The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1909-02-19
THE MAN WHOLAUCHS
BY the Way He Does 1t 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 Chivalry Away-Men Who
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.


less 1t be that he seldom or never
laughs? Nothing" says Goethe, "is
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-
erson, 'is a pledge Of sanity. A rogue
alive to the ludicrous is still convcrti-
BILE. If that sense Is lost his fellow
men can do little for him"
Lavater, the great physiognomist,
lays his great stress on the very un-
equivocal and derisiye nature or
laugh as an index Of character. If 1t
be free and hearty and occasion a gen
eral and light movement In all the
! features and dimple the cheek and
| chin, ii is an almost infallible evil
| dence Of the absence Of any great ma
terial wickedness Of disposition. Cae-
sar mistrusted Cassius because that
lean and hungry conspirator rarely, If
| ever, INDUCED in laughter When uor-
| ace Walpole was in Paris In 17G3 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-
en-, one and all, are devoutly employed
| I'm the demolition"
How often man fails to betray the
| tiger that turks within him until he
| laughs! Is there nothing significant
| I'm the fact recorded by Plutarch Of
| Cato the younger that nothing could
make him laugh, that his countenance
was scarcely softened even by n
| smile? Is IL not characteristic trait
Of the gloomy tyrant, Philip III. Of
| Spain, that he rarely smiled and that
he laughed but once in his entire life,
and that when he heard Of the massa-
ere on st. Bartholomew day? Is II
not 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 I'm scarlet
mantle and with red feather I'm his
cap strange horror took possession
| of the soldiers, that he was never
| seen to smile? Can we wonder that
| 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-
quenchable elasticity of Falstaff and
the Midsummer Nights Dream"
Might not n similar remark be made
Of that pendulum betwiXt smile and
fear" Abraham Lincoln, I'm whom
sadness and Il keen sense of the comic
were so strkingly combined? How
eXuberant was his mirth, sparkling In
jest, comic story and anecdote, and yet
how often the very next moment those
sad, pathetic, melancholy eyes showed
man familiar with sorrows and ac-
quainted with grief!'
Who can doubt that but for the
merriment In which he indulged-the
contagious laughter which welled up
from his soul rs naturally as do bub-
bles I'm the springs Of Saratoga-he
would have sunk under his weary
weight of care long before he fell by
the pistol of Booth?
1t is indeed statesmen, students and
thinkers generally who most need the
relaxation afforded by occasional mer
riment. Some centuries ago it was the
fashion I'm Europe for men Of rank to
keep a buffoon, and n banquet was
considered incomplete where n privi-
legged jester was not an attendant.
This was perhaps for those days a
wise custom. 1t Is surprising how
much few minutes sleep will refresh
the body and few minutes laughter
the mind, and many useful life might
be prolonged by the substitution of
these remedies for "carking care" and
WEAKNESS In place or the usual treacn-
erous tonics and stimulants.
What a dismal deduction would be
made from the happiness OF our homes
II they were robbed Of their merri-
ment! What pictures of innocent
nirth has Goldsmith given In the
'Vicar of Wakefield" and how artless
the remark of the good DIR. Primrose,
"If he had little wit we had plenty
of laughterw
! What n power for good and evil Is
the worlds dread laugh, which scarce
The firm philosopher can scornw How
many men have been cowed by II who
could have faced without fiinching a
battery's deadly fire! How many bad
customs and wicked practices. how
many quixotic schemes Of philanthropy
VI reform, how many absurd doctrines
M nOlitipg thanloVv mud copiolopy