In good truth, we know what a man is like by the things he finds
laughable, we gauge both his understanding and his culture by his
sense of the becoming and of the absurd. If the capacity for laughter
be one of the things which separates men from brutes, the quality
of laughter draws a sharp dividing-line between the trained
intelligence and the vacant mind. The humour of a race interprets
the character of a race, and the mental condition of which laughter
is the expression is something which it behooves the student of human
nature and the student of national traits to understand very clearly.

Now our American humour is, on the whole, good-tempered and decent.
It is scandalously irreverent (reverence is a quality which seems
to have been left out of our composition); but it has neither the
pitilessness of the Latin, nor the grossness of the Teuton jest. As
Mr. Gilbert said of Sir Beerbohm Tree's "Hamlet," it is funny without
being coarse. We have at our best the art of being amusing in an
agreeable, almost an amiable, fashion; but then we have also the rare
good fortune to be very easily amused. Think of the current jokes
provided for our entertainment week by week, and day by day. Think
of the comic supplement of our Sunday newspapers, designed for the
refreshment of the feeble-minded, and calculated to blight the
spirits of any ordinarily intelligent household. Think of the
debilitated jests and stories which a time-honoured custom inserts
at the back of some of our magazines. It seems to be the custom of
happy American parents to report to editors the infantile prattle
of their engaging little children, and the editors print it for the
benefit of those who escape the infliction firsthand. There is a
story, pleasant but piteous, of Voltaire's listening with what
patience he could muster to a comedy which was being interpreted by