A. G. K. L'Estrange

“ War and Religion were about to be blended in the grand drama of the Crusades, prompted alike by zeal for the faith, by hatred of the Moslem, and by thirst for military glory. The first nobles of the West arrayed themselves in their armour, collected their retainers, and set out for the lands of the rising sun. Here they came into contact with an Eastern civilization, ornate and dazzling, superior to their own, but still in a state of childhood, and revelling in the fanciful creations which please the infantine mind. ”

“ The two early phases of the ludicrous—those of pleasure and of hostility—containing small complexity, and a large proportion of emotion, are to a certain extent felt by the lower animals. Dr. Darwin has observed an approximation to the laughter of pleasure in monkeys, but he does not connect it with intelligence, and would not, I believe, claim for them any sense of the ludicrous. I have, however, seen a dog, on suddenly meeting a friend, not only wag his tail, but curl up the corners of his lips, and show his teeth, as if delighted and amused. ”

“ I have introduced these considerations, because it is very difficult for us to realize that what we behold is merely phenomenal, that
"Things are not what they seem;"
but that we are looking into the mirror of Nature at our own likeness. When we speak of a ludicrous occurrence, we cannot avoid thinking that the external events themselves contain something of that character. Thus, the ludicrous has come in our ideas and language to be separated from the sense in which alone it exists, and it is desirable that we should clearly understand that the distinction is only logical and not real. ”

“ The humour which has come to us from classic times, brings the life of ancient Greece and Rome near to our own firesides. It is not that of a primitive or decaying civilization, but of one advanced and matured, resembling our own, in which density of population has brought a clashing of interests, and enlarged knowledge has produced a variety of thought upon a great multiplicity of home and foreign subjects. ”

“ Whimsies! Natural Philosophy a whimsy! Oh! the unlearned world!
Lady. Ridiculous learning!
Mrs. Alpiew. Ridiculous indeed for women. Philosophy suits our sex as jack-boots would do.
Val. Custom would bring them as much in fashion as furbelows, and practice would make us as valiant as e'er a hero of them all; the resolution is in the mind. Nothing can enslave that.
Lady. My stars! This girl will be mad—that's certain.
Val. Mad! So Nero banished philosophers from Rome, and the first discoverer of the Antipodes was condemned for a heretic. ”

“ We must not confuse folly and wit, though they may exist in the same person and in close relationship. The latter requires intelligence and intention. If a humorous man ever purposely enacts the dullard, the impersonation is always modified—he is like Snug, the joiner, who does not "fright the ladies." There is always some peculiar point in his blunders; if he acted the fool to the life we should not laugh with him. We always see something clever and admirable in him, and to be successful in this way, a man should possess considerable mental gifts, and be able to gauge the feelings of others. ”

“ With the exception of the above-mentioned riddle, and rough pranks of Samson, we have no trace of humour until after the commencement of the Monarchy. The reigns of David and Solomon seemed to have formed the brightest period in the literary history of the Jews. The sweet Psalmist of Israel was partly the pioneer to deeper thought, partly the representative of the age in which he lived. It is the charm of his poetry that it is very rich and recondite—a mine of gold, which the farther it is worked, the more precious its yield becomes. ”

“ For example, madam, my life, my life, madam, is a perpetual stream of pleasure that glides through such a variety of entertainments, I believe the wisest of our ancestors never had the least conception of any of 'em. I rise, madam, about ten o'clock. I don't rise sooner because it is the worst thing in the world for the complexion, not that I pretend to be a beau, but a man must endeavour to look wholesome, lest he make so nauseous a figure in the side box, the ladies should be compelled to turn their eyes upon the play. ”

“ We can scarcely suppose that all the sayings attributed to Diogenes are genuine. There has always been a tendency to attribute to great men observations made in accordance with their manner.
Philosophers have generally been to a certain extent destructive, and seldom spared the religion of their times. Diogenes, who was called "Socrates gone mad," was no exception to this rule. Humour, which is seasoned with profanity, is most telling when there is not too large an amount either of faith or scepticism; very few could find any amusement in the sneers of an utter infidel. ”

“ Humour is the offspring of man—it comes forth like Minerva fully armed from the brain. Our sense of the ludicrous is produced by our peculiar mental constitution, and not by external objects, in which there is nothing either absurd or serious. ”

