Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1875 — The Man Who Laughs. [ARTICLE]

The Man Who Laughs.

No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether and irreclaimably bad. The man who cannot laugh is only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; and his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem. The remark of De Maistre that “the wicked mania never comic” is truly wise, as also is the converse, “that a truly witty man is never wicked.” A laugh, therefore, to be genuine must flow from a joyous heart and a clear and unfettered conscience. Archdeacon Hare observes that “ some of those who have been richest in wit and humor hdjye been among the simplest and kindest hearted of men; and he instances Fuller, Bishop, Earle, Lafontaine, Claudius and Charles Lamb. This life would be but a dull and monotonous existence were not the ordinary and everyday intercourse of society enlivened by sallies of wit and good humor, and there is probably no enjoyment so innocent out of which we derive the same amount of gratification and pleasure as a good, hearty laugh. ■ There is wisdom, then, in a laugh. Philosophers and wise men may exercise their risible muscles without fear of being accounted fools. Laughter and smiles have been favorite themes of the poets, who invariably use this metaphor when describing nature in her most beautiful and varied aspects.

Beauty is never so lovely as when adorned with a smile, and conversation never sits easier upon us than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter. It is difficult at first to feel “at home” with a comparative stranger, however brilliant and learned his conversation may be, until we strike some mutually sympathetic chord. We then know him to be human ; he possesses one vulnerable point through which to reach his heart; and if he be capable of appreciating wit we may not unreasonably conclude that he is also sensitive to other and better influences. There are probably more varieties of laughter than of any other human operation. The most notable is the roaring laugh, round, hearty and boisterous. There are also simpers, sniffs, titters, giggles and guffaws. Steele arranges the several kinds of laughter under the following heads: “ The Dimplers, The Smilers, The Laughers, The Grinners and The Horse-Laughers. The Dimple is practiced to give grace to the features, and is frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover. 'This was called by the ancients the chain laugh. The smile is for the most part confined to the fair sex and the male retinue. It expresses our satisfaction in a silent sort of approbation, and doth not too much disorder the features, and is practised by lovers of the most delicate address. This tender motion of physiognomy the ancients called the lonic laugh. The laugh among us is the common risus of the ancients. The grin, by writers of antiquity, is called the Syncrusian; and was then, as it is at this time, made use of to display a beautiful set of teeth. The horse-laugh, or the sardonic, is made use of with great success in all kinds of disputations. The proficient in this kind by a well-timed laugh will baffle the most solid argument. This upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received with great applause in coffee-house disputes; and that side the laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the better of his antagonist.” Some men laugh in a marvelously comical manner, while the sight alone of another man’s face is the signal for general uproar. A third will set his whole face and body in motion as though doubled up with pain and then bellow forth a huge volume of sound. A fourth jerks his head backward and forward like a Chinese toy, or sways his body to and fro like a pendulum, inwardly convulsed till his face is blue with emotion, when he suddenly bursts forth like a roaring lion, continuing to keep up a series of spasmodic roars at intervals; or he thrusts his hands into his breeches pockets/ shuts his eyes, wriggles about, throws Himsplf into a chair, kicks out his legs and final-' ly collapses quite exhausted, with a face running like a wet blanket. The laugh of Teufelsdrock, as described by Carlyle, is an instance of this kind of immoderate laughter. “Paul, in his serious way, was giving one of those inimitable ’Extraharangues,* and, as it chanced, on the proposal for a cast-metal king; gradually a light kindled in our professor’s eyes andface, a beaming, mantling, loveliest light; through those murky features a radiant, ever-young Apollo looked; and he burst forth like the neighing of all Tattersail’s tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloof, foot clutched in the air—loud, long continuing, uncontrollable, a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head to heel.” It is a well-known fact that laughter conduces to health by accelerating circulation and forcing the venous blood through the lungs. Celcus, one of the oldest writers on medicine, recommended comic representations to his patients as a cure for their various ailments. The physicians of our own day are well aware of the beneficial results that follow when an invalid indulges in a good bona fide laugh. Sterne remarks upon this point: “I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill-health and other evils of life by mirth, being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles—but much more so when he laughs—it adds something to this fragment of life.” Laughter is also conducive to longevity; and in this respect is similar to singing, reading and speaking aloud, which strengthen and invigorate the lungs.— Home Journal.