Humour reveals it in its true dimensions by turning on it the light
of imagination and poetry. The perception of these incongruities,
which are eternal, demands some expense of intellect; a cheaper
amusement may be enjoyed by him who is content to take his stand on
his own habits and prejudices and to laugh at all that does not
square with them. This was the method of the age which, in the
abysmal profound of waggery, engendered that portentous birth, the
comic paper. Foreigners, it is said, do not laugh at the wit of
these journals, and no wonder, for only a minute study of the
customs and preoccupations of certain sections of English society
could enable them to understand the point of view. From time to
time one or another of the writers who are called upon for their
weekly tale of jokes seems struggling upward to the free domain of
Comedy; but in vain, his public holds him down, and compels him to
laugh in chains. Some day, perchance, a literary historian, filled
with the spirit of Cervantes or of Moliere, will give account of
the Victorian era, and, not disdaining small things, will draw a
picture of the society which inspired and controlled so resolute a
jocularity. Then, at last, will the spirit of Comedy recognise
that these were indeed what they claimed to be--comic papers.

"The style is the man;" but the social and rhetorical influences
adulterate and debase it, until not one man in a thousand achieves
his birthright, or claims his second self. The fire of the soul
burns all too feebly, and warms itself by the reflected heat from
the society around it. We give back words of tepid greeting,
without improvement. We talk to our fellows in the phrases we
learn from them, which come to mean less and less as they grow worn
with use. Then we exaggerate and distort, heaping epithet upon
epithet in the endeavour to get a little warmth out of the