“ Pleasure in Humour—What is Laughter?—Sympathy—First Phases—Gradual Development—Emotional Phase—Laughter of Pleasure—Hostile Laughter—Is there any sense of the Ludicrous in the Lower Animals?—Samson—David—Solomon—Proverbs—Fables.
Few of the blessings we enjoy are of greater value than the gift of humour. The pleasure attendant upon it attracts us together, forms an incentive, and gives a charm to social intercourse, and, unlike the concentrating power of love, scatters bright rays in every direction. ”

“ At the period at which we have now arrived, we find humour dawning through various channels. We have traced approximations towards it in proverbs and fables, and, in a coarse form, in practical jokes; and as from historical evidences we are ready to admit that civilization had an Eastern origin, so we shall feel little difficulty in assigning Greece as the birthplace of humour. A greater activity of mind now begins to prevail, reflection has gradually given distinctness to emotion, and the ludicrous is not only recognised as a source of pleasure, but intentionally represented in literature. ”

“ They have not the undesigned coincidence of the ludicrous nor the fanciful invention of true humour. Samson was evidently regarded as a droll fellow in his day, but beyond his jokes the only venture of his on record is a riddle, which showed very little ingenuity, and can not be regarded as humorous now, even if it were so then.
It would, perhaps, be going too far to assert that no laughter of a better kind existed before the age at which we are now arrived; some minds are always in advance of their time, as others are behind it, but they are few. ”

“ Shakespeare evidently knew there might be humour among men of attainments, for he writes,—
"None are so surely caught, when they are catched,
As wit turned fool; folly is wisdom hatched,
Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school
And wits' own grace to grace a learned fool."
[Pg 254]
But with him, those who indulge in it are clowns, simpletons, and profligates. Few of his grand characters are witty. Perhaps he was conscious of the great difficulty there would be in finding suitable sayings for them. ”

“ It may be said that such cases should be placed entirely under the head of humour, but can we maintain that a man is unaware when he is humorous? The most telling effects are produced by the ludicrous, and where the creative action of the mind is scarcely discernible. Efforts to be humorous are seldom crowned with success; we require something that appears to be real or original, either as a close rendering of actual occurrences, or a spontaneous efflorescence of genius. Among the latter class we may reckon some of our most exquisite and permanent sayings. ”

“ By degrees, as wealth increased, there came a greater demand for amusement. Jesters obtained patrons, and a distinct class of men grew up, who, having more humour than means were glad to barter their pleasantries for something more substantial. Wit has as little tendency to enrich its possessor as genius—the mind being turned to gay and idle rather than remunerative pursuits, and into a destructive rather than a constructive channel. Talent does not imply industry, and where the stock in trade consists of luxuries of small money value, men make but a precarious livelihood. ”

“ Facial expression has been given us as a means of assisting communication, and smiles and laughter have become the distinctive manifestations of humour. Thus the electric spark passes from one to another, and the flashing eye and wreathed lip lights up the world. Profit also accrues—fear of being laughed at leads us to avoid numerous small errors, and by laughing at others we are enabled to detect shortcomings in ourselves. ”

“ Thus, in the early laughter of pleasure, some solid advantage or gratification, present or future, was always in view, and from men being delighted at their own success, which must often have been obtained at the expense of others, it was an easy transition to rejoice at the failure of rivals. In those primitive times, when people felt themselves insecure, and one tribe was constantly at war with another, there was nothing that gave them so much joy as the misfortunes of their enemies. ”

“ I should imagine Solomon was as much alive to the two sides of the question, as was the Greek who on being asked scoffingly "why philosophers followed rich men, but rich men never followed philosophers," replied, "Because philosophers know what they want, but rich men do not."
In one place Solomon shows his consciousness that his proverbs may be viewed as true or false. He gives two opposite propositions—"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him," and, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." ”

“ In the former, the creative mind is more marked, and, a man though he laughs much, if he be dull in words is only considered to have mirth, i.e., joyousness or a sense of the ludicrous, not humour. The gift can only be brought prominently forward in speech or writing, and thus humour comes to be often regarded as a kind of ingredient or seasoning in a speech or book, if not actually synonymous with certain sentences or expressions. Still we always confine the name to human productions, as, for instance, gestures, sayings, writings, pictures, and plays. ”

