Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1909-03-25
THE MAN WH0LAUGHS
BY the Way He Does It He Gives
an Index to His Character.
THE POTENCY OF LAUGHTER.
Shown by the Effective Way In Which
Cervantes Smiled Spain's Vain and
Foolish chivaIry Away-Men Who
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.

Cervantes Smiled Spains Vain and
Foolish chivaIry Away-Men Who
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.
What an index to character is mans
laugh. What surer clew can We have
to both his intellect and his temper I'M
less 1t be that he seldom or never
laughs? Nothing" says Goethe. rs
more significant Of mems character
than what they find laughable." you
know no man." says Tieck. It'll you
have heard him laugh-till you know
when and how he will laugh" THE
perception Of the ludicrous." says EN-
crson, lis a pledge Of sanity. rogue
alive to the ludicrous Is still converti'
BILE. II that sense is lost his fellow
men can do little for him."
Lavater. the great physiognomtst,
lays his great stress on the very un-
eouivocal and derisive nature OF
laugh us an index Of character. II 1t
be free and hearty and occasion q gen.
eral and light movement In all the
features and dimple the cheek and
chin, It is an almost infallible evil
dence of the absence Of any great ma
terial wick ednesS of disposition. Cae-
sar mistrusted Cassius because that
lean and hungry consrirator rarely. II
ever, INDUCED in laughter. When Hor-
ace WalpOle was in Paris IN 1165 he
found that laughing was out OF fash
ion in that gay capital. Good folks"
he writes, "they have no time to laugh.
There are God and the king to be
pulled down first, and men and wOm-
ell, one and all. are devOutly employed
in the demolition"
How often man fails to betray the
tiger that turks within him until he
laughs. Is there nothing significant
in the fact recorded by Plutarch Of
Cato the younger that nothing could
make him laugh, that his countenance
was scarcely softened even by a
smile? Is 1t not a characteristic trait
of the gloomy tyrant, Philip II. Of
Spain, that he rarely smiled and that
he laughed but once in his entire life.
ard that when he heard of the massa-
ere on St. Pnrtholomew's day? Is 1t
not a suggestive fact regarding the
gloomy. taciturn Wallenstein, the ter
ror of the people, at the sight of whom
as he paced through his camp with his
lofty figure enveloped in scarlet
mantle ana with red feather in his
cap strange horror took possession
of the soldiers, that he was never
TO la
the poor little dwarf, Alexander Pope,
the cynical satirist. afflicted with asth-
ma and dropsy, tortured with rheuma-
tism. racked with headaches and
threatened with cataract, should never
have laughed. but only smiled?
1t has been said of the greatest Of
English dramatists, who united with
his intense humor an equally intense,
piercing insight into the darkest and
most fearful depths of human nature,
that no heart would have been strong
enough to hold the woe of Lear and
Othello except that which had the un-
quenchablc elasticity of Falstatr and
the "Nidsummer Nights Dream"
Might not similar remark be made
a fear" Abraham Lincoln, in whom
sadness and a keen sense of the comic
were so strikingly combined? How
eXuDerant was his mlrth, sparkling in
jest, comic story and anecdote. and yet
how often the very next moment those
sad, pathetic, melancholy eyes showed
a man familiar with sorrows and ac-
quainted with grief
Who can doubt that but for the
merriment in which he indulgcd-the
contagious laughter which welled up
from his soul as naturally as do bub-
bles in the springs of Slratoga-he
would have sunk under his weary
weight of care long before he fell by
the pistol of Booth!
It is indeed statesmen, students and
thinkers generally who most need the
relaxation afforded by occasional mer-
riment. Some centuries ago it was the
fashion in Europe for men of rank to
considered incomplete where privi
legged jester was not an attendant,
This was perhaps for those days
wise custom 1t is surprising how
much a few minutes sleep will refresh
the body and few minutes laughter
the mind, and many a useful life might
be prolonged by the substitution of
these remedies for "carking care" and
WEAKNESS In place of the usual treach-
erous tonics and stimulants.
What a dismal deduction would be
made from the happiness Of our homes
If they were robbed of their merri-
mont. What pictures of innocent
mirth has Goldsmith given in the
Vicar of Wakefield" and how artless
the remark of the good DR.. Primrose,
"If he had little wit we had plenty
Of laughter!"
What a power for good and evil Is
the worlds dread laugh, which scarce
the firm philosopher can scorn" How
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