CHAPTER XV 

 LAUGHTER 



THE ancients associated laughter with the New Year. 

 I am not sure whether or no it is of good omen to 

 begin the New Year with laughter. Omens are such 

 tricky things that I have given up paying any attention 

 to them. One would think it might be held to be unlucky 

 to stumble on the doorstep as you set out from home, but 

 the old omen-wizards, apparently from sheer love of contra- 

 diction, said, " Not at all ! It is unlucky to stumble as 

 you come into the house, and therefore it is lucky to 

 stumble as you go out ! " 



What is laughter? It is a spasmodic movement of 

 various muscles of the body, beginning with those which 

 half close the eyes and those which draw backwards and 

 upwards the sides of the mouth, and open it so as to 

 expose the teeth, next affecting those of respiration so as 

 to produce short rapidly succeeding expirations accom- 

 panied by sound (called " guffaws " when in excess), and 

 then extending to the limbs, causing up and down move- 

 ment of the half-closed fists and stamping of the feet, and 

 ending in a rolling on the ground and various contortions 

 of the body. Clapping the hands is not part of the 

 laughter " process," but a separate, often involuntary, 

 action which has the calling of attention to oneself as its 

 explanation, just as slapping the ground or a table or 

 one's thigh has. Laughter is spontaneous, that is to say, 



