Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-24

0IOUBuI AUO0ss
From the London cioSs.
RIGHTEOUSNESS Il the CHASTITY simulacrum
Of real humor. The word Il one Of those
whh:h have degenerated In signiflcanee with
the lapse Of time. ..Facetfous.'' in its earfi-
est use. meant polished. urhane; then II
came to be used AZ a synonym for jocular
or wagEish or witty in pleasant and
laudatory SENSE; but gradually the wit dis
appeared and "facetiousness" came to de-
note q wagxishness which was often un-
pleasant and In any case form OF iocos-
ity rather to be deplored than admired
Burke. writing OF King William I. said that.
relaxing with q wise Righteousness. he
knew how to relieve his mind and preserve
his dignity No modern writer would care
to speak OF a wise RIGHTEOUSNESS on the
part OF king. or commoner.
Dickens abounds with graphic pictures of
facetious folk Sir Mulberry Hawk, we
are told, 'ieered upon his friends most
facetfously. Mrs. Camp was much given
to righteousness. which, in her case as in
many others, was largely dependent for its
effects upon mods and winks and innuendo.
1t was In this sense that Tom Brown, .the
writer who died just two centuries ago,
deserved the title of "Facetious'' bestowed
upon him by Addison. And IT is in this
sense also that booksellers catalogue UNI
der the head of "Facet.ae' those works
which collectors often know as top shelf
of chance visitors to the sheves-in which
the so-called humor Is often merely a m SIX
for something worse.
The modern facetious person is usually a
dull dog. His notions of humor are apt
to be like those of the immortal Peter
Magnus, who was not fond of anything
original, did not like it, didn't see the me-
cessity for it, and, moreover. was able to
afford his friends great amusement by ia
cetiously signing himself In ..hasty notes to
intimate acquaintance" as Afternoon" his
initials being p. M.-post meridian. The ia
cetious person Is often a great punster.
Far be 1t from us to depreciate the pun.
The superfine person may quote with an
air of superiority the foolish saying that
HE who will make a pun will not scruple
to pick a pocket which Is usually, and
very foolishly, attributed to DR.. Johnson.
The doctor never said anything SO absurd;
but the saying, In all probability, would
have been forgotten long ago but for the
unlueky error which has linked ii with his
''clarum ct venerable nomen." The real
author of the phrase was John Dennis a
critic of two centuries ago. who is duly
piIoried in the "Dunciad." But this is by
the way. The superior person, We say, may
quote this absurd dictum; but every one
with decent sense of humor knows that
the pun has its place in the armory of wit,
though it Is weapon to be used with dis
erection and with a nice sense of fitness.
On the other hand, the, facetious punster.
whose whole stock in trade as humorist
bles, is a social nuisance.
Some one who might have been better
employed. has made careful search
through Shakespeare's plays, ande has
brought out a surprising total of some
thing over a thousand verbal pleasantries-
many of them, as every reader knows, de-
pressing enough. But these quips, which
were intended to tickle the ears Of the Eliza
bethan groundlings, whose appetites for
such Gates would seem to have been In
satiable, are among the disfigurements, and
not the beauties, of the dramatists text.
Yet the modern exponent of Righteousness
seems too often to regard these excrescences
on the Shakespearian humor as humorous
in themselves, and makes them the model
of his wit" How he loves to make a
poor word run the gantlet till it Is ready to
It. through all the possible ambages OF
similar sounds, = . squeezing and haul
ing and Juggling at 1t till the very milk of
# will not yield drop further"
The best way to treat the man who puns
In or out of season is to follow the example
Of Lord Brampton with the country squire,
as duly recorded in the "Reminiscences of
Sir Henry Hawkins" The squire was an
incessant punster, and named his horses
on facetious principles He introduced his
companion, the judge, to three of his ami
mails in succession-"Saltfsh,'' so called be-
cause she was such capital mare for "a
fast day. Naples" because she was such
a beautiful bay, and Morning Star" be-
cause she was a roarer! Sir Henry MAIN
tained a blank impassivity of countenance,
and pretended in each case, for reasons of
his own. not to see the joke. and success
fully Infatuated his facetious host, who
thought his guest an utter fool. The same
method of blank unintelligence may be used
with good effect against punsters and face
tious persons in general. Another painful
form of Righteousness which Is now, hap
ply pretty well out of date. is the So
called practical joke. 1t was form of
foolery regarded with considerable favor
long ago. but it has had its day True hui
NOR Is never ill-natured; but it would be
difficult to find any form of the practical
joke which is entirely free from Ill nature
Perhaps the most depressing experience of
all with regard to things facetious is to be
found in professed jestbooks. Such vol
umes have abounded throughout the ages,
and how drearly those of bygone day
read at the present tfnel The Joe Millers
of each succeeding period have copied
freely from one another. The number of
original stories to be found in such COM
pilations is small, though they are tricked
out in many DISCUSSES: and, although the
student and the folk lorist may find a SCI
entifc interest in tracing the migrations of
popular tales and hoary jests. yet anyone
who turns to such collections for their ia
seriousness will find them very fiat reading.
The ancestry of popular facetious tales
and jests, and their migrattons from one
land and one language to another, are in
deed well worth tracing. Something has
already been done In this direction; but
there is plenty of room for fresh investiga-
tors. They will possibly be surprised to
find that many jests and tales which have
a very modern sound are as old as the
hills, and, again, that large number which
seem to be racy Of our English soil are i'm
migrants from distant lands, not few
having reached us by diverse and round
about routes from the far east.
Reasoning Power Of Animals.