Part 1

WIT, HUMOR, AND SHAKSPEARE.

In Press:

_The West-Easterly Divan of Goethe._

Translated, with an Introduction and Notes,

By John Weiss.

[Ready in December.]

WIT, HUMOR, AND SHAKSPEARE.

Twelve Essays.

By JOHN WEISS.

BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1876.

_Copyright_, 1876, By John Weiss.

_Cambridge: Press of John Wilson & Son._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. The Cause of Laughter 3

II. Wit, Irony, Humor 33

III. Dogberry, Malvolio, Troilus and Cressida (Ajax), Bottom, Touchstone 73

IV. Falstaff: his Companions; Americanisms 119

V. Hamlet 151

VI. The Porter in "Macbeth," the Clown in "Twelfth Night," the Fool in "Lear" 185

VII. Women and Men: Maria, Helena, Imogen, Constance 211

VIII. Lord Bacon and the Plays, Shakspeare's Women, Love in Shakspeare 245

IX. Portia 301

X. Helena; Ophelia 327

XI. Macbeth 361

XII. Blonde Women: Lady Macbeth 397

THE CAUSE OF LAUGHTER.

This Subject is best reached from the point of reflecting that, of all the animals, man alone appears to be capable of laughter. If, as so many naturalists now claim, man has ascended by successive evolutions of varieties from a lower animal type, we ought to be able to find some germs of the laughing propensity among our ancestors. The first witness we summon on this question is the anatomist, because the physical expression that accompanies an act of laughter depends upon the connection of the respiratory nerves with the diaphragm below and the orbicular and straight muscles of the mouth above. But these muscles are not perfectly developed in the animals. When dogs are fondly gambolling about you, there is "a slight eversion of the lips," which is a rudimentary hint of man's facial expression in an act of mirth. The dog has been the associate of human moods in all countries, and for thousands of years; yet, although we are told that "the little dog laughed to see the sport," he has not yet made up his mouth for any thing more emphatic than a simper.

Some kinds of monkeys have established a facial expression, accompanied with a laughing noise, which is so like the human that we might charge them with being entertained at the practical jokes which they pass upon each other, or over some obscurer sense of sylvan incongruity. We can see, at least, that Nature was preparing in them the nervous connections which men employ to transmit their pleasurable emotions; as the flexible plants which dangle by the streams and chasms of the Andes are woven by his after-thought to span the intervals, and the good cheer of humanity passes to and fro.

The respiratory nerves radiate from their centre in the medulla oblongata, the place to which the brain must transmit the first shock of the surprise which ends in smiling and laughing. Thence it is transmitted to the heart and diaphragm, quickening the action of the one, and setting the other in motion, at the same instant climbing to engage the facial nerves in sympathy; then the orbicular muscles retract, forcing the cheek up towards the eye, and tightening the muscles which surround the eyelid.

All our passions appear to claim the respiratory nerves for outward expression. They are a signal corps which communicate by hoisting the blush, the smile; by letting fall the tear, by the exhalation of a sigh, by the explosions of laughter. The life-breaths of joy and grief tend primitively to the lungs, and they voice the mother-tongue of all emotions.

I have often wondered how animals can avoid being struck with the differences which exist among themselves, so much more salient and intrusive than among the races of men, in shape, gestures, tones, and habits. What a wide range of Nature's curious freakery a forest has, or a district of country like those plains and thickets of Africa, where the natives dig their great pit and organize a monster drive! Into it falls every thing which cannot escape to either side. The giraffe, elephant, gnu, antelope, hartbeest, zebra, jackal,--think of the commingling of strange discrepancies thus suddenly collected! Were it not for the panic which prevails, and the accidents to life and limb, one would suppose that they ought to be aware of Nature's whims in themselves, and to narrowly escape inventing amusement. But curiosity and aversion probably exhaust the speculative possibilities of animals in this direction.

It is true, we occasionally hear of happy families, like that of the prairie-dog who has an owl and a rattlesnake to share his housekeeping, which they do with zest; for they have established a taste for the young of the prairie-dog, and they hire his tenement only with an eye to business.

