampoon--one adopting what is keen and precise, the other seeking rough and irrelevant accessories. But clever men, to gain others over to them by amus.e.m.e.nt, have sometimes taken the clumsier means, and while placing their victim nearer the level of the brutes than of humanity, have not struck so straight; for the improbability they have introduced has in it so much that is fantastic that their attack seems mostly playful, if not bordering on the ludicrous.

Lampoon was the earliest kind of humorous invective; we have an instance of it in Homer's Thersites. Buffoonery differs from lampoon in being carried on in acting, instead of words. The latter is rather based upon some moral delinquency or imperfection; the former aims merely at amus.e.m.e.nt, and resembles burlesque in being generally optical, and containing little malice. Both come under the category of broad humour, which is excessive in accessory emotion, and in most cases deficient in complication. Caricature resembles them both in being often concerned with deformity. It appeals to the senses rather than to the emotions.

The complication in it is never very good when it is confined to pictorial representation, as we may observe that without some explanation we should seldom know what a design was intended to portray; and when the word means description in writing it still retains some of its original reference to sight, and is concerned princ.i.p.ally with form and optical similitudes.

Although Wit and Humour are often used as synonymous, the fact of two words being in use, and the attempts which have been made to discriminate between them, prove that there must be a distinction in signification.[25] It is so fine that many able writers have failed to detect it. Lord Macaulay considered wit to refer to contrasts sought for, humour to those before our eyes--but such an explanation is not altogether satisfactory. Humour originally meant moisture, or any limpid subtle fluid, and so came to signify the disposition or turn of the mind--just as spirit, originally breath or wind, came to signify the soul of man. In Ben Jonson's time it had this signification, as in one of his plays ent.i.tled "Every Man in his Humour." Dispositions being very different, it came to signify fancy--as where Burton, author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," is called humorous--and also the whimsical Sir W. Thornhill in the "Vicar of Wakefield"--and finally meant the feeling which appreciates the ludicrous, though we sometimes use the old sense in speaking of a good-humoured man.