The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1888-03-01

as hearty, and the irish as rolIicking.
There is much that is indicative Of char
acter in the laugh Of some people, while
in others Of strong personality the laugh
is the weakest and most characterless
thing about them. 1t is said of Nelson
that his laugh was often without spirit.
Napoleon laughed little, and not always
at things in which men of his command
ing dignity might be expected to find any
thing funny. When Washington cared to
break through his natural reserve he
could laugh as long and as loud as any
one, but his biographers record but few
instances of the display of regularity on
the part of the father of his country. A
laughing president does not cut a very
dignifed figure before one who Is i'm
pressed with the belief that sedateness is
a necessary attribute of a governments
chief executive, yet Lincoln made bold to
laugh wherever he chose, always welcom-
ing good story teller, and relating with
much good feeling droll tales of his own
life. Webster could tell good story,
often at his own expense, and join heartily
with his hearers in the laugh at the end.
He had true laugh There are those
men, as Carlyle has tritely remarked,
whose laugh Is as untrue as anything
about them.
In the Bible the words laugh"
daughter" and s1aughing'' occur only
thirteen times, which, while in keeping
with the gravity Of the text, is considered
by some commentators as rather singular.
Milton makes little use of the word in
his works. Shakespeare employs it fire.
quently and often systematically Ten
nyson's men and women laugh infre-
quently, although they sometimes smile.
Dickens made great deal of the laugh,
and often managed thereby to give the
reader a clew to the character of his men
and women.
Like the careful student of human ma
ture that she was, George Eliot made note
of the thousand and one ways in which
character discloses itself through the
medium Of the laugh.
In this merry age good laugh Is proba-
bly, enjoyed as much as it ever was in the
worlds history. But what would make
man laugh ten or twenty years ago cannot
be relied upon to do so now. Practical
jokes, for instance, are no longer popular,
and witticisms of the studied order, even
in comic opera or burlesque, often fail of
appreciation. And there is the difference
in national taste A joke that sets an Eng
lshman or German roaring is nine
times out of ten voted tame, If not stupid,
by the American. Our modern wits rely
less upon cap and bells than upon keen
satire and quick repartee. The laugh
thus created is always spontaneous, and
whether in senate chamber or court of
justice, it is irrepressible.
Men betray or commit themselves BY
their laughter as often as by anything
81 knew had only to wait until he
laughed to tell if he were lying" said q
great English philosopher of man whom
he had suspected of classifying in an i'm
portant matter. The knave's laugh is
said to be cunning, the FOOLS shallow, the
drunkard's coarse, the lunatic's wild and
meaningless. If man would not disclose
his character let him not laugh. He may
simulate good nature and even friendship
by smiling, but he should beawars Of
audibly expressing his real or pretended
mlrth, for there are those-and they are
not necessarily deep students of human
nature-who know that the true laugh
comes only from the true man.-San
Francisco Chronicle.