The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1907-09-13
HUMOUR VERSUS HUMOR.

| II must be vastly encouraging TO
the Chicago professor" to know that
his sapient remarks deploring the
absence of real humor in America
have reached England and have been
| favorably received He will be fur
Their gratified as he reads that he is
wholly upheld in his contention and
that Great Britain laments with him
that we have no man ''bubbling over
with fun like Matthew Arnold, even
Ito the extent of flippancy," or An
drew Lang, who is "a contemporary
case in point" The blow is driven
| home when We are told that there
never has been an American Matthew
| Arnold, and there is not now an AM
erican Andrew Lang.
Happily. Americans are not sensi-
| tive in a discussion of the vital quail
| titles of humor. If they We're they
would only the more substantiate the
| gloomy charges preferred by the pro-
fessor and his British assistants. 1t
may be true that as a nation We are
| lacking in the rollicking comicalities
of Matthew Arnold Just as we may
| be deficient in the eXuberant play
| fulness of an Andrew Lang. By the
same token We are not always keenly
alert to the humorous outbursts of
| London Punch, and have been known
at times to pass over a standard Eng
| fish joke without eXuberant manifest
alton of eXtravagant mirth. That our
| intellectual degeneracy dates from
/ the time we dropped the u from
.'humour" may or may not be a
| fact established.
Without calling the roll of the So
ciety of American humorists it is
asking too much to admit that after
/ all consideration of their mirth pro-
voking qualities they are merely ig-
norant buffoons like Bill Nye and
| Josh Billings. The distinguished doc
tor of letters. returned from oxford
and various banquet boards of merry
England, would be panied to hear
himself so soon described as ignorant
of a buffoon. And there are others
who, while gracefully yielding the
palm for flippant merriment to the
Matthew Arnolds and Andrew Langs,
are disposed to take breath between
| bursts of appreciatiye laughter and
protest against so sweeping and
crushing an assertion. Even the Chi
cago professor, with his proper scorn
for our lack of humor with culture
does not condemn us to ignorant buff
foonery from Washington Irving
down to the school of Howells and
/ Repplier essayists.
The indications are that the Eng
| lish worm has made up his mind to
| turn. For many years the English
| joke has been the subject of much
| ironical attention and the English
| pursuit of a joke has been regarded
the best example of lively chase 1t
is natural, therefore, that encoura ged
by friendly tribute from the repre-
sentative of friendly nation, the
joke should turn upon the jokers and
rend them. 1t was the opportunity
of lifetime, and it was seized with
most commendable promptness and
enthusiasm 1t is possible that, hav-
ing profited by the occasion, the
worm will willingly return to it's pre-
vious condition of unassertive Ar
mold f1ippancy and leave its torment
ors to the buffoonery of their own
ignorance. Thus everybody, save an
occasional professor and here and
there an editor of Punch, will re-
lapse into contentment and the world
will jog on as usual.