Year: 1866

certain length of constraint, is sometimes
as little responsible for his laughter as the
hypochondriac Mrs Beecher Stowe, in
describing, and defending, a puritanical
strlctness OF Sabbath, observance, recalls the
long family expositions and sermons which
alternated in her youth with pro6x meeting
services, at all of which the younger mem
bers of the household are required to assist
IN profound stiffness of attention. On one
OF these occasions, on hot Summer after
noon, needless grasshopper of enormous
dimensions leapt on the sleeve of one of the
boys. The tempting diversion was not to
be resisted; he silly secured the animal, and
imprisoned a hind leg between his firmly
compressed lips.


One by one, the youthful congregation
became alive to the awkward contortions
and futile struggles of the long-legged cap
tive: they knew that to laugh was to be fog
ged, but after somany sermons the need was
imperative, and they laughed, and were
logged accordingly. Different from all these
types is the grand. frank laugh that finds its
place IN history and biography, and belongs
to master minds. Political and party feel
ing may raise, in stirring times, any amount
of animosity, even in good natured men; but
bring about laugh between them, and
an answering chord is struck, tie is estab-
lished not easily broken. Something of
the old rancor is gone forever There is
story of Canning and Brougham, after hat
ing and splitting one another through ses
sion, finding themselves suddenly face to
face in some remote district in Cumberland,
with only turnpike gate between them.
The situation reused their magnanimity,
simultaneously they broke into laughter,
and passed each on his separate way, better
friends from that time forth.


No honest laugher know anything about
his own laugh, which is fortunate, as itisapt
to be the most grotesque part of man, es-
peeially if he is anything of an original.
Character, humor, oddity, all expatiate in
it, and the features and voice have to ac-
commodate themselves to the occasion as
they can. There is Prince Hal S laugh, till
his face is like wet cloak i'll laid up; there
is the laugh we see in Dutch pictures, where
every wrinkle of the old face seems TO be in
motion; there is the conVulsiVe laugh in
which arms, and legs join; there is the whin-
rey the ventral laugh, Dr. johnson laugh
like Rhinoceros, Dominic Sampson laugh
lapsing without any intermediate stage into
dead gravity, and the ideal social laugh-the
delighted and delighting chuckle which ush-
ers in a joke, and the cordial triumphant
laugh which sounds it's praises.


We say nothing of all the laughs-and
how many there are (which have no mirth
in them; nor of the "ha, hal of melodrama,
and the ringing laugh of the novel, as be-
ing each unfamiliar to our waking ears.
Whatever the laugh, if it be genuine and
comes from decent people, it Is as attrac-
tive as the Piper of Hamelin. 1t is impos-
sibie not to want to know what a hearty
laugh is about. Some of the sparkle of life
is near, and we long to share it The gift Of
laughter is one of the compensation powers
of the world A nation that laughs is so far
prosperous. 1t may not have material wealth
but it has the poetry of posterity When
Lady Duff Gordon laments that she never
hears hearty laugh in Egypt, and when
Mr. Palgrave, on the contrary, makes the
Arabs proper a Laughing people, we place
Arabia, for this reason, higher among the
countries than its old neighbor. And it is
the same with homes Wherever there is
pleasant laughter there inestmable memories
are being stored up, and such free play Civ
en- to nerve and brain that whatever thought
and power the family circle is capable of
will have fair chance of due expansion.