and, therefore, kind!

But, after all, since it is true that "one touch of humor makes the
whole world grin," what difference does it make what that humor is; what
difference why or wherefore we laugh, since somehow or other, in a sorry
world, we do laugh?

Of the test for a sense of humor, it has already been said that it is
the ability to see a joke. And, as for a joke, the dictionary, again a
present help in time of trouble, tells us at once that it is, "something
said or done for the purpose of exciting a laugh." But stay! Suppose it
does not excite the laugh expected? What of the joke that misses fire?
Shall a joke be judged by its intent or by its consequences? Is a joke
that does not produce a laugh a joke at all? Pragmatically considered it
is not. Agnes Repplier, writing on Humor, speaks of "those beloved
writers whom we hold to be humorists because they have made us laugh."
We hold them to be so--but there seems to be a suggestion that we may be
wrong. Is it possible that the laugh is not the test of the joke? Here
is a question over which the philosophers may wrangle. Is there an
Absolute in the realm of humor, or must our jokes be judged solely by
the pragmatic test? Congreve once told Colly Gibber that there were many
witty speeches in one of Colly's plays, and many that looked witty, yet
were not really what they seemed at first sight! So a joke is not to be
recognized even by its appearance or by the company it keeps. Perhaps
there might be established a test of good usage. A joke would be that at
which the best people laugh.

Somebody--was it Mark Twain?--once said that there are eleven original
jokes in the world--that these were known in prehistoric times, and that
all jokes since have been but modifications and adaptations from the