Tears and Cheers.

In the words of O'Sap's fuddled fable, “a fellow fooling makes the whole world spin”; also a ladle of laughter is better than a barrel of giggle-gravy. Humour is the yeast in the bread of life.

A humorist is not necessarily a disseminator of desiccated delirium; he is a purveyor of philharmonic philosophy rather than a universal derider. To extract the “sigh” from the cider squeezed from old Adam's apple, it is necessary for him not only to see others better than they see themselves, but to see himself as he knows he is and wishes he weren't. A humorist is a ready-reckoner who subtracts the “what is” from the “what is supposed to be,” and extracts distraction from the subtraction. He socks Solemnity, puts a premium on Pretence, and alters the gears from tears to cheers.

Mark Twain wrote: “Be good and you'll be lonesome,” and he might have added, “laugh or you'll cry,” for the only thing that keeps the humorist from crying is laughing. To appreciate day one must know night, to recognise a warm heart one must experience cold feet, and to know the wisdom of mirth one must admit the futility of sorrow. Which explains why humour is often tinctured by the tar-brush of Tragedy. In truth, Tragedy and Humour are such close cobbers that it can be said with safety that often a giggle is only a sun-dried sob. Charlie Chaplin, the monarch of the movies (who has proved that silence is golden) demonstrates the use of the “smigh” which, as you know, is a smile with a sigh up its sleeve. He takes the raw pug of pathos, and moulds it into mirth—but mirth soaked in sympathy, laughter laced with love, delight denuded of derision, and jest at its best. Because Charlie lets us see him as he knows he is, and because we know that beneath our bluff we are as he shows he is, we smile the smile of sympathy. For man knows that he is a muddling and middling molecule on the cosmic cuticle, and the strain of buncoing his bank-balance and keeping the shell on his ego tells on his timbre. So, when I admit I'm a mug—which I am—you smile in sympathy, because you know you are a mug too, but have to keep it quiet for the sake of the family. Hence humour is merely Truth out for an airing and, if every man were as honest with himself as his wife thinks he is with her, there would be no humour, and humorists would have to work for their “dough” instead of “cracking” for a crust. Little Tommy Tucker sang for his supper and evidently got breakfast and lunch from the dumb waiter; but the humorist has to banter for breakfast, laugh for lunch, droll for dinner, and swing for supper—if he develops a hiatus in his humoresque; but humorists can even see humour in hunger, and the test of a humorist is the ability to produce a full flush from an empty jackpot.