Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1917 — YES, LAUGH AT YOURSELF [ARTICLE]

YES, LAUGH AT YOURSELF

Much Wisdom Is Needed If Ws AM ' Bee Ourselves as Others See Us. Laughter is a mark of intelligence only when one is able to laugh at himself, to smile with others at his own awkwardness, whims, shortcomings and personal peculiar!ties, , remarks the New York Tribune. One needs a certain amount of wisdom in order to know when he is making himself ridiculous. He ipust be big enough and wise enough to put himself in another’s place and see himself as others see him. It is then that laughter serves the purpose of a corrective and a means of self-discipline. But this requires a certain breadth of vision which not everyone possesses. Lincoln had it, and with all the sadness and tragedy of his life this ability to laugh at himself kept him sweet and human, saved his wit from irony and cynicism, and enabled him to laugh, not at people but with them. It is this trait of quaint self-ridicule and aloofness from that petty sense of dignity which spurns self-criticism which constitutes the true sense of humor. All the great humorists, from Aristophanes to Mark Twain havq had it. Half the fun of life must be enjoyed at one’s own expense. ' A man may be dead in earnest in his devotion to some great cause, as was Lincoln, yet keep his faith in himself and his ideals. It is this sense of humor which preserves balance and saves a man from bigotry and fanaticism. For want of it among good people and reformers many a noble cause has failed and many a moral ideal has been rendered almost unendurable.