Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-11-13
A SENSE or HuMoR.


A SENSE OF HuMoR.
A GIN which MAY, Be Posssssed. but Can
| Not BE Acquired.
/. What dull reading are tho works Of
IAN author who can not comprehend d
joke, There rewriters like Sir Thomas
Brown, whose witty fancy enlivens the
driest subjects, and there. are others
who sshold 9 pen of lead" Id treating
of the most interesting matters. The
elder historians mostly possessed e.
keen sense of humor; the pages of
Froissart and De Confines are most
amusing reading. How drily does the
| latter remark upon the, peculiarity in
| the wars Of England which recent
events seem to show is unfortunately
| not obsolete in these days. The En-
glish are the bravest nation in the
world in the field, but in matters of
policy their. enemies easily outwit
them, and what they gain in battle
they lose at the council thus
was King Ed dubbed and outWitted.
How quaint, too, is his description OF
the solitary Parliament Louis XI. sum
moned during his reign, when he called
it together to please the people, but
took care only to suumon such per-
sons as would not oppose his designs.
| What a contrast is presented by the
pages of Burnet. who might almost
| stand as the type of man devoid of the
| power of appreciating the humorous
| side of anything. Those readers of the
good bishops ponderous history who
possess an edition with Swift's ssnotes"
added, may, however, find much
amusement in their perusal of the
work The wicked wit of the tory
Dean plays around the prosy text of the
| wing writer, and is as cruel as Mr..
| Burchell's muttered Fudge" in de-
stroying the effect of the solemn narra-
ton. When. for example, in his pre-
face, Burnet INDUCES in long perora-
ton about the sacred duty of an
historian to tell the truth, and in an
excess of conscientiousness, bids his
reader take even his own carefully pre-
pared history with ''a grain of allow
ancer Swift notes: 81 will take his
warning" Again, when Burnet, is
describing the extreme length of
the services of the Scotch
church: 81 remember on this Fast
LAY ScIAOuS WEIC CdLuCu
/ without intermission. was there my
self, and was little weary of SO tedious
a service" Swift has the cruelty to
add, s.Burnet, at this time, was eight
wears old?" But still more like Mr..
Burchell is the curt s'Sad trash"
Ozark Nonsense which Swift appends
to some of the most solemn moraliz-
ings of the historian. Yet witty
as was the great dean himself, his sense
of the humorous was of different de-
scription to the genial humor of Chaucer
or Shakespeare. They laughed at the
absurdities of their fellows; but their
laughter was of the kindly, good
natured description, in which even its
object himself might have joined. The
bitter satirical wit of Pope and Smith
is of a widely different character from
the genial mirth which diverts without
swounding ia It is the browning quality
of many of our greatest .humorists that
they are humorous without being
malicious; that their wit is thoroughly
free from Immature; that they acknowl
edge all the good in humanity while
laughing at its little weaknesses. That
some Of their works are tinged with
the coarseness of their age it is inn
possible to deny; it was the fashion of
their era to be more outspoken than in
these days; and yet, considering some
of our modern literature, it is dificult'
to see that the older writer's are worse
offenders than many of our modern
brethren, who have not the same genius
to redeem their pages.
The sense of humor is a gift which
can not be acquired; it must be innate.
There still exist persons who will feeb-
" ask to have some good joke sex
planned to them These unfortunates
are blind in mental sense, and can
only be resigned to their infirmity. The
sense of humor is lacking in them, as
the ear for music or the eye to appre7&
ciate picture is lacking in others. TOT
try to cultivnte this missing power is as
hopeless as were the efforts OF the Ger
man Baron (mentioned by Wahab,, or
one of his correspondents) to cultivate
sprightliness. This wealthy Teuton,
being refused by an English lady on the.
ground that hewas ssnot lively enough .nx
annoyed his neighbors in the rooms BEG
low by spending hours leaping solemn.
the reason for this strange conduct, he
gravely replied, ..J'apprends d'etre
vif'' (s'I am learning to be lively''1. It.
is a pitiable sight to behold a person
actually devoid of a sense of humor
cropping dimly after the point of joke.
It is the old story of the Scotch judge
who, hearing joke one day in court,
sssimmered' the subject in his mind till
the morrow, when the point of the joke,
suddenly broke upon him, and he cried:
81 haze We noo.' Some persons never
attain to even this tardy enlightenment,
and will freeze good story-tellers by
solemnly asking: s'Was that a joker
Equally devoid of true sense of hui
NOR are the persons who perpetrate
foolish hoaxes and utter poor jokes.
Practical jokes, so fashionable some
generations back, are the most idiotic
of all iests. What wit is there in being
greater falsehood teller than your
neighbors suspect you to be?-Lo'adon.
Globe.
Robert Bonner, writing OF the
groom who takes care of Maud 5. says:
aHe sleeps on a cot in her stall, and
one night recently, when the weather
was warm, but threatened to turn cold
he purposely went to bed with very lit
tie clothing on himself knowing that it
|; it turned cold during the night he
l. ha 1n11ld mt od