Americans and Others | Page 6

be privileged to
say his mother was beautiful, without inviting such a very obvious
sarcasm. But when Madame de Stael pestered Talleyrand to say what
he would do if he saw her and Madame Recamier drowning, the
immortal answer, "_Madame de Stael sait tant de choses, que sans
doute elle peut nager_," seems as kind as the circumstances warranted.
"Corinne's" vanity was of the hungry type, which, crying perpetually
for bread, was often fed with stones.
It has been well said that the difference between a man's habitual
rudeness and habitual politeness is probably as great a difference as he
will ever be able to make in the sum of human happiness; and the
arithmetic of life consists in adding to, or subtracting from, the
pleasurable moments of mortality. Neither is it worth while to draw
fine distinctions between pleasure and happiness. If we are indifferent
to the pleasures of our fellow creatures, it will not take us long to be
indifferent to their happiness. We do not grow generous by ceasing to
be considerate.
As a matter of fact, the perpetual surrender which politeness dictates
cuts down to a reasonable figure the sum total of our selfishness. To
listen when we are bored, to talk when we are listless, to stand when we
are tired, to praise when we are indifferent, to accept the
companionship of a stupid acquaintance when we might, at the expense
of politeness, escape to a clever friend, to endure with smiling
composure the near presence of people who are distasteful to us,--these
things, and many like them, brace the sinews of our souls. They set a
fine and delicate standard for common intercourse. They discipline us
for the good of the community.
We cannot ring the bells backward, blot out the Civil War, and
exchange the speed of modern life for the slumberous dignity of the
Golden Age,--an age whose gilding brightens as we leave it

shimmering in the distance. But even under conditions which have the
disadvantage of existing, the American is not without gentleness of
speech and spirit. He is not always in a hurry. He is not always
elbowing his way, or quivering with ill-bred impatience. Turn to him
for help in a crowd, and feel the bright sureness of his response. Watch
him under ordinary conditions, and observe his large measure of
forbearance with the social deficiencies of his neighbour. Like Steele,
he deems it humanity to laugh at an indifferent jest, and he has thereby
earned for himself the reputation of being readily diverted. If he lacks
the urbanities which embellish conversation, he is correspondingly free
from the brutalities which degrade it. If his instinct does not prompt
him to say something agreeable, it saves him from being wantonly
unkind. Plain truths may be salutary; but unworthy truths are those
which are destitute of any spiritual quality, which are not noble in
themselves, and which are not nobly spoken; which may be trusted to
offend, and which have never been known to illuminate. It is not for
such asperities that we have perfected through the ages the priceless
gift of language, that we seek to meet one another in the pleasant
comradeship of life.

The Mission of Humour
"Laughter is my object: 'tis a property In man, essential to his reason."
THOMAS RANDOLPH, _The Muses' Looking-Glass_.
American humour is the pride of American hearts. It is held to be our
splendid national characteristic, which we flaunt in the faces of other
nations, conceiving them to have been less favoured by Providence.
Just as the most effective way to disparage an author or an
acquaintance--and we have often occasion to disparage both--is to say
that he lacks a sense of humour, so the most effective criticism we can
pass upon a nation is to deny it this valuable quality. American critics
have written the most charming things about the keenness of American
speech, the breadth and insight of American drollery, the electric
current in American veins; and we, reading these pleasant felicitations,
are wont to thank God with greater fervour than the occasion demands

that we are more merry and wise than our neighbours. Mr. Brander
Matthews, for example, has told us that there are newspaper writers in
New York who have cultivated a wit, "not unlike Voltaire's." He
mistrusts this wit because he finds it "corroding and disintegrating"; but
he makes the comparison with that casual assurance which is a feature
of American criticism.
Indeed, our delight in our own humour has tempted us to overrate both
its literary value and its corrective qualities. We are never so apt to lose
our sense of proportion as when we consider those beloved writers
whom we hold to be humourists because they have made us laugh. It
may be conceded that, as