It is hard to estimate the value of humour as a national trait. Life
has its appropriate levities, its comedy side. We cannot "see it
clearly and see it whole," without recognizing a great many
absurdities which ought to be laughed at, a great deal of nonsense
which is a fair target for ridicule. The heaviest charge brought
against American humour is that it never keeps its target well in
view. We laugh, but we are not purged by laughter of our follies;
we jest, but our jests are apt to have a kitten's sportive
irresponsibility. The lawyer offers a witticism in place of an
argument, the diner-out tells an amusing story in lieu of
conversation. Even the clergyman does not disdain a joke, heedless
of Dr. Johnson's warning which should save him from that pitfall.
Smartness furnishes sufficient excuse for the impertinence of
children, and with purposeless satire the daily papers deride the
highest dignitaries of the land.

Yet while always to be reckoned with in life and letters, American
humour is not a powerful and consistent factor either for destruction
or for reform. It lacks, for the most part, a logical basis, and the
dignity of a supreme aim. Moliere's humour amounted to a philosophy
of life. He was wont to say that it was a difficult task to make
gentlefolk laugh; but he succeeded in making them laugh at that which
was laughable in themselves. He aimed his shafts at the fallacies
and the duplicities which his countrymen ardently cherished, and he
scorned the cheaper wit which contents itself with mocking at idols
already discredited. As a result, he purged society, not of the
follies that consumed it, but of the illusion that these follies were
noble, graceful, and wise. "We do not plough or sow for fools," says
a Russian proverb, "they grow of themselves"; but humour has
accomplished a mighty work if it helps us to see that a fool is a