Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



67 



WHAT IS HUMOUR? 

 Df.fixitions by English Humorists. 



The first December number of La Revue contains 

 a symposium, edited by M. Maurice Dekobr.i, on 

 Humour. Several English writers and a few French 

 writers and one or two of other nationalities have 

 contributed, but the English humorists are rightly 

 accorded the place of honour. 



HREVirV THE SOUL OF WIT? 



Mr. Hernard Shaw rather dismisses than answers 

 the question in these words : — 



Humour cannot be defined. It is a primary substance wliich 

 makes us laugh. Vou niiijht as well try to prove a dogma ! 



He is followed by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, who 

 contents himself by saying, " I do not think humour 

 can be explained. I would define it as that which 

 strikes us by its drollery." .Mr. Zangwill's definition 

 is of the briefest. He says, " Humour is the smile 

 in the look of wisdom." 



HU.MOUR A DISINFECTANT. 



Mr. R. C. Carton, the playwright, has taken more 

 trouble with his answer. He considers that humour 

 is to cur existence what oxygen is to the air we 

 breathe. Few persons probably have ever con- 

 sidered what our daily existence would be were 

 laughter to be banished. If humour cannot save 

 us entirely from the unhealthy germs of sorrow and 

 misery, it remains the best disinfectant which science 

 has not discovered. The man who po.ssesses inter- 

 nally a sense of humour has found the real 

 philosopher's stone, which turns to gold all the 

 little worries and anxieties of life — and especially 

 the worries and anxieties of others. Mr. Carton 

 wonders whether humour, wit, and irony will have a 

 good place in the future life. He thinks it is a 

 question of the highest importance. 



novelists' conceptions. 



Mr. W. Pett Ridge writes that he has often tried 

 10 define humour, but has always failed. With us 

 the modern method is to laugh at the heroes of 

 romance rather than to laugh ;vith them. \ humorous 

 ^tory ought to have an unexpected ending. Every 

 rountry has its own humour and thinks it the best, 

 lokcs which make Americans laugh till they cry 

 ieave us uimiovcd, and some I'rench comic journals 

 do not maki: us smile. He believes the English 

 have more affinity with the (Iirinans. Humour nuist 

 go straight to the point, otherwise it misses its eflect 

 entirely. 



Everybody appreciates humour, says E. Ansley, but 

 the particular humour which each race prefers is an 

 affair of climate. He is unable to give a .satisfactory 

 definition, but suggests "A delicious coiHi-[nion of 

 the incongruous." 



A literary DEFINiriON. 



Mr. W. L. Courtney describes humour as the 

 minute observation of life, with its alternations of 

 sunshine and clouds, and th'^ power to combat 



melancholy thoughts by an irony, now grave, now 

 gay, whieh shows us the insignificant brevity of every- 

 thing which agitates the human heart. 



HUMOUR AMERICAN AND ENGLISH. 



Finally, among the English replies, comes that of 

 Mr. Owen Seaman, the editor of Punch. He has 

 written quite a little essay, in which he points out 

 that humour depends largely on contrast, incongruity, 

 and a subjective sense of superiority. This is the 

 humour of facts or ideas, and it is common to all 

 nations. But there is humour of form and expression 

 which varies according to race. In America, for 

 instance, humour is characterised by exaggeration, 

 the suppression of one of the elements in a chain of 

 facts, and a picturesque wealth of metaphor. In 

 England, on the other hand, humour is characterised 

 by the use of implications, equivalent in the physical 

 domain to the strength held in reserve by an athlete. 

 It embraces irony in the widest sense, as well as the 

 art of discreet suggestion. But apart from these 

 general characteristics, English humour has its own 

 peculiar means of literary expression. In England 

 the literary relationship between laughter and tears is 

 a very clo.se one. 



RIDICULE KILLS. 



If it is true that in France ridicule kills, it is much 

 more true in England, points out Mr. Seaman. The 

 majority of English people pass half their existence 

 in trying not to be ridiculous, with the result that 

 they often disarm ridicule by anticipating it. The 

 Englishman will laugh at himself and his failures and 

 the uuperfections of English national institutions. Not 

 so the .American. He may hold up to ridicule fellow- 

 citizens individually, but he will never ridicule his 

 country or its institutions. 



"COLUMBUS DAY." 

 The Bulletin of the Pan-American Union describes 

 the progress of Columbus Day in the Americas. It 

 says : — 



The cclebrplion of October 12th as Columbus Day is becoming 

 ,T movement of imporlance. 'I'here are increasing hopes thai ihe 

 goal of a Pan-.\merican day — an international festival in which 

 the entire Western Hemisphere will join in comn\emoralion of 

 the discovery of America— is every year closer to realisation. 



Discovery Day, the anniversary of October I2lh, 1492, it has 

 been called, and it would be diflicult to select a more ap|iro- 

 ptiate name. No one part of America is more interested than 

 any other. None of the great divisions — Noith, Central, or 

 .•south America-has a larger interest than any of the others, 

 although the West Indies would naturally have the more alluring 

 Ill-Id for local celebrations, because many places could be 

 marked (here .-is having ac'ually been touched l)y Columbus 

 himself. Vel Ihe influence of the great navigator spreads vitally 

 from Alaska to Cape Horn. 



Discovery Day is also officially celebrated in twenty 

 of the United States, and in Brazil, Columbia, Co'sta 

 Rica, I'anama, and Peru. It is expected that Ijofore 

 long October i2tli will become an international 

 holiday, second only to the universal recognition and 

 observance of Christmas. 



