The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1909-03-17
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
BY the Way He Does It He Gives
an Index to His Character.
THE POTENCY OF LAUGHTER.
Shown by che Effective Way In Which
cerysntes Smiled Spain's Vain ard
Foolish chivaIry Away-Mcn Who
Never LAUGHED and Rarely Smiled.

Foolish Chivalry Away-Men VINO
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.
What an index to character is mars
laugh, What surer clew can we hare
to both his intellect and his temper un-
less it be that he seldom or never
laughs? Nothing says Goethe, is
more significant of meps character
than what they find laughable.' You
know no man." says Tieck, "till you
have heard him laugh-till you kno"
when and how he will laugh" The
perception Of the ludicrous," says En-
erson, s'is pledge Of sanity. a rogue
alive to the ludicrous is still conVe:tl-
Bile. If that sense is lost his 1ei1o"
men can do little for him.
Lavater, the great physiognomlst'
lays his great stress on the very m
eouiyoeal and derisive nature OF
laugh as an index Of character. l. II
be free and hearty and occasion 4 gen
eral and light movement IN all the
features and dimple the cheek anu
chin. it is an almost infallible evl-
dence Of the absence of any great ma
terial wickedness of disposition. Cae-
sar mistrusted CassiuS because tna1
lean and hungry conspirator rarely, II
ever, indulged in laughter. When aor-
ace Walpole was in Paris III l'os' ne
found that laughing was out OF fash-
ion in that gay capital. Good tolEs,
he writes, ''they have no time to langn.
There are God and the king to be
pulled down first, and men and "om-
en-, one and all, are devoutly employed
in the demolition"
How often a man fails to betray the
tiger that turks within him until ne
laughs! Is there nothing significant
in the fact recorded by Plutarca OF
Cato the younger that nothing could
make him laugh, that his countenance
was scarcely softened even by
smile? Is it not a characteristic tralt
of the gloomy tyrant, Philip l.: 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 It
not a suggestive fact regarding; the
gloomy, taciturn Wallenstein, the ter
ror of the people, at the sight OF Wnom
as he paced through his camp with MS
lofty figure enveloped in a scarlet
mantle and with a red feather IN his
cap a strange horror took possession
of the soldiers, that be 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 rheula-
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 1.ature,
that no heart would have been strong
enough to hold the woe Of Lear and
Othello except that which had the un-
ouenchable elasticity Of Falstaf and
the Midsummer Nights Dream"
Might not similar remark be made
of that pendulum betwixt q smile and
a fear Abraham Lincoln, in whom
sadness and q keen sense Of the comic
were so striksngly combined! HOW
exuberant was his mirth, sparkling IN
lest. 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 indulged-the
contagious laughter which welled up
from his soul as naturally as 10 pup
bles in the springs Of Saratoga-he
would have sunk under his weary
weight of care long before he fell by
the pistol of Booth?
It is indeed statesmen, students ana
thinkers generally who most reed the
relaxation afforded by occasional ner-
riment. Some centuries ago it was the
fashion in Europe for men Of rank to
keep a buffoon, and banquet was
considered incomplete where a prlTl-
legged lester was not an attendant.
This was perhaps for those days
wise custom. 1t is surprising now
much a few minutes sleep vii! refresh
the body and a 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 or homes
if they were robbed of their merrl-
ment! What pictures of innocent
mirth has Goldsmith given in the
sVicar 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 s'dread laugh, which scarce
the firm philosopher can scora" HOW
many men have been cowed oy it who
could have faced without finching
battery's deadly fire. How many bad
customs and wicked practices. how
many ouixotic schemes Of philanthropy
or reform, how many absurd doctrines
in politics, theology and sociology,
which have deSed the artillery of arsu-
ment have been Laughed of, the pub
lie STAGE never to return! Did not
Cervantes "smile Spain's vain and
foolish chivalry away?'-W@lliam Ma
thews in London Great Thou ghts.