When a great freshet takes possession of a country, and evicts the tenants of every hole, thicket, and burrow, there is an indiscriminate stampede of the animals for the driest and safest places: hares, rattlesnakes, mice, cats, and the carnivora cling together to the tops of trees, or wait in terror on the highest hills. So a prairie fire startles all the wild creatures with its sweep into a promiscuous race towards some spot that cannot be tenanted by flame. There they might observe the strange traits which shun each other in ordinary times or seek each other only when hunger demands its toll. While the fright and the dread of death are beginning to pass off are these creatures insensibly attracted to notice each other? Probably only as a curious deer observes a man. The danger has not established any sympathy between them. And they separate without any better opinion of each other, nor approach to geniality. Even men who are strangers, and in general dissociated by the distinctions of society, will be thrown together by some stress of the moment, part with a mutual feeling of relief, and resume their predilections. Yet man only is endowed with the magnanimity to welcome the emergencies which abolish superficial differences. They can be invaded by a circumstance which comprises them under an idea different from those which keep them asunder; and this new congruity can make the forced society congenial. It is Nature's witty rendering of the text that declares all men of one blood. The effect is grave, and under some conditions it may reach an heroic stature, but the root of wit is the nourisher; and only those creatures who are capable of annihilating capricious distinctions by a feeling of common humanness are capable of enjoying the union of heterogeneous ideas.

What mutual impression do a dog and a duck make? He runs around with frolic transpiring in his tail, and barks to announce a wish to fraternize; or perhaps it is a short and nervous bark, and indicates unsettled views about ducks. Meantime, the duck waddles off with an inane quack, so remote from a bark that it must convince any well-informed dog of the hopelessness of proposing either business or pleasure to such a doting and toothless pate. He certainly must have overheard the conversation of his betters, when the Shallows, Slenders, and Silences are near. What a prompt retreat human beings make, and what wariness is expended in steering clear of them for the future! Yet I never feel quite sure that the dunces are not amused at the manœuvre. Is there a human being permitted to live without wit enough to know when he is avoided? Even this duck has a twinkle in that bead of an eye, as it rejoins the other ducks, that seems to convey to us its sense of the absurdness of a creature so caninely exuberant. Or was it a duck which I noticed? I am sure I have often seen creatures who are hopelessly posed or scandalized waddle away from some superior extravagance.

What vague auroral flittings of human perception pass beneath that horrid crest of the gorilla, as he elevates it in astonishment at encountering a creature of matchless symmetry like the wild ass, of picturesqueness like the zebra, of remote rarity like a beautiful woman! As for cockatoos, parrots, and macaws, I am convinced they are an endless source of amusement to the monkey tribe, who pelt them with nuts to make them scream and scold. Monkeys have a great flow of animal spirits: this, with their imitative talent and quick observation, renders them capable of entertaining ludicrous impressions. But one must be very closely related to the anthropoid ape, if not quite recently derived from it, to tell what they are.

There are many well-attested cases of an absolute enjoyment among animals that sometimes rises to the pitch of mirthfulness. One day, Dr. Kane came across a long, icy, inclined shoot, like the artificial coasting-places made by the Russians, down which a long file of white bears went sliding on their hams: at the bottom they jumped up like a crowd of boys, with evident delight, to carry their sleds back to the top of the hill. He says that the signs of pleasure among them were unmistakable.

The Canadian fish-otter (_Lutra Canadensis_) loves to do the same thing. He climbs to the top of a snow-ridge in winter, or of a slippery bank in summer, lies on his belly, with the fore feet bent backward, then, pushing with the hind legs, down he goes. So the Russians, with their ice-slides, are only imitating the sport of their own arctic creatures. I suppose that long ago the pleasure derived from an involuntary and accidental slide originated the habit.

Lieutenant Dall says that the beavers in Alaska engage in gymnastics for fun. If they find a smooth, miry bank, they betake themselves to sliding down it. And the Californian gray whale loves to play in the shoals where the surf breaks; keeping a wary outlook, so that it continually escapes being beached. Its pleasure is enhanced by the peril. Seals do the same thing when they find a heavy surf. They turn from side to side with half-extended fins, moved apparently by the heavy ground-swell; at times making a playful spring with bended flukes that throws the body clear out of the water, to come down with a heavy splash: then, giving two or three spouts, they settle again under water, to appear perhaps the next moment rolling over in a listless manner with the heavy swell, plainly full of intense enjoyment.

If the sea-otter of Siberia escapes into the water from its hunters, it expresses joy and derision by marked gestures, one of which is the putting a paw up over the eyes, as if shading them to regard the hunters. It would seem to be a very slight natural variation when the thumb slips to the point of the nose, and the rest of the paw executes that vibratory sarcastic gesture highly approved by boys.

The same sea-otter will mourn itself to a skeleton over the loss of its young. If animals can be capable of grief, as innumerable facts testify, mirth ought to endow them with a finite compensation.

