The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-09-21

Don't he Funny.
Fun is like murder, in that there are
two kinds of people who ought not to
be punished for committing it-those
who cannot help it, and who do not
know they are guilty of it. But any
individual who with malice aforc-
thought and no provocation goes to
work to be funny ought to be put out
Of the community. Some men are so
charged with wit they can no more him
der its flash than summer cloud bris-
Ting with electricity can smother up
the lightning. Such men are public
blessings, for pure wit clears up muggy
vapors and sweetens the social air
Again there are humorous people, full
of oddcst conceits, all their own, who
make dull outlooks sunshiny. They
may not be heroic characters, or even
selt-sacrificing; but martyrs are not
grilled on gridirons every day, nor
countries saved at regular intervals; so
the hero market is never exhausted,
while the demand is constant for these
gay peaccmahers. Their value never
fluctuatcs. We have heard of home
possessing one-a house wherein the
cook gets periodically, as the humble
preacher put it, ''fcarfully and wonder
fully mad She strides up stairs to
give warning putting, blowing,
spirting out wrath like an over-hot tea
kettle. The good man, who can't help
being funny, sits in judgment on her
case. The result is always the same.
Bridget steals sheepishly out; at inter-
walls through the day she filings her
apron over her head and relapses into
wild levity. Ask, "What ails you Bid
dyF' and the answer is also always the
same: 90, but the masther passes such
comics on me-" The baby cries after
him, as the true soothing syrup, and the
children get joked out of awkwardness,
meanness, and juvenile frailties. The
little mother, tired and just ready to
scold, turns sharp corner into some
closet and laughs historically at his
timely jest. Woman-like, if he can
make her do it, he shall not see his tri-
umph. To know the warmth, the ge-
nial, loving atmosphere such a man diff
fuses, read the memories of Sidney
Smith, and thank heaven for the people
who can't help being funny.
Then there is this other class, who
are funny but don't know it. One
melting summer day fat old bear in
Central Park felt herself overcom with
heat. She went to her water trough
and sat down in it, leaned away back
with both paws tapping the air like
limp hands. With eyes half shut and
mouth open, she put on SO precisely the
airs of some lackadaisical old lady that
every bystander roared with laughter:
but she TRANQUILITY blinked and had no
thought of the fun she was making
And so the world is full of human oddi-
ties, as all-unconscious of their mirth-
provoking qualities. Only rude or bru-
tai persons laugh at such to their hurt :;
while only the dullest fail to be amused
In world where, as Sammy Weller
says. "Therc is nothin' that aint," we
need among the many who grieve us,
hurt us, do us all manner of evil-we
need some who only amusc us. This is
the reason we find children entertain
ing; they are funny in proportion as
they do not know they are.
But to the real subjects of our scruti-
ny; the people whose fancies are Gas
dry as the remainder biscuit after a
voyage" but who cherish the idea that
witticisms are as easy to make as good
resolutions, if one just goes systemati-
cally TO work. 1t would be a rcvolu-
ton to them to realize that one joke diff
ters from another, as fiy-specked lem
on-drop out of an antique grocery diff
fcrs from strawberry crisp with dew.
Let man be lacking in almost any
other mental endowment and if he does
not openly acknowledge it. hc is partc-
ularly careful TO avoid any strain in the
direction of that missing link. What
man ignorant of time, rythm. notes,
and the whole theory of music ever Of
fers to lead a choir or to perform a solo
in public? Where is there one without
Il mathematical mind who longs to cal
culatc eclipses? But the world is over
run with people who are forever trying
to be funny, although they have not wit
enough to salt them.
| Ii is the clown, not the wit, who for
ever grns and giggles-only the fool
who never appears without his cap and
bells. Eyes keen to catch and first to
sparkle over some comic touch in life
are rs quick to dim at Il sorrow, the
hint of which escapes the next man,
and so the true wit may get from you a
tear instead of n laugh. England's 5
great satirist wrote, 81 begin to find
the world growing more pathetic daily,
and | laugh less every year of my life
Why laugh at idle hopes, vain purposes,
or even utter blundering sef-confi-
dence? Let us be gcntlc"-not funny,
O friend.
If the good God gave you the gift OF
wit, use ii well; if you are without it,
take heed to old Thomas A. Kempis
"Whal thou art, that thou art, and thou
canst not make thvself other" "-1Chris-
tian Weekly.