The Logan County banner. [volume] (Logan, W. Va.) 1889-1903, 1890-09-18
THE SENSE or HuMoa.


l6h SENSc VT n0M0Hs
Americans and irish Enjoy II More Fully
Than Other Nationalities.
A man died the other day Of whom 1t
Was told. in all his obituary notices,
that in his physical equipment there
WAS this curious defect, that he could
not hear the soupd of s, or of the shrill
notes. He would be walking in the
street With policeman at night some
times, and would see the officer go
through the motions OF blowing whis-
tie. The whole neighborhood might
echo with the shrill noise, but not
sound would reach him. That was bad,
but it was mere bagatelle com pared
with another thing that was the matter
with him. The poor gentleman had the
intellectual defect of being unable to
see joke, even when it took form in
the newspaper of which he was the edo
itor. One day one OF his reporters, in
describing an egg Of extra size, men.
TONED that it had all been laid by one
hen. He sent for that reporter next
day and asked him If he really supposed
that two hens could lay a single egg be-
tween them.
That two liabilities so curiously anal
ogous should co-exist in the same per-
son furnishes an almost irresistible OPP
portunity for the construction Of didact C
parallels. It is worth noting that the
unfortunate gentleman was at great
pains to remedy his physical defect and
to obviate it's consequences, but his Inc
tellectual.or would you call it spiritual
-infirmity he seems not to have at
tempted to cure. 1t shows how green
our civilization st Il is, and how
much the world has to learn,
that no treatment has been devised to
remedy defective sense of humor The
deaf are taught to hear with their eyes,
the dumb are taught to speak with their
fingers and to talk actually with their
vocal organs. II the blind have the
least glimmer of light left to them the
very utmost is made of it, but the man
who can not see joke gets no help at
all, and is exceptionally lucky If he
even meetswith sympathy. Let us hope
it will not be SO much longer; but that
by hypnoti SIN, or Christian science, or
some unexpected application of cleo
| and quickened. Love is the great
sweetener that makes living tolerable,
and dying good deal more comfortable
than most people think; but after love
is there any other corrective Of exist
ence that is fit to compare with humor?
| 1t greases the wheels SOL 1t makes SO
many burdens endurable that must have
been crushing withoutit!
| And If the lack of it is detrimental to
any one, it is so above all others to an
American. 1t will not be seriously dis
puted that Americans have the sense of
humor more generally developed than
any other people (unless tits the Irish);
but of all people they need it most, for
| the wear and tear OF American life is
prodigious. and the best friends of the
American climate do not vaunt it as
conservator of energy. Irish humor
owes its development, perhaps, to a
protracted scarcity of . the means
of material enjoyment Where people
can not find pleasure in what they pos
sess, or what they consume, it behooves
| them to have what fun they may with
what they think and say. And that the
Irish do; as witness Mr.. Frederic's re-
port of a remark of Baron Dowse, who
died last month thatit is better to have
small career in Ireland than great
one in England, because in ireland
when one said funny things people COM
pretended them, and that made life
worth living.
OF course, when humor. overfiows its
| limits, and from being an aid to serious
existence becomes its end, it loses it's
SAVIOR and ceases to be of use. 1t is no
longer humor then, but something
coarser and material. 1t is not tho
grease on the wheels any more. but the
load on3the wagon. tits with humor as
it is with piety-it is liable to degener-
ate into self worship, and then it is all
up with it. very great is the differ
ence," severely says Noah Porter.
whether we see through the disguise,
the look of which the frivolous Bohemi-
an can never rid himself, or the broad.
swimming eyes of love with which Hood
always looked through all his fun, or
the sad earnestness into which Lamb
relaxed as soon as he had stammered
out his joke or his pun" Very great
| the difference, truly. The Publican may
have brought his sense of humor with
him when he came out Of the temple,
but the Pharisee didn't His was lost;
humor is inconsistent with his frame OF
mind. -Scribner's Magazine.