Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-02
HUlNORLSTS AT FORTY
By Christopher Morley

THE gods are afraid of humorsts. Either
L by starvation, or by too rapid success,
or by laughing in the wrong place, or by
sending people to call on them when they
are working, the canny gods try to choke
them off They have a thong in pickle
for those who keep on chatting the uni
verse. They prefer that a man should sub
side into a tender melancholy by the time
he is eighteen.
THIS is a prelude to the announcement
l. that one of Americas best humorists
has safely reached the age of forty. ON
July 90 when the event occurred. all
America Except perhaps the humorist him
self might have been seen eXclaiming.
"Hurrah. Now we are safe!" For it Is
great thing for a nation to be able to add
to it's roster another genuine humorist
who has successfully joined the choir de-
risble who has reached the age of secure
indscretion.
NUR new forty.yearold is Don Marquis,
~ New York's gravest irresponsible. The
gods tried to leash and scabbard his fash
ing rapier mind with 226 pounds of corpus
commuter. In vain! On the long and
tragic slope of the fourth decade, strewn
with the blunted and discarded weapons
of vanquished wits, Don has grimv nour-
ished his native geniality. Now he has
got the quip hand of these hangdog deities
that discipline us all. MAY he deal them
many and many a gleeful betting!
YTNIJERE is a death rate in
L of humor The world brings heavy pres.
sure to bear on those who try to poke fun
at it. Ellis Parker Butler, for instance,
very wisely became director of bank,
the most humorous thing he has ever done.
John Kendrick Bangs, George Ade, +. p.
Dunno. all gave up the uneven struggle.
Ezra Pound, one of the most promising
humorists who ever graced the Phiadsl-
phia soviets, could only continue his mirth
by going to England to live in the cubist
quarters of London. He was quite right,
for the professional Vers librists are the
most laughable of all. Walt Mason, Ken
Beaton, Tom Mason, stephen Leacock
and Wallace Irwin. irwin Cobb and Frank
O'Maley and those two adorable cartoon
lists, Darling and Briggs, have all got safely
over the deadline of forty. But some of
them Oct us not particulariZe) are running
| bit thin. Simeon Strunsky has still
year to go; and f. =. A., already little
embittered. is three years shy of forty
Mencken has two years to run: in spite
of hay fever, his spirits are still amaz
ingly high.
TT is no discredt to any man IL he
l. ceases to be a humorist before forty
| Contrary TO the popular superstition. 1t is
| not in youth that the spirits run highest
| Most men get a pretty severe cudgeling
by the time they ascend that peak After
| that they begin to see life in its more en-
| tertaining aspects. The world likes youth
| TO suffer pangs, to taste the sour and learn
to patch it's trousers by candle light. It
| rewards the grave and docile with rich
| emoluments a villa well plumbed and
spare tires. The man who finds the cooks
| contours too irresstibly mrth-proyoking
| will get the butt of rolling pin for
| dinner.
| TINE true humorist. however, needs no
audience; therein lies his safety. He
can go on laughing at himself and sur
vive.. Humor Is indeed kind OF (your
| psrdon) camoudase whprevith luckless