An Outline of Humor

Being a True Chronicle From Prehistoric Ages to the Twentieth Century

Edited by

Carolyn Wells

Editor of “The Book of Humorous Verse,” “A Nonsense Anthology,” etc.

G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York & London The Knickerbocker Press 1923

Copyright, 1923 by Carolyn Wells Houghton

Made in the United States of America

Dedicated WITH Highest Regard TO DOCTOR HUBER GRAY BUEHLER

[v]

FOREWORD

Outlining is a modern art. For centuries we have collected and selected, compiled and compended, but only of late have we outlined.

And an Outline is a result differing in kind from the other work mentioned, and presenting different conditions and contingencies.

An Outline, owing to its sweep of magnificent distances, can touch only the high spots, and can but skim those. Not in its province is criticism or exhaustive commentary. Not in its scope are long effusions or lengthy extracts.

Nor may it include everybody or everything that logically belongs to it.

An Outline is at best an irregular proposition, and the Outliner must follow his irregular path as best he may. But one thing is imperative, the Outliner must be conscientious. He must weigh to the best of his knowledge and belief the claims to inclusion that his opportunities present. He must pick and choose with all the discernment of which he is capable and while following his best principles of taste he must sink his personal preferences in his regard for his Outline as a whole.

Nor can he pick and choose his audience. To one reader,—or critic,—a hackneyed selection is tiresome, while to another it is a novelty and a revelation. And it must be remembered that a hackneyed poem is a favorite one and a favorite is one adjudged best, by a consensus of human opinion, and is therefore a high spot to be touched upon.

While the Outline is generally chronological, it is not a history and dates are not given. Also, when it seemed advisable to desert the chronological path for the topographical one, that was done.

[vi]

Yet Foreign Literatures cannot be adequately treated in an Outline printed in English. Translations are at best misleading. If the translation is a poor one, the pith and moment of the original is partly, or wholly lost. And if the translation be of great merit, the work may show the merit of the new rendition rather than the original.

And aside from all that, few translations of Humor are to be found.

The translators of foreign tongues choose first the philosophy, the fiction or the serious poetry of the other nations, leaving the humor, if any there be, to hang unplucked on the tree of knowledge.

So the foreign material is scant, but the high spots are touched as far as could be found convenient.

The Outline stops at the year 1900. Humor since then is too close to be viewed in proper perspective.

But the present Outliner mainly hopes to show how, with steady footstep, from the Caveman to the current comics Humor has followed the Flag.

C. W.

New York,

April, 1923.

[vii]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All rights on poems and prose in this volume are reserved by the authorized publisher, the author, or the holder of copyright, with whom special arrangements have been made for including such material in this work. The editor expresses thanks for such permission as indicated below.

D. Appleton & Company: For “To a Mosquito” by William Cullen Bryant; “Tushmaker’s Tooth-Puller” by G. H. Derby; and for “The Sad End of Brer Wolf” by Joel C. Harris, from Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings.

The Century Co.: For an extract from the “Chimmie Fadden” stories; and for the poem “What’s in a Name?” by R. K. Munkittrick.

David McKay Company: For “Ballad of the Noble Ritter Hugo” by Charles G. Leland.

Dodd, Mead and Company: For “At the Sign of the Cock” by Owen Seaman; “Here Is the Tale” by Anthony C. Deane; and “On a Fan” and “The Rondeau” by Austin Dobson.

Forbes & Company: For “If I Should Die To-Night” and “The Pessimist” by Ben King.

Harper & Brothers: For “Elegy” and “Mavrone” by Arthur Guiterman. With the permission of the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens, the Mark Twain Company, and Harper & Brothers, publishers, with a full reservation of all copyright privileges is included an extract from the “Jumping Frog” by Mark Twain.

Hurst & Company: For an extract from “Bill Nye.”

Houghton Mifflin Company: With their permission and by special arrangement with them as authorized publishers of the following authors’ works, are used selections from: Charles E. Carryl, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James T. Fields, Bret Harte, John Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, John G. Saxe, E. R. Sill, Bayard Taylor.

Little, Brown & Company: For five limericks and “The Two Old Bachelors” from Nonsense Books.

[viii]

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.: For “A Philosopher” by Sam Walter Foss from Dreams in Homespun; also for an extract from “The Partington Papers” by B. P. Shillaber.

The Macmillan Company: For verses from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Charles Scribner’s Sons: For “Two Men” and “Miniver Cheevy” by E. A. Robinson from The Children of the Night and The Town Down the River.

Small, Maynard & Company: For an extract from Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley).

[ix]

INTRODUCTION

Speaking exactly, an Outline of the World’s Humor is an impossibility.

For surely the adjectives most applicable to humor are elusive, evasive, evanescent, ephemeral, intangible, imponderable, and other terms expressing unavailability.

To outline such a thing is like trying to trap a sunbeam or bound an ocean.

Yet an Outline of the History of the World’s recorded humor as evolved by the Human Race, seems within the possibilities.

First of all, it must be understood that the term humor is here used in its broadest, most comprehensive sense. Including both wit and humor; including the comic, fun, mirth, laughter, gayety, repartee,—all types and classes of jests and jokes.