Lady Barker, in her book called "Station Life in New Zealand," describes a favorite cockatoo, whose amusement consisted in imitating a hawk. "He reserves this fine piece of acting until his mistress is feeding the poultry; then, when all the hens and chickens, turkeys and pigeons are in the quiet enjoyment of their breakfast or supper, the peculiar shrill cry of a hawk is heard overhead, and the bird is seen circling in the air, uttering a scream occasionally. The fowls never find out that it is a hoax, but run to shelter, cackling in the greatest alarm; hens clucking loudly for their chicks, turkeys crouching under the bushes, the pigeons taking refuge in their house. As soon as the ground is quite clear, the bird changes his wild note for peals of laughter from a high tree, and finally, alighting on the top of a hen-coop filled with trembling chickens, remarks, in a suffocated voice, 'You'll be the death of me.'"

If we are disposed to think that such accounts of originality are only cases of accidental coincidence, what shall we say to the following story, which comes to us from an authority upon which we may rely:--

A long-tailed paroquet, which had been a pet of an English barrack in India, where it had picked up all kinds of oaths and slang, passed into the possession of a lady in England, who, one day, receiving a visitor endowed with a very decided squint, took her into the room where the bird was kept. No sooner did the bird see this lady than it cried, "Twig her eye! What a beauty!"

How many human beings get immortality discounted for themselves upon a capital of sprightliness hardly more extensive than this parrot's!

There is also a well-authenticated story of a parrot belonging to an English carpenter, who undertook to make it say a long word in several syllables, that had no particular meaning. All at once the parrot declined to use any of his usual phrases, and remained entirely mute for a year, at the end of which time he suddenly pronounced the word, and then talked as before. The story is parallel to the Roman one, of the parrot which heard for the first time the note of a trumpet, became silent for several months, and then suddenly began to imitate the note. It is remarkable that no rehearsals or prelusions of the difficulty to be overcome were ever heard in either case.

The naturalist has lately found a monkey of the Gibbon family, which has a voice that is divided into distinct notes that correspond to our scale and run an octave or more, clear, musical, and firm. What an invaluable prize this would be for M. Offenbach and his opera bouffe! for the creature has all the flexibility and briskness, all the parody of human nature, and all the lubricity which this style of art requires, with the caudal emphasis appended; and great economy would be gained in exempting more expensive human performers from moral degradation. We would all pay our money for such an exhibition, rejoiced to see the drama recovering from its decay.

But, as yet, no cosey couples of clever apes have been discovered in paroxysms of laughter over the last sylvan equivoque; nor have elephants been seen silently shaking at a joke too ponderous for their trunks to carry. Everybody has observed how ducks will gather into a corner of the farm-yard and stand still, and apparently breathless, as if listening to a jocose tale fished out of their Decameron of a gutter, then break into hearty quacking, which reminds one of the wheezing of snips of fellows over their muddy jest. But probably the ducks are only holding a caucus on the question of food, to nominate the next pool to be dredged, and make it unanimous.

But when we consider that the higher animals can compare objects and make selections, exercise a memory and have association of ideas concerning each other and the outer world, we come near to that human quality which is the ground of the function of laughter. These mental traits are the buried roots of the consciousness which blossoms into smiles in the sun of wit and humor. For the power to combine or to contrast two or more objects, to remember one absent object by another present one, to experience a feeling that two objects are associated, leads to the highest manifestations of wit. In the delicate structures of men and women, which are bequests to them descending through the whole inviolate entail of Nature, refined by it and amplified till they entertain keenly the pathos of life, all mental traits accumulate into the faculty of imagination, upon which every thing that is laughable depends.

With this faculty man makes shift to relieve the moments when existence, with its incessant toil and merciless persistency of routine, threatens to become insupportable. One day is not exactly like another, if hearty laughter loosens its handcuffs and lets the prisoner stretch his frame and have a little run. Every laugh reddens the blood, which goes then more blithely to dissipate the fogs of a moody brain. Multitudes of our American brains are badly drained in consequence of a settling of the wastage of house-grubbing and street-work into moral morasses which generate many a chimera. So there is something positively heroic in the hilarity which braves, light-armed as it is, our brood of viperous cares, and attacks their den. One flash of a smile shears off Medusa's head with impunity.

