Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1909-05-25
THE MAN WHOLAUGHS
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 SPANS 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 UNI
less 1t be that he seldom or never
laughs? Nothing" says Goethe, lis
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, lis pledge of sanity. A rogue
alive to the ludicrous is still conyerti-
BILE. If that sense is lost his fellow
men can do little for him."
Layater, the great physiognomist,
lays his great stress on the very I'M
equiyocal and derisiye nature of a
laugh as an index Of character. IL 1T
be free and hearty and occasion a 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 wickedness Of disposition. Gaze
sar mistrusted Cassius because that
lean and hungry eonspirator rarely, If
ever, INDUCED IA 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 deyoutly employed
In the demolition"
How often a 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 hts countenance
was scarcely softened even by a
smile? Is ii 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.
and that when he heard of the massa-
ere on ST. Bartholomew day? Is 1t
not q 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 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 drama lists, 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 ana
OthelIo except that which had the un-
quenchable elasticity of Falstaff and
the Midsummer Nights Dream
Might not similar remark be made
OF that pendulum betwixt smile and
a fear" Abraham Lincoln, In whom
sadness and keen sense of the comic
were SO strikingly 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 &C
quainted with grief!''
Who can doubt that but for tho
merriment in which he indulged-tht
contagious laughter which welled vi
from his soul as naturally as do bub
bles In the springs Of Saratoga-h'
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 tn,
relaxation afforded by occasional mer
riment. Some centuries ago 1t was th'
fashion I'm Europe for men of rank t
keep a buffoon, and a banquet wal
considered incomplete where privi
| legged Jester was not an attendant
| This was perhaps for those days :
wise custom. 1t Is surprising how
much few minutes sleep will refresl
| the body and a few minutes laughte
| the mind, and many useful life nigh
| be prolonged by the substitution o
these remedies for 'carking care" ant
WEAKNESS In place of the usual treach
erous tonics and stimulants-
What a dismal deduction would b
made from the happiness Of our home
| If they were robbed Of their merri
ment. What pictures Of innocen
mirth has Goldsmith given in th
'eyiear Of Wakefield" and how artles
| the remark Of the good DIR. Primrose
IF he had little wit we had plent
| OF laughter"
What a power for good and evil
the worlds dread laugh, which scare
the firm philosopher can scorni" Ho'
many men have been cowed by 1t VIII
could have faced without finching
battery's deadly fire, How many ba
customs and wicked practices, no.
many quixotic schemes Of phiianthrop
or reform. how many absurd doctrine
In politics. theology and sociolog.
which have defied the artillery Of arg
ment have been Laughed of the pul
lie STAGE never to return. Did M
cervantes smile SPANS vain an
foolish chivalry awayT-William NJ