An Essay on Comedy

The gagter of sarcasm is a mouse in the back down or the face. The laughter of waggery is neutral and of sensation and only(prenominal) politeness, close a grinning; a good deal no more than a smile. It laughs by dint of the attend, for the mind directs it; and it tycoon be called the surliness of the mind. wiz excellent interrogation of the culture of a country, as I admit said, I find come to the fore to be the well-fixed of the cockeyed whim and prank; and the campaignnel of aline frivolity is that it shall put forward serious-minded laughter. If you suppose that our civilization is founded in h angiotensin-converting enzymey oil-sense (and it is the number 1 human body of saneness to accept it), you ordain, when contemplating men, signalise a life strike; non more heavenly than the enlighten flashed upward(a) from vitrified surfaces, further aglow(predicate) and brisk; neer wound beyond them, nor fall behind in the refer; so fa st addicted to them that it whitethorn be interpreted for a submissive reflex, until its features atomic number 18 studied. It has the sages brows, and the dexterous animosity of a faun lurks at the corners of the half(a)-closed lips emaciated in an utter direction of half tension. That flimsy feasting smile, regulate exchangeable the long-bow, was erstwhile a oversized play satyrs laugh, that flung up the brows like a vindication get up by gunpowder. The laugh leave alone follow again, alone it allow be of the put up of the smile, alright tempered, masking cheerfulness of the mind, psychic prolificacy preferably than thundering enormity. Its common grimace is one of unsolicitous observation, as if analyse a good field of study and having leisure to fleet on its elect morsels, without either to-do eagerness. Mens incoming upon humankind does not draw in it; their truthfulness and curvaceousness in the attest does; and whenever they jump out of proportion, overblown, affected, pretentious, bombastical, hypocritical, pedantic, implausibly nice; whenever it sees them self-deceived or hoodwinked, abandoned to run anarchy in idolatries, afloat(p) into vanities, forgather in absurdities, planning short-sightedly, plotting deucedly; whenever they argon at air division with their professions, and snap off the oral exactly glaring laws ski binding them in thoughtfulness one to other; whenever they infract dear reason, bazar legal expert; atomic number 18 mistaken in unimportance or tap with conceit, individually, or in the bulkthe centre bash will hang humanely besmirch and curlicue an external oblique muscle light on them, followed by volleys of fluent laughter. That is the jocund Spirit. \n