NATURE, ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF HUMOR 149 



The speech of the excited, the irritated and the fatigued often be- 

 comes humorous by inversions. A prospective bridegroom at the church 

 door in consultation with his minister inquires excitedly, " Is it 

 kistomary to cuss the bride?' 5 Grumio answers his master. "Ah, sir, 

 they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses" (see "The Taming of 

 the Shrew," Act III., Scene 2). 



What a man thinks and feels, although serious to him, may be 

 just as much an object of humor as a situation, an awkward movement 

 or a form of speech. The unconscious maker of humor in thought is 

 your next neighbor. Every one is a contributor on occasions to this 

 type. Certain classes, however, are much more productive than others ; 

 among them may be mentioned the ignorant, the illiterate, the inex- 

 perienced, the credulous, the skeptic, the superstitious, the over-serious, 

 the vain and the prosaic. Their humor appears in their attempt to 

 deal with situations and problems somewhat beyond their ken. The 

 ignorant and illiterate amuse by their literalisms, pretensions, evasions 

 and superstitions. In looking over some papers written by students of 

 Plato's Eepublic I noticed that they usually began the story of the 

 Lydian shepherd, Gyges, and his magic ring, in somewhat this fashion : 

 " A shepherd lad was tending his flock on a mountain side when sud- 

 denly a violent storm arose. The rain fell in torrents, the ground was 

 rent asunder by an earthquake and a yawning gulf opened in the very 

 midst of the flock. Inspired by curiosity, he descended into the gulf 

 and among the marvelous objects he saw a hollow brazen horse," etc. 

 One paper ran thuswise : " A , shepherd one day noticed a large horse 

 standing in a hole in the ground. He climbed inside," etc. Dickens 

 employs pretensions in .the interests of humor, as Joe Gargery's de- 

 ceptive attempts at reading for Pip's benefit. Thackeray's Capt. Paw- 

 don Crawley is a fine specimen of stupid ignorance. I am persuaded 

 that many superstitions are kept alive by their humorous vein. To 

 turn back is bad luck, the " spell " may be broken by making a cross 

 in the path with the big toe and then spitting in it. A negro boy 

 taught us this when children. We did not believe it, but practised 

 it for fun. Inexperience is the lot of childhood, and the condition of 

 its humor, which is expressed in the questions, in the wonderings and 

 in the explanations of child thought. This is abundantly verified in 

 the writings of the " pot-hunters " of childlore. The humor of the 

 credulous appears in a condensed form in their responses to the yarn- 

 spinner and the prank-player. The faith and works of the inventor 

 are often ahead of his time and are therefore sometimes the butt of the 

 common mind. Cervantes made Don Quixote the humorous peer of all 

 time among the over-serious, and Malvolio of Twelfth Night typifies 

 the humor of vanity among individuals of small parts. Putting great 

 force into small matters, exercising much thought over petty ques- 



