Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1909-07-29
THE MAN WHOLAUGHS
BY the Way He Does II He Gives
an Index to His Character.
THE POTENCY or LAUGHTER.
Shown by the Effective Way In Which
Cervantes Smiled Span's Vain and
Foolish Chivalry Awsy-Men Who
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.

What an index to character is man
laugh. What surer clew can we hav
to both his intellect and his temper un
less IL be that he seldom % neve
laughs? Nothing" says Goethe, #
more significant Of mems characte
than what they find laughable." "Yo'
know no man." says Tieck, It'll yol
have heard him laugh-till you know
| when and how he will laugh" ''Tht
perception of the ludicrous," says EN-
erson, lis a pledge Of sanity. A rogue
alive TO the ludicrous Is still convert
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 I'm.
equiyocal and derisive nature of a
laugh as an index OF character If il
| be free and hearty and occasion 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. Gaze
sar mistrusted Cassius because that
lean and hungry conspirator rarely, If
ever, INDUCED in laughter. When Hor-
ace Walpole was in Paris In 1765 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
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 IL not characteristic trait
OF the gloomy tyrant, Philip II. 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's day? Is II
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 a scarlet !
mantle and with a red feather in his |
cap a 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-
ism, 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
lis intense humor an equally intense,
piercing insight into the darkest and
most fearful depths Of human nature,
hat no heart would have been strcng
'nough to hold the woe of Lear and
)thello except that which had the un.
uenchable elasticity Of Falstaff and
he Midsummer Nights Dream"
Might not similar remark be made
that pendulum betwixt a smile and
fear" Abraham Lincoln, In whom
adness and keen sense Of the comic
'ere so strikingly combined? How
xuberant was his mirth, sparkling In
'st. comic story and anecdote, and yet
ow often the very next moment those
nd, pathetic, melancholy eyes showed
man familiar with sorrows and &C.
tainted with griefr' /,
Who can doubt that but for the
'erriment In which he indulged-the
,ntagious laughter which welled up
ON his soul as naturally as do bub-
les In the springs Of Saratoga-he
ould have sunk under his weary
eight OF care long before he fell by
10 pistol Of Booth?
1t Ia indeed statesmen, students and
mixers generally who most need the
'laxation afforded by occasional mer-
ment. Some centuries ago It was the
shion In Europe for men Of rank to
yep q buffoon, and q banquet was
'nsidered Incomplete where a privi-
ged jester was not an attendant
his was perhaps for those days a
Use custom. 1t is surprising how
UGH few minutes sleep win refresh
e body and few minutes laughter
e mind, and many useful life might
prolonged by the substitution Of ,
ese remedies for "carking care and
In place Of the usual treach-
GUS tonics and stimulants.
What dismal deduction would be
ade from the happiness Of our homes
they were robbed Of their merri- ,
emit! What pictures of innocent
nth has Goldsmith given In the
'icar Of Wakefield" and how artless
9 remark of the good DIR. Primrose.
( he had little wit we had plenty
laughter
What a power for good and evil Is
Q worlds 'dread laugh, which scarce
. flrm philosopher can scorn!" How
any men have been cCwed by It who
uld have faced without fiinching : ,
ttery's deadly fire! How many bad !
stoms and wicked practices, how Z
my quixotic schemes Of philanthropy
reform. how many absurd doctrines J
politics. theology and sociology. :
aich have defied the artillery Of argu-
mt have been laughed on the pub
stage" never to return! Did mot