146 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tensions and passions. Unusual features, types of ugliness, odd shapes, 

 Falstaff proportions, contain humorous elements. 



3. Actions. — Mimicry and all actions of a pretentious and useless 

 sort and in false time and space relations may provoke humor. All 

 mimicry is humorous, whether in the form of the puppet show, the 

 pantomime, the burlesque or the comedy. Hazlitt calls attention to a 

 large group of humorous acts as seen in the " pursuit of uncertain 

 pleasure or idle gallantry." Professor James refers to the same subject 

 in describing our desire for recognition : " We are crazy to get a 

 visiting list which shall be large, to be able to say when any one is 

 mentioned, ' Oh ! I know him well ' . . . there is a whole race of 

 beings to-day whose passion is to keep their names in the newspaper, 

 no matter under what heading ; ' arrivals and departures,' gossip, even 

 scandal will suit them if nothing better is to be had." Useless actions 

 of the ideomotor and absent-minded type are the causes of many of the 

 comedies of errors in every-day life. A young lady who had partially 

 disrobed to make a toilet at the noon hour, wound up by " saying her 

 prayers," that being the usual next step in the evening. A college girl 

 stopped at her own room and knocked vigorously for admission. For- 

 getfulness, too, is often a source of humor. Here belong the host of 

 stories of the forgetful and absent-minded professor, from which 

 we select one. A certain professor asked the lady of his choice for 

 her hand, in total disregard of the fact that he had made the same 

 request with the happiest result on the day preceding. The wrong use 

 of objects, tools and machinery often makes an act humorous; for in- 

 stance, posting letters in a neighbor's private letter box, an Indian 

 taking his family to church in a hearse purchased for a carriage, 

 sharpening a hand saw by grinding the teeth out of it. Awkward- 

 ness is a common type of action naturally humorous. Any action 

 inherently serious may become humorous by occurring out of time or 

 out of place. Singing ahead of time or out of tune, applauding alone, 

 answering questions at the wrong time at a marriage service, an 

 unmindful deacon removing his small coat with his overcoat and 

 sitting down in his shirt sleeves in church, are cases in point. Hazlitt 

 remarks, " In Jocular history everybody is at angles to real life ; people 

 do precisely what they ought not to do, say what they ought not to 

 say, are found where they ought not to be found." 



4. Clothes. — Clowns and professional fools supplement their wit, 

 humor and mimicry by their well-known forms of dress. Johnny Bull, 

 Uncle Sam and Santa Claus are always received good-naturedly partly 

 on account of their dress. Hallowe'en, masked balls, the Mardi Gras 

 and Carnivals ancient and modern owe much of their charming good 

 humor to dress. It is well known that we laugh at the dress of 

 foreigners, and they at ours. " Three chimney sweeps meeting three 

 Chinese in Lincoln's-inn-fields, they laughed at one another till they 

 were ready to drop down. . . . Any one dressed in the height of 



