in his work, the grocer, the clothes' dealer, the merchant, the
apothecary, the doctor, the tinsmith, the furniture-maker, the
engraver, the goldsmith, the maker of paper-shrines for idols, the
barber, the clairvoyant, the fortune-teller, and all others of every
calling which is useful and brings profit to him who pursues it. But
we are deeply interested in the men whom we meet. At first view they
all seem to look alike, you can hardly distinguish one from another.
They are a study. Look on their solemn faces, sphinx-like in their
repose and imperturbability. They are a riddle to you. You rarely ever
hear them laugh. They are like a landscape beneath skies which are
wanting in the sparkling sunbeams. They seem to you as if they had
continual sorrow of heart, as if some wrong of past ages had set its
seal on their features. The Chinaman has very little sense of
the ludicrous, and he is lacking in the elements of intellectual
sprightliness and vivacity which lead a Frenchman or an American to
appreciate and enjoy a sally of wit, a bon mot, or a joke. Life indeed
is better, and a man can bear his burdens with more ease if he has a
sense of humour. Some of the great characters in history have often
come out of the depths with triumph by reason of the spirit within
them which could perceive the flash of wit and apply its medicine to
the wounds of the heart. I think it may be said, as a rule, that the
Asiatic has not the power to appreciate wit and humour like the old
Greek or the Teuton or the Celt. He is not wanting in his love of
the beautiful, in his appreciation of poetry, in the vision which
perceives the flowers blooming by the waters in the desert, and in the
hearing which catches the sound of the harmonies of his palm-trees
and lotus flowers, but in the sense or faculty to seize on mirth
and appropriate her to his service in burden-bearing he is sadly
deficient. He is but a child in this respect. While the Chinaman has
inventive faculties and keen intellect and wonderful imitative powers,