The Washington bee., 1910-10-22
THE MAN WHOLAUGHS
BY the Way He Does 1t He Gives
an index to His Character.
THE POTENCY OF LAUGHTER.
Shown by che Effective Way In Which
Csrvantes Smiled Spaln's Vain and
Foolish chiVaIry Away-kAsn Who
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.

hugh! What surer clew can we have
to both his intellect and his temper IN
less 1t be that he seldom or never
laughs? Nothing" says Goethe, ''is
more significant OF mems character
than what they ind laughable." You
know no man." says Tfeck, It'll you
have heard him Iaugh-tin you know
when and how be Will laugh" THE
perception Of the ludicrous," says EN-
erson, 'Is a pledge OF sanity. A rogue
alive to the ludicroUs is still conVerti-
bic. II 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 derisive nature OF a
laugh as an index of character. II II
be free and hearty and occasion a gen
er6I and light movement in all the
features and dimple the cheek and
chin, 1t is an almost infallible evil
dence Of the absence Of any great ma
teriaI wickedneSs of disposition. Cae-
sar mistrusted Cassius because that
lean and hungry cOnspirator rarely, II
ever, indulged ia laughter. When Hor-
ace WalpoIe was in Paris In 1T65 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 q 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
smile? Is it 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. BarthoIomew's day? Is it
not 6 suggestive fact regarding the
gloomy, taciturn WalIenstein, the ter
rOr or 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-
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
OtheIlo except that which had the un-
quenchable elasticity Of Falstaff and
the Midsummer Nights Dream"
Might not a similar remark be made
of that pendulum betwixt a smile and
a fear" Abraham Lincoln, In whom
sadness and a 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
a man familiar with ''sorrows and ac-
Quainted with griefI
Who can doubt that but for the
merTiment in which he indulged-the
contagious laughter which welled up
from his soul as naturally as do bub-
bles in the springs of S"ratoga-he
would have sunk under his weary
weight Of care long before he fen by
the pistol Of Booth?
It is indeed statesmen, students and
thinkers generally who most need the
relaxation afforded by occasional mer-
Timent Some centuries ago it was the
fashion In Europe for men Of rank to
keep a buffoon, and a banquet was
considered Incomplete where privi
legged jester was not an attendant.
This was perhaps for thcse days a
wise custom. II Is surprising how
much a few minutes sleep VIII 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 merTf
ment! What pictures Of innocent
mirth has Goldsmith given In the
''Vicar of Wakefield" and how artless
the remark Of the good DR.. Primrose,
eff he had little wit we had plenty
OF laughter
What a power for good and evil is
the worlds dread laugh which scarce
the hrm philosopher can scOrn" How
many men have been cowed by II who
could have faced without finchtng a
battery's deadly fire. Low many bad
customs and wicked practices, how
many quixotic schemes Of philanthropy
or reform. how many absurd doctrines
in politics. theology and sociology,
which have defed the artillery Of aTgu-
ment have been laughed off the pub
lie stage" never to return! Did not
CsrYantes "smile Spain's vain and