: Wit Humor and Shakspeare: Twelve Essays by Weiss John - Shakespeare William 1564-1616 Characters; Shakespeare William 1564-1616 Humor

@FreeBooks

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

THE CAUSE OF LAUGHTER.

This Subject is best reached from the point of reflecting that, of all the animals, man alone appears to be capable of laughter. If, as so many naturalists now claim, man has ascended by successive evolutions of varieties from a lower animal type, we ought to be able to find some germs of the laughing propensity among our ancestors. The first witness we summon on this question is the anatomist, because the physical expression that accompanies an act of laughter depends upon the connection of the respiratory nerves with the diaphragm below and the orbicular and straight muscles of the mouth above. But these muscles are not perfectly developed in the animals. When dogs are fondly gambolling about you, there is "a slight eversion of the lips," which is a rudimentary hint of man's facial expression in an act of mirth. The dog has been the associate of human moods in all countries, and for thousands of years; yet, although we are told that "the little dog laughed to see the sport," he has not yet made up his mouth for any thing more emphatic than a simper.

Some kinds of monkeys have established a facial expression, accompanied with a laughing noise, which is so like the human that we might charge them with being entertained at the practical jokes which they pass upon each other, or over some obscurer sense of sylvan incongruity. We can see, at least, that Nature was preparing in them the nervous connections which men employ to transmit their pleasurable emotions; as the flexible plants which dangle by the streams and chasms of the Andes are woven by his after-thought to span the intervals, and the good cheer of humanity passes to and fro.

The respiratory nerves radiate from their centre in the medulla oblongata, the place to which the brain must transmit the first shock of the surprise which ends in smiling and laughing. Thence it is transmitted to the heart and diaphragm, quickening the action of the one, and setting the other in motion, at the same instant climbing to engage the facial nerves in sympathy; then the orbicular muscles retract, forcing the cheek up towards the eye, and tightening the muscles which surround the eyelid.

All our passions appear to claim the respiratory nerves for outward expression. They are a signal corps which communicate by hoisting the blush, the smile; by letting fall the tear, by the exhalation of a sigh, by the explosions of laughter. The life-breaths of joy and grief tend primitively to the lungs, and they voice the mother-tongue of all emotions.

I have often wondered how animals can avoid being struck with the differences which exist among themselves, so much more salient and intrusive than among the races of men, in shape, gestures, tones, and habits. What a wide range of Nature's curious freakery a forest has, or a district of country like those plains and thickets of Africa, where the natives dig their great pit and organize a monster drive! Into it falls every thing which cannot escape to either side. The giraffe, elephant, gnu, antelope, hartbeest, zebra, jackal,--think of the commingling of strange discrepancies thus suddenly collected! Were it not for the panic which prevails, and the accidents to life and limb, one would suppose that they ought to be aware of Nature's whims in themselves, and to narrowly escape inventing amusement. But curiosity and aversion probably exhaust the speculative possibilities of animals in this direction.

It is true, we occasionally hear of happy families, like that of the prairie-dog who has an owl and a rattlesnake to share his housekeeping, which they do with zest; for they have established a taste for the young of the prairie-dog, and they hire his tenement only with an eye to business.

When a great freshet takes possession of a country, and evicts the tenants of every hole, thicket, and burrow, there is an indiscriminate stampede of the animals for the driest and safest places: hares, rattlesnakes, mice, cats, and the carnivora cling together to the tops of trees, or wait in terror on the highest hills. So a prairie fire startles all the wild creatures with its sweep into a promiscuous race towards some spot that cannot be tenanted by flame. There they might observe the strange traits which shun each other in ordinary times or seek each other only when hunger demands its toll. While the fright and the dread of death are beginning to pass off are these creatures insensibly attracted to notice each other? Probably only as a curious deer observes a man. The danger has not established any sympathy between them. And they separate without any better opinion of each other, nor approach to geniality. Even men who are strangers, and in general dissociated by the distinctions of society, will be thrown together by some stress of the moment, part with a mutual feeling of relief, and resume their predilections. Yet man only is endowed with the magnanimity to welcome the emergencies which abolish superficial differences. They can be invaded by a circumstance which comprises them under an idea different from those which keep them asunder; and this new congruity can make the forced society congenial. It is Nature's witty rendering of the text that declares all men of one blood. The effect is grave, and under some conditions it may reach an heroic stature, but the root of wit is the nourisher; and only those creatures who are capable of annihilating capricious distinctions by a feeling of common humanness are capable of enjoying the union of heterogeneous ideas.

What mutual impression do a dog and a duck make? He runs around with frolic transpiring in his tail, and barks to announce a wish to fraternize; or perhaps it is a short and nervous bark, and indicates unsettled views about ducks. Meantime, the duck waddles off with an inane quack, so remote from a bark that it must convince any well-informed dog of the hopelessness of proposing either business or pleasure to such a doting and toothless pate. He certainly must have overheard the conversation of his betters, when the Shallows, Slenders, and Silences are near. What a prompt retreat human beings make, and what wariness is expended in steering clear of them for the future! Yet I never feel quite sure that the dunces are not amused at the manoeuvre. Is there a human being permitted to live without wit enough to know when he is avoided? Even this duck has a twinkle in that bead of an eye, as it rejoins the other ducks, that seems to convey to us its sense of the absurdness of a creature so caninely exuberant. Or was it a duck which I noticed? I am sure I have often seen creatures who are hopelessly posed or scandalized waddle away from some superior extravagance.

What vague auroral flittings of human perception pass beneath that horrid crest of the gorilla, as he elevates it in astonishment at encountering a creature of matchless symmetry like the wild ass, of picturesqueness like the zebra, of remote rarity like a beautiful woman! As for cockatoos, parrots, and macaws, I am convinced they are an endless source of amusement to the monkey tribe, who pelt them with nuts to make them scream and scold. Monkeys have a great flow of animal spirits: this, with their imitative talent and quick observation, renders them capable of entertaining ludicrous impressions. But one must be very closely related to the anthropoid ape, if not quite recently derived from it, to tell what they are.

There are many well-attested cases of an absolute enjoyment among animals that sometimes rises to the pitch of mirthfulness. One day, Dr. Kane came across a long, icy, inclined shoot, like the artificial coasting-places made by the Russians, down which a long file of white bears went sliding on their hams: at the bottom they jumped up like a crowd of boys, with evident delight, to carry their sleds back to the top of the hill. He says that the signs of pleasure among them were unmistakable.

The Canadian fish-otter loves to do the same thing. He climbs to the top of a snow-ridge in winter, or of a slippery bank in summer, lies on his belly, with the fore feet bent backward, then, pushing with the hind legs, down he goes. So the Russians, with their ice-slides, are only imitating the sport of their own arctic creatures. I suppose that long ago the pleasure derived from an involuntary and accidental slide originated the habit.

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

(0)

Login to post a comment!