The Washington herald., 1911-12-24

lectures on The SOUL, IN fdris dhU
London. appears the English edition oI
his volume entitled, Laughter: An Es-
say on the Meaning of the Comic" The
book which at first sight seems to rep
resent a descent from the sublime to the
ridiculous, is really quite profound and
scientific, as the following paragraphs
will show. II is published by the Mac
MILAN Company, New York
What does laughter mean? What is
the basal element in the laughable?
What common ground can We find be-
tween the4 grimace Of a merry-andrew,
a play upon words. an equivOcal situa-
tion to a burlesque and a scene of high
comedy? What method of distillation
will WELD us invariably the same es-
sence from which SO many products boI-
row either their obtrusive odor or their
delicate perfume?
The greatest of thinkers, from Aristotle
downward, have tackled this little prob
lem, which has a knack of battling every
effort. of slipping away and escaping
only TO bob Up again, pert challenge
flung at philosophic speculation.
The first point to which attention
should be called is that the comic does
not exist outside the pale Of what is
strictly human. a landscape may be
3,
never be laughable- You may laugh AT
an animal, but only because you have
detected in it some human attitude or
expression You may laugh at a hat
hut what you arc making fun of, in this
case is not the piece Of felt or straw
but the shape that men have given It
the human caprice whose mold 1t mas
assumed.
IAN Animal which Laughs"
1t is strange that so important fact,
and such n simple one, too. has not at
tracted to a greater degree the attention
OF philosophers. Several have defined
man as AN animal which laughs" They
might equally we'll have defined him as
an animal which is laughed at, for If
any other animal, or some liIrless oh-
ject produces the same effect, il IS al
WAYS because of some resemblance 10
man. of the stamp he gives ii or the use
he puts to it.
Here ! would point out. as a symptom
equally worthy OF notice, the absence
# feeling which accompanies laughter.
Indifference IS its natural environment
for laughter has no greater foe than emo
tiOn. Our Iaughtcc is always the laugh
ter Of q group man who once was
asked why h" did not weep at Il sermon
when everybody else was shedding tears
replied: Il don't belong to that parish.
What that man thought Of tears would
he still more true Of laughter. How often
has il been said that the fuller the the
atCr ih. more uncontrolled the laughter
Of the audience.
In "A nature that is mechanically
tampcred with We possess thoroughly
comic theme Take as an instance tn"
remark made by a lady whom Cassinl,
the astronomer, had invited to see an
eclipse Of the moon. Arriving too late.
she said M. de Cassni, ! know, VIII
have the goodness to begin it all over
again to please me-" Or take, again, the
exclamation OF one Of Gondinet's char
arters on arriving in a town and learning
that there is an extinct volcano in the
noiChborhOOd. They had volcano, and
;hcy have let it go OUT
ANY incident is comic that calls our
attention to the physical in a person
when il is the moral side that is con-
cCrncd.
Why do we laugh at a public speaker
who sneezes lust at the most pathetic
moment Of his speech? Where lies the
comic element in this sentence taken
from a funeral speech and quoted by
German philos 9phrr: He was virtuous
and plump T lies in the fact that
our attention is suddenly recalled from
the soul to the body
4 comic meaning is invariably obtained
when an absurd idea is fitted into a we'll
established phrase fOrm-"I don't like
working between meals said a lazy
lout. There would he nothing amusing
in the saying did there not exist that
salutary pTeCept in the realm OF hygiene:
'One should not eat between meals.
Wit often consists in extending the idea
Of ones interlocutor to the point of MAX
ing him express the opposite of what he
thinks and getting him. so to say, en-
trapped by his own words. You may !
remember the dialogue between a moth |
er and her son in the Faux BOnshOm- |
mes Ny dear boy, gambling on
change is very risky. You win one day
and lose the next"
We'll then, I will gamble only every |
other day"
In a very lively comedy We are intro |
duced TO a Monte Carlo official whose |
uniform Is covered with medals, although |
he has ONLY received a single decoration. |
You see I staked my medal on num- |
her at roulette" he said. and as the |
number turned up. / was entitled to |
thirty-siX times my stake"
Criticism is made Of A bride Of forty |
summers who is wearing orange blossoms |
with her wedding costume. |
Why, she was entitled to oranges, let |
alone orange blossoms
Emotions Shut out.
The comic will come into being. it ap- |
pears, whenever a group Of men concen- |
trate their attention on one of their |
number imposing silence on their emo |
tions and calling into play nothing but |
their intelligence.
A man running along the street. stum- |
bles and falls; the passers-by burst out |
laughing. They would not laugh at him, |
] imagine. could they suppose that the |
whim had suddenly seized him to sit |
down on the ground They laugh be- |