“ Humour proportionally changed from what it had been under Charles I., and we read that that the old Earl of Norwich, who had been esteemed the greatest wit, was now quite out of fashion.
Barbarous nations have little idea of delicacy of any kind; and civilisation finds it hard entirely to change nature, so that where-ever the ground is allowed to lie fallow, the old weeds appear in their noisesome rankness. Hence from time to time we find indelicacy springing up, and made to serve the purposes of those who know that the evil plant is not radically extirpated. ”

“ We may here observe that the puns of Shakespeare are never of the "atrocious" class; there is always something to back them up, and give them a shadow of probability. The tournaments of humour which he is fond of introducing, although good in effect upon the stage, are not favourable for any keen wit. Such conflicts must be kept up by artifice, cannot flow from natural suggestion, and degenerate into a mere splintering of words. ”

“ Those who cultivate humour are not generally to be complimented on their success, and a popular writer has thus classified fools [Pg 272] —"First, the ordinary fool; secondly the fool who is one, and does not know it; thirdly, the fool who is not satisfied with being one in reality, but undertakes in addition to play the fool." Thus, to a certain extent we may always regard a professed wit as a silly fellow, but still at the present day the acts or sayings of an absolute idiot or lunatic, would be depressing and offensive, and could afford little amusement in any way except accidentally. ”

“ Spectators and passers by were assailed with invectives, pelted with missiles, and treated to all that hostile humour which is associated with practical joking. So vile was their language and conduct that "comedy" came to signify abuse and vilification. As the taste for music and rhythm became general in that sunny clime, even these rioters adopted a kind of verse, by which rustic genius could give additional point to scurrility. Thus arose the Iambic measure used at the festivals of Ceres and Bacchus, and afterwards fabled to have been invented by Iambe, the daughter of the King of Eleusis. ”

“ It must be admitted that the fact of the same kind of death having been chosen by them, and by the objects of Archilochus' derision, does not increase greatly the credibility of the stories.
We now come to consider what we may call a serious source of humour. Already we have noticed the tendency in ancient times to exercises of ingenuity in answering hard questions. These led to deeper thought, to the aphoristic wisdom of the seven wise men, and the speculations of those who were in due time to raise laughter at the follies of mankind. ”

“ There was a good old joke that Nasica having called at the house of the poet Ennius, and the maid-servant having told him that Ennius was not at home, he perceived she had said so by her master's order; and when, a few days afterwards, Ennius called at Nasica's house, and inquired for him, Nasica cried out that he was "not at home." "What!" says Ennius, "do I not know your voice?" "You are an impudent fellow," replied Nasica, "I believed your servant when she said you were not at home, and you will not believe me."
A vein of humour seems to have run through the Cæsar family. ”

“ Sympathetic laughter does not arise from any contemplation of ludicrous circumstances, [Pg 17] but is only a sort of reflection of the feelings of others. There seems to be little intelligence in it, but something almost physical, just as yawning is infectious, or as on seeing a person wounded in a limb we instinctively shrink ourselves in the same part of the body. Even a picture of a man laughing will have some effect upon us, and so have those songs in which exuberant mirth is imitated. Thus we often laugh without feeling just cause, as we often feel cause without laughing. ”

“ We are the more inclined to lament the utter destruction of ancient African literature on finding that the most refined Roman dramas were placed upon the stage by a Carthaginian, when Plautus, whose enterprize and perseverance had given the great impetus to Latin comedy, was approaching the end of his long [Pg 107] life. Terence was born the last, and as some think the greatest master in this branch of Art. He was at one time a slave, but his literary talent was so remarkable that his master set him free, and he became the friend of distinguished men, especially of Scipio the younger. ”

“ We never find one animal adopting the vocal sounds of another—a bird never mews, and a cat never sings. Some men have been called cynics from their whelpish ill-temper, but none of them have ever adopted a real canine snarl, though it might express their feelings better than human language. Laughter, so far as we can judge, could not have been obtained by any mere mental exercise, nor would it have come from imitation, for it is only found in man, the yelping of a hyena being as different from it as the barking of a dog, or [Pg 21] the cackling of a goose. ”

“ It is a crumb of comfort to know that women were not generally present at performances of comedies, and Aristotle says that young men should not be allowed to attend them until they are old enough to sit at table and get drunk. Moreover, to be humorous the comedian must necessarily have exceeded the bounds of ordinary usage. Aristophanes occasionally deplores the degeneracy of his times,—the youth of the period making "rude jests," but his own writings are the principal evidence of this depravity. His allusions are not excusable on the ground of ignorance; they are intentionally impure. ”