"A PROPHET OF THE SOUI" 



His essay on laughter is undoubtedly the most 

 convincing and satisfactory exposition of the subject 

 that has yet been made. One phase of its central 

 idea, namely, that we laugh at inanimate objects 

 when they behave like human beings and vice versa, 

 I saw illustrated at a farmhouse in the Catskills 

 last summer. The water from a spring on the hill 

 was brought to the house in a pipe which discharged 

 into a half -barrel near the kitchen door. Into the 

 end of a pipe a plug had been driven with a good 

 sized gimlet-hole in the end of it. Out of this hole a 

 jet of water came with great force, striking the water 

 in the tub a few inches from the rim, at an angle of 

 about forty-five degrees, and driving deeply into it. 

 One day I was washing some apples in the tub, and 

 while they were floating about I noticed that they 

 all tended to line up on the west side of the barrel 

 and then move up in a slow, hesitating manner to a 

 point just behind the jet of water. I became an in- 

 terested spectator. Slowly the apples hi procession 

 in close line turned toward the little vortex made 

 by the jet. The one in the lead seemed to hesitate 

 just on the edge of the danger-line, as if it would fain 

 draw back; then, while you were looking, it would 

 so suddenly disappear beneath the plunging jet that 

 the eye could not trace its movements; its hesitation 

 was followed by such a lightning-like plunge that it 

 astonished one. One fancied he could almost see 

 tiny heels flash in the air as the apple went down. 

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