History of English Humour Volume II Part 31

[19] It may be observed that as men's perceptions of humour are different, so in the expression of them there is a character about laughter in accordance with its subject, and with the person from whom it comes.

[20] This term seems the nearest, though not quite accurate.

[21] Ruskin observes that the smile on the lips of the Apollo Belvedere is inconsistent with divinity.

[22] The false generalisations of childhood are well represented by d.i.c.kens when, in "Great Expectations," he makes Pip discover a singular affinity between seeds and corduroys. "Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did his shopman, and somehow there was a general air and flavour about the corduroys so much in the nature of seeds, and such a general air and flavour about the seeds in the nature of corduroys that I hardly knew which was which."

[23] Critias was one of the thirty tyrants who condemned him.

[24] That the present style of men's dress is unbecoming strikes us forcibly when we see it reproduced in statues, where we are not used to it.

[25] Cicero uses two corresponding words cavillatio and dicacitas, the former signifying continuous, the latter aphoristic humour.

END.