The earliest reference to this mental element is that of Aristotle, and the word he uses to represent it is translated the Ridiculous.

His definition states that the Ridiculous is that which is in itself incongruous, without involving the notion of danger or pai

Coleridge thus refers to Aristotle’s definition:

“Where the laughable is its own end, and neither inference nor moral is intended, or where at least the writer would wish it so to appear, there arises what we call drollery. The pure, unmixed, ludicrous or laughable belongs exclusively to the understanding, and must be presented under the form of the senses; it lies within the spheres of the eye and the ear, and hence is allied to the fancy. It does not appertain to the[4] reason or the moral sense, and accordingly is alien to the imagination. I think Aristotle has already excellently defined the laughable, τò γελοíον, as consisting of, or depending on, what is out of its proper time and place, yet without danger or pain. Here the impropriety—τò ἄτοπον—is the positive qualification; the dangerlessness—τò ἀχίνδυνον—the negative. The true ludicrous is its own end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is felt as serious, however comically drest, free and genuine laughter ceases; it becomes sardonic. This you experience in reading Young, and also not

unfrequently in Butler. The true comic is the blossom of the nettle.”

Yet, notwithstanding Coleridge’s scientific views on the subject, Humor is not an exact science. It is, more truly, an art, whose principles are based on several accepted theories, and some other theories, not so readily accepted or admitted only in part by these who have thought and written on the subject.

A true solution of the mystery of why a joke makes us laugh, has yet to be found. To the mind of the average human being, anything that makes him laugh is a joke. Why it does so, there are very few to know and fewer still to care.

Nor are the Cognoscenti in much better plight. A definition of humor has been attempted by many great and wise minds. Like squaring the circle, it has been argued about repeatedly, it has been written about voluminously. It has been settled in as many different ways as there have been commentators on the subject. And yet no definition, no formula has ever been evolved that is entirely satisfactory.

Aristotle’s theory of the element of the incongruous has come to be known as the Disappointment theory, or Frustrated Expectation.

But Aristotle voiced another theory, which he, in turn, derived from Plato.

Plato said, though a bit indefinitely, that the pleasure we derive in laughing at the comic is an enjoyment of other[5] people’s misfortune, due to a feeling of superiority or gratified vanity that we ourselves are not in like plight.

This is called the Derision theory, and as assimilated and expressed by Aristotle comes near to impinging on and coinciding with his own Disappointment theory.

Moreover, he attempted to combine the two.

For, he said, we always laugh at someone, but in the case, where laughter arises from a deceived expectation, our mistake makes us laugh at ourselves.

In fact, Plato held, in his vague and indefinite statements that there is a disappointment element, a satisfaction element, and sometimes a combination of the two in the make-up of the thing we are calling Humor.

All of which is not very enlightening, but it is to be remembered that those were the first fluttering flights of imagination that sought to pin down the whole matter; yet among the scores that have followed, diverging in many directions, we must admit few, if any, are much more succinct or satisfactory.

The Derision or Discomfiture Theory holds that all pleasure in laughing at a comic scene is an enjoyment of another’s discomfiture. Yet it must be only discomfiture, not grave misfortune or sorrow.

If a man’s hat blows off and he runs out into the street after it, we laugh; but if he is hit by a passing motor car, we do not laugh. If a fat man slips on a banana peel and lands in a mud puddle, we laugh; but if he breaks his leg we do not laugh.

It is the ridiculous discomfiture of another that makes a joke, not the serious accident, and though there are other types and other theories of the cause of humor, doubtless the majority of jokes are based on this principle.

From the Circus Clown to Charlie Chaplin, episodes of discomfiture make us laugh. Every newspaper cartoon or comic series hinges on the discomfiture of somebody. The fly on the bald head, the collar button under the bureau, the henpecked husband, all depend for their humor on the trifling misfortune that makes its victim ridiculous.

An enjoyment of this discomfiture of a fellow man is[6] inherent in human nature, and though there are subtler jests, yet this type has a grip on the risibilities that can never be loosened.

Can we doubt that it was the Serpent’s laughing at the discomfiture of Adam and Eve, caught in deshabille, that caused them to rush for the nearest fig tree? Or perhaps, their eyes being opened, they laughed at one another. Anyway, they were decidedly discomfited, and did their best to remedy matters.

This Derision Theory includes also the jests at the ignorance or stupidity of another. The enormous vogue of the Noodle jokes, some centuries ago, hinged on the delight felt in the superiority of the hearer over the subject of the jest. All laughable blunders, every social faux pas, all funny stories of children’s sayings and doings are based on the consciousness of superiority. Practical jokes represent the simplest form of this theory, as in them the discomfiture of the other person is the prime element, with no subtle byplay to relieve it.

A mild example is the polite rejoinder of the street car conductor when a lady asked at which end of the car she should get off.

“Either end, madame,” he responded, “both ends stop.”

An extreme specimen is the man who told the story of a burning house—“I saw a fellow up on the roof,” he related, “and I called to him, ‘Jump, and I’ll catch you in a blanket!’ Well, I had to laugh,—he jumped,—and I didn’t have no blanket!”

