26 LIFE AND HABIT. 



Mr. Darwin's mind at the time of writing was, un- 

 consciously to himself, in a state of more or less 

 uneasiness as to whether effects could not occasionally 

 come about of themselves, and without cause of any sort, 

 that he may have been standing, in fact, for a short 

 time upon the brink of a denial of the indestructibility 

 of force and matter. 



In like manner, the most perfect humour and irony 

 is generally quite unconscious. Examples of both are 

 frequently given by men whom the world considers as 

 deficient in humour; it is more probably true that 

 these persons are unconscious of their own delightful 

 power .through the very mastery and perfection with 

 which they hold it. There is a play, for instance, of 

 genuine fun in some of the more serious scientific 

 and theological journals which for some time past we 

 have looked for in vain in " ." 



The following extract, from a journal which I will 

 not advertise, may serve as an example : 



" Lycurgus, when they had abandoned to his revenge 

 him who had put out his eyes, took him home, and the 

 punishment he inflicted upon him was sedulous in- 

 structions to virtue." Yet this truly comic paper does 

 not probably know that it is comic, any more than 

 the kleptomaniac knows that he steals, or than John 

 Milton knew he was a humorist when he wrote a 

 hymn upon the circumcision, and spent his honeymoon 

 in composing a treatise on divorce. No more again 

 did Goethe know how exquisitely humorous he was 

 when he wrote, in his "YYilhelm Meister, that a beauti- 

 ful tear glistened in Theresa's right eye, and then went 



