The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-02-21
Eli Perkins in Paw Paw.


Eli Perkins lectured last Monday night Ia
a large audience at Longwells Opera house
The subject was the PHILOSOPHY of Fun
The first part of his lecture was semi-serious
disquisition on wit and humor, and what
produces laughter. The speaker commenced
by saying There are two kinds of wit and
humor-sensual and intellectual. Sensual
wit and humor, as they are sensed through
sensual organs, or organs of sense, can be
enjoyed by all alike, while intellectual wit
and humor, as it has to go to the brain and
be reflected upon, can only be enjoyed by
intellectual people. One you see with the
eye as when you look at the clown in the
circus, with the white stars on one side and
the red stripes on the other. The other
intellectual wit, say has to go to the brain
and be reflected upon before there can be
laughter, as in the case of paradox. To il.
lustrate the paradox you all remember the
two men who were talking about the sun and
moon, when one maintained that the moon
was of more account than the sun.
"How is that" asked the friend.
"Why, the moon shines at night, when it is
dark, while the sun shines in the daytime
when it is light enough without it. Laughter.
Then you remember the case of the man
who was trying to pull on his boots. He
pulled away until he broke off one of the
straps, when his friend said:
"Why, Charley, you'll never be able to get
those boots on-till you have worn 'em a
SPELL"
"And you see," continued the speaker, as
a ripple of laughter went through the audi.
ence, 'that the longer we think of il the
funnier it GETS" Another, and perhaps the
best paradox in the English language, was
that splendid paradox of Artemus Ward,
when he turned around to his friend and
said:
"I'm bound to live within my means, if
have to borrow money to do it." Laughter.
Now, there is no laughter in that paradox
for fool, neither for wise man until his
brain has acted. You can give such para :
do1es to a fool all day long, and he'll look
you straight in the face and won't smile
once; and if you've got any fools in your
family-and every family has a fool or two
Il laughter drowning the sentence.
VIM. N. Evarts once stumbled into q
splendid paradox. He was making dinner
speech in Omaha, and was complimentinP
the west in one of those glowing periods of
his:
81 like the west" he continued. ~ like
her self-made men, and the more / travel
west, the more / meet with her public men
the more / am satisfied with the truthfulness
of the Bible statement that 'the wise men
come from the east" Loud laughter.
The end of Mark Twain's duel story If
another remarkable paradox. 1 mean when
he tried to tell the audience how opposed he
was to fighting duel. Il am SO opposed
to fighting a duel" he said, so solemnly
and religiously opposed to fighting duel
that I've made up my mind solemnly and
earnestly if anybody ever comes to me and
challenges me to fight duel, Ill take hin
out behind the house and kill him.
WHAT Is WITT
Now let us ask the question, what causes
laughter? The rhetoriciaus all agree thai
laughter is caused by wit; then they 90 on &c
say that "wit is a short-lived SURPRISE They
all agree TO this definition-Lord Kames
Blair, Whately and Wayland. But they are
all wrong. Laughter is always caused by
some deformity in art or nature. If laugh
ter were caused by some short lived surprise
and that alone, then those passengers who
pitched over Ashtabula bridge must have
screamed with laughter! Laughter. Yor
are surprised when you fall down stairs, but
you do not laugh. When you say the sur
prise causes the laughter you only half state
the cause. The question is what causes the
surprise! When man is killed by whisky
when he dies of delirunl tremens-you
may as well say that want of breath killed
him as to say surprise causes the laughter
Something must always cause the surprise.
No, my friends, the cause OF all laughter
is some defornity, but that deformity is
something which you neither love nor hate
Co.. a.rr
Laughter, | say, is caused by deformec
grammar, deformed rhetoric, deformed logic
deformed oratory, deformed music and
thousand other deformties that l might
mention.
Surprising you are walking along and q
serpent darts out in front OF you? 1t is q
short lived surprise-.but it don't produce
laughter, does it? But if you are walking
along and see double-headed rooster run.
ming both ways TO get away from itself
Laughter, you'd all burst out laughing.
Deformed grammar is a very fertile source
of fun. To illustrate, / heard little cir
learning 10 read the other day, and / called
her to me and said: "Didn't you have q
hard time learning to read?" "Yes,' ste
said, "but bimeby rode" Laughter
Another instance of deformed grammar
| occurred at the Dyckman House this even
ing. overheard couple of chambermaids
talking about banging their hair. One ask.
ed the other if she banged her hair and she
replied:
Yes bang my hair, l keep banging my
hair, but II won't stay bung. Laughter.
You remember the little girl who did moi
want her sister to skin potato for her
"You need not skin potato for me, Jenny,
che said. 81 have one already skun." Laugh
ter.
The speaker gave many illustrations OF