Implied discomfiture is in the story of the agnostic, who was buried in his evening clothes. “Poor Jim,” said a funeral guest; “he didn’t believe in Heaven and he didn’t believe in Hell; and there he lies, all dressed up and no place to go!”

Almost a practical joke is the man who, reading a newspaper, suddenly exclaimed, “Why, here’s a list of people who won’t eat onions any more!” And when his hearer asked to see the list, he handed over the obituary column.

The Disappointment Theory, though overlapping the[7] Derision Theory at times, is based on the idea that the essence of the laughable is the incongruous.

Hazlitt says:

“We laugh at absurdity; we laugh at deformity. We laugh at a bottle-nose in a caricature; at a stuffed figure of an alderman in a pantomime, and at the tale of Slaukenbergius. A dwarf standing by a giant makes a contemptible figure enough. Rosinante and Dapple are laughable from contrast, as their masters from the same principle make two for a pair. We laugh at the dress of foreigners, and they at ours. Three chimney-sweepers meeting three Chinese in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, they laughed at one another till they were ready to drop down. Country people laugh at a person because they never saw him before. Any one dressed in the height of the fashion, or quite out of it, is equally an object of ridicule. One rich source of the ludicrous is distress with which we cannot sympathize from its absurdity or insignificance. It is hard to hinder children from laughing at a stammerer, at a negro, at a drunken man, or even at a madman. We laugh at mischief. We laugh at what we do not believe. We say that an argument or an assertion that is

very absurd, is quite ludicrous. We laugh to show our satisfaction with ourselves, or our contempt for those about us, or to conceal our envy or our ignorance. We laugh at fools, and at those who pretend to be wise—at extreme simplicity, awkwardness, hypocrisy, and affectation.”

A beautiful definition of the Disappointment Theory is Max Eastman’s, “The experience of a forward motion of interest sufficiently definite so that its ‘coming to nothing’ can be felt.”

Mr. Eastman says further:

“It is more like a reflex action than a mental result. It arises in the very act of perception, when that act is brought to nothing by two conflicting qualities of fact or feeling. It arises when some numb habitual activity, suddenly obstructed,[8] first appears in consciousness with an announcement of its own failure. The blockage of an instinct, a collision between two instincts, the interruption of a habit, a ‘conflict of habit systems,’ a disturbed or misapplied reflex—all these catastrophes, as well as the coming to nothing of an effort at conceptual thought, must enter into the meaning of the word disappointment, if it is to explain the whole field of practical humor. The ‘strain’ in that expectation is what makes it capable of humorous collapse. It is an active expectation. The feelings are involved.”

The point of the Disappointment Theory, that of frustrating a carefully built up expectation is exemplified in jests like these.

“Is your wife entertaining this winter?” asks one society man of another. “Not very,” is the reply.

“I have to go to Brooklyn—” says a perplexed-looking old lady to a traffic policeman. “Are you asking directions, ma’am, or just telling me your troubles?”

The incongruity may be merely a collocution of words.

Mark Twain described Turner’s Slave Ship as “A tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes.”

In a newspaper cartoon, a wife says to her husband, “Even if it is Sunday morning and a terribly hot day, that’s no reason you should go around looking like the dog’s breakfast!”

So we see the element of surprise must be combined with the element of appropriate inappropriateness to gain the desired result.

In this story expectation is aroused for a human tragedy. The incongruity and disappointment make its humor.

As Mr. Caveman was gnawing at a bone in his cave one morning, Mrs. Caveman rushed in, exclaiming, “Quick! get your club! Oh, quick!”

“What’s the matter?” growled Mr. Caveman.

“A sabre-toothed tiger is chasing mother!” gasped his wife.

Mr. Caveman uttered an expression of annoyance.

“And what the deuce do I care,” he said, “what happens to a sabre-toothed tiger?”

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It must be admitted that a hard and fast line cannot be drawn between the two theories given us by the Greek philosophers.

Cicero subscribed to the Derision theory, and said the ridiculous rested on a certain meanness and deformity, and a joke to be pleasing must be on somebody. But he declared, also, that the most eminent kind of the ridiculous is that in which we expect to hear one thing and hear another said.

Several other Greek and Roman philosophers tackled the subject without adding anything of importance, and some of them, as well as later writers declared that the comic could never be defined, but is to be appreciated only by taste and natural discernment; while many moderns agree that all theories are inadequate and contradictory, however useful they may be for convenience in discussion.

Perhaps the trouble may be that only serious-minded people attempt a definition of humor, and they are not the ones best fitted for the work.

For the discussion goes on still, and is as fascinating to some types of mentality as is the question of perpetual motion or the Fountain of Immortal Youth.

A useful commentary on the matter, and one appropriate at this juncture is the following extract from the works of the celebrated theologian, Dr. Isaac Barrow, an Englishman of the Seventeenth century.

“It may be demanded,” says he, “what the thing we speak of is, and what this facetiousness doth import; to which question I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man—’Tis that which we all see and know! and one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notice thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in[10] seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of luminous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude. Sometimes it is lodged in