The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-14
PSYCHOLOGY OF LAUGHTER
AN INTERESTING EXAMINATION
 OF IKE
Influence of Comedy, Farce and Joke
 in General.


 Emotions notes that during the siege
 of Paris the German soldiers, after ar
 alarm or near shave" were given tc
 loud bursts of laughter over the most
 paltry jokes. The same physical condi-
 tions, no doubt, explain the laughter
 in court" over trivialties which the
 dull enough. In that aspect, says Bain,
 the comic is the reaction from the se-
 rous. That Is why the idea of the dig
 nitary is an undignified posture is at
 the bottom of nearly every farce.
 Further, as the essence of laughter,
 physiologically considered, is the sud-
 den liberation of nervous energy, we
 see why surprise must be one of its
 clements, and why we do not laugh at
 stale jokes. The recollection of "Tar-
 tarin de Tarascon" is nearly fatal to
 "Tartarin sur les Apes" and the trade
 on the nose in "Cyrano de Bergerac"
 to the speech with the refrain pas pris-
 onnier mais' in "L'Aiglon." So MT.
 Gilbert's topsyturvydom Ca naval cap
 tain obsequious to his crew kings
 backing their own boots; dukes two penny") or Oscar Wilde's inverted com monplaces ('the old fashioned respect for the young is gradually dying out'D, so soon as to trick ceases to cause sur prise, cease to amuse.
 It is the sudden surprise created by the linking of dissimilar ideas under similarity of sound which causes laugh ter over puns or even simple assonances Cfor example Voltaire's farewell to Hol- land-"adieu canauX canards, ,cana1lle ). To the element of surprise must be added the element of social imitation or "vogue" There is fashion in fun, as we all know. Puns 0ike practical jokes) are now hopelessly out of date archaeological curosites of the early and middle Victorian period, They quilted the stage with J. l.. Toole. If they finger in Punch it is merely out Of de- ference to historical tradition. They are like the little slips of paper inscribed with facetiae which Chinese gentlemen are said to exchange solemnly In the in- tervals of a conversation designed not to provoke laughter, but to comply with long established etiduet.
 Laughter implies both sympathy and antipathy. We laugh with some people and at others. But there is a middle term--1aughing over the other people, as, for example over Uncle Toby, or Mr. Pickwick, or M. Bergeret. In other words, there is the laughter of satire or irony, and the laughter of the purely ] comic spirit. Mr. Meredith draws the | distinction: ..,.-.
 You may estimate your capacity for | comic perception by being able to detect | the ridicule of them you love without | loving them less If you detect the . ridicule and your kindliness is chilled 1. by it, you are slipping into the grasp of . Satire If instead of falling foul of the ridiculous person with a satirio rod, to [ make him writhe and shriek aloud, you perfer to sting him under a sem-caress . by which he shall in bis anguish be rem dered dubious whether indeed anything . has hurt him, you are an engine of . Irony.
 Moliere Is MT. Meredith's great exem- pler of the comic spirit But Stendhal preferred Regnard; and there is some thing to be said for his heresy, when one considers the invariable bitterness of Molere's laughter Molere must al- ways have butt. Shakespeare seldom makes a downright butt of his rdicu- Ious character The Fa'staff of 'The Merry Wives" is the one notorious ex- ception. Falstaff at his best generally to get the laughter on his side; Polonious, and even Malvolio. are treated, in the long run, with soma com junction.
 It the element of surprise in laugh Ter that prompts the natural man to ind the ludicrous in everything strange The yoke laughs al Frenchman be- ; ,ause he is such fool as to say nous" l Or i've" Herein laughter must have , lcted as binding force in early so- 'ieties, contributing to what Walter 1 3agehot called the "cake of custom" { The advance of civilization might be ( measured by the improvement in the luality of it's laughter Primitive t aughter goes with absence of sympathy , md imagination. Children laugh at the l -illage idiot. Tant' Sannie, the Boer i in "The Story of an African ( 7arrn," when boy was to be thrashed, r felt half sorry for the lad: but she f ould not help laughing, it was always o funny when any one was going to c ave whipping" In passages of the pathetic on the stage, while 6 madam in the stalls takes out her pock- i; t handkerchief, Sally in the pit bursts F nto a loud guffaw. I, If sheer ugliness revolts the modern :, ,orld, it merely amused the Greeks; nd Aristotle classified the ridiculous |, S a species of turpitude. Even Cicero ., bought that bodily infirmities were satis bella materies ad jorandum." l' he Eizabethans laughed at the mad ess of Hamlet and the contortions of v 'aliban It is significant that ShyloclS T 'as considered comic character until he middle of the 18th century, when sensibility' became fashionable. To $ Ioliere's public Tartuffe and Alceste u nd George Dandin were comic charac- W ers Who laughs nowadays at the |, owns mockery of the imprisoned Nal ' olio? modern audience is discon- ,rted by Charles Surfaces laughter in Y, le screen scene" The boisterous | of the ''Noctes Ambrosianae" II ow grates on our nerves. As for the VI iolly' Victorian fun-Mr Wrinkle with u