Jokes For All Occasions | Page 3

to live without eating, who was successful in reducing the feed to a straw a day, and was about to cut this off when the animal spoiled the test by dying untimely; of the fellow who posed before a looking glass with his eyes closed, to learn how he looked when asleep; of the inquisitive person who held a crow captive in order to test for himself whether it would live two centuries; of the man who demanded to know from an acquaintance met in the street whether it was he or his twin brother who had just been buried. Another Greek jest that has enjoyed a vogue throughout the world at large, and will doubtless survive even prohibition, was the utterance of Diogenes, when he was asked as to what sort of wine he preferred. His reply was: "That of other people."
Again, we may find numerous duplicates of contemporary stories of our own in the collection over which generations of Turks have laughed, the tales of Nasir Eddin. In reference to these, it may be noted that Turkish wit and humor are usually distinguished by a moralizing quality. When a man came to Nasir Eddin for the loan of a rope, the request was refused with the excuse that Nasir's only piece had been used to tie up flour. "But it is impossible to tie up flour with a rope," was the protest. Nasir Eddin answered: "I can tie up anything with a rope when I do not wish to lend it."
When another would have borrowed his ass, Nasir replied that he had already loaned the animal. Thereupon, the honest creature brayed from the stable. "But the ass is there," the visitor cried indignantly. "I hear it!" Nasir Eddin retorted indignantly: "What! Would you take the word of an ass instead of mine?"
In considering the racial characteristics of humor, we should pay tribute to the Spanish in the person of Cervantes, for Don Quixote is a mine of drollery. But the bulk of the humor among all the Latin races is of a sort that our more prudish standards cannot approve. On the other hand, German humor often displays a characteristic spirit of investigation. Thus, the little boy watching the pupils of a girls' school promenading two by two, graded according to age, with the youngest first and the oldest last, inquired of his mother: "Mama, why is it that the girls' legs grow shorter as they grow older?" In the way of wit, an excellent illustration is afforded by Heine, who on receiving a book from its author wrote in acknowledgment of the gift: "I shall lose no time in reading it."
The French are admirable in both wit and humor, and the humor is usually kindly, though the shafts of wit are often barbed. I remember a humorous picture of a big man shaking a huge trombone in the face of a tiny canary in its cage, while he roars in anger: "That's it! Just as I was about, with the velvety tones of my instrument, to imitate the twittering of little birds in the forest, you have to interrupt with your infernal din!" The caustic quality of French wit is illustrated plenteously by Voltaire. There is food for meditation in his utterance: "Nothing is so disagreeable as to be obscurely hanged." He it was, too, who sneered at England for having sixty religions and only one gravy. To an adversary in argument who quoted the minor prophet Habakkuk, he retorted contemptuously: "A person with a name like that is capable of saying anything."
But French wit is by no means always of the cutting sort. Its more amiable aspect is shown by the declaration of Brillat Savarin to the effect that a dinner without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye. Often the wit is merely the measure of absurdity, as when a courtier in speaking of a fat friend said: "I found him sitting all around the table by himself." And there is a ridiculous story of the impecunious and notorious Marquis de Favières who visited a Parisian named Barnard, and announced himself as follows:
"Monsieur, I am about to astonish you greatly. I am the Marquis de Favières. I do not know you, but I come to you to borrow five-hundred luis."
Barnard answered with equal explicitness:
"Monsieur, I am going to astonish you much more. I know you, and I am going to lend them to you."
The amiable malice, to use a paradoxical phrase, which is often characteristic of French tales, is capitally displayed in the following:
The wife of a villager in Poitou became ill, and presently fell into a trance, which deceived even the physician, so that she was pronounced dead, and duly prepared for burial. Following the local usage, the body was wrapped