No creature that is not capable of being bored can be capable of laughing at its own incongruous circumstances. The more simply constructed the brain and nervous system are, the less liability is there to that misfortune of _ennui_. We cannot imagine that a turtle's head gets tired of lying around, decapitated, for a week or more; or that a toad imprisoned in a rock or tree for one or two thousand years should become jaded by its close confinement. When the miner's pick releases him, his hop is as alert, and his appetite for the next fly as keen, as before his prison stole upon him. The lower animals are as contented as the forests and waters in which they pass an instinctive existence. Continually cheerful we may suppose they are, even when the larder is empty and the springs run low. Their monotonous round of hungering, feeding, and procreating sympathizes with the reposeful temper in which the whole of the inanimate nature discharges those functions, as we see the flower absorb, fructify, and exhale. But as the brain becomes more complicated, and capable of breeding more positive ideas and feelings,--such as the questing of a greyhound, the tact of setters and retrievers, the attachment of dogs for persons,--we may expect to observe a liability to suffer tedium. How plainly a good dog can show his disappointment when he goes out with a green sportsman, or with one who is so abstracted in his mood that he neglects the chances to shoot! The dog's natural language is that he will not tolerate such an irreligious abuse of providence: he will soon begin to sulk and not put up any more game.

If an animal is capable of having a consecutive dream, as Miss Mitford's greyhound was, who regularly every year, just before the coursing season began, used to dream of going out, and quested in his sleep, such an animal can feel the torment of _ennui_. He is not blindly indicating that a season has come around,--as a wound made by the bite of a lion will gape anew in the same month of the following year, and the juice of the grape is agitated in remembrance of its vintage,--but the animal is conscious that the time has come for him to resume his talent.

Such dogs become tired of waiting if their masters are absent, and are disquieted if their day's routine be changed. And you will notice in a zoölogical garden many of the better-educated animals to whom the monotony of their life is a positive sorrow, till, like opium, it stupefies their spirits. They have not the resource of man, who is also devoured with _ennui_, but, furnished with imagination, can dissipate its most tragic moods by heart-shaking and sky-splitting laughter. His most climbing grief is like an Alpine flower that sits close to the snow-line and takes its color; but near at hand are hillsides sprinkled with winking wild-flowers, and the blue succory stands amid the corn. There is but a step from one to the other.

That step is taken, and the gravity of life upset whenever any of our ideas can suddenly and for a moment join an object or another idea, and appear to belong to it, though essentially different in every respect, and only capable of seeming like by the imagination starting a pretence of it. Things that are incongruous are forced to touch at one point, and for one moment to feign congruity. The surprise to the mind is a laughable one, because it is in the habit of regarding ideas and objects as they naturally cohere or differ. Sanity and business depend upon this habit. The understanding is at home in the ordinary congruities of things, and is not prepared to admit that two things which are absolutely incongruous can be ever made for a single instant to agree. Such a result cannot be soberly contemplated: the order of the world and the mental consistency which pays the butcher for his meat and the milkman for his refreshing dash of the hydrant forbid it. It becomes laughable precisely because this gravity of order is against it. If a thing cannot be done soberly, and yet _is_ done, the result is fatal to sobriety. This is the root of every laugh: two things which never met before, and ought not to meet, hail each other and set up a claim of relationship on this very ground,--namely, that it was always impossible that they could be related. In the farce of "Box and Cox," says one of these doubles to the other eagerly, "_Have you_ the mark of a strawberry between your shoulders?" "No," answers the other. "Oh, then you are indeed my long-lost brother!" It is so in the relations which make laughter. There should be the mark of a strawberry; but just because there is not, the whim of fraternity is raised, and for a moment it appears as if the two things must have been twins at birth, though separated since.

Thus, to begin at the lowest degree of this subject, the simply ludicrous has its origin in the surprise caused by something which interrupts or modifies an ordinary procedure: the latter is thus joined for a moment to an idea not belonging to it. Why do we laugh when a person tumbles upstairs? or when some respectable female struggles with an umbrella which has shamelessly turned its bare ribs upon her and sails jauntily with her down the street, or flounders in the gutter, an inebriated wreck of usefulness? Because an erect position is the normal one for man, and a protecting umbrella the helpmeet for woman. If it were not so, we should laugh to see the most revered person succeed in controlling her gingham dome, and stemming the tide as easily as the whale which furnished it with bones. There is nothing essentially ludicrous in seeing a man chase an animal: on the contrary, if you are trying to head off your favorite pig and persuade it to taste again your bounty, it is one of the saddest spectacles in existence. But when a man is in full hue and cry after his own hat we laugh, because a hat is inseparable from a head in idea, but becomes separated in fact. A hatter's shop is full of the larvæ of this idea, but they would never hatch there into hats. The conjunction of a head to each is needed to make a perfect notion of a hat.

If we could be sure of preserving our own scalps, we should like to have been near enough to watch the expression of the first Indian who ever killed a man wearing a wig. For the wig is a sudden violation of the logic of scalping, and the astonished Indian would have raised a laugh as he raised the artificial hair.

General Sherman's body-servant was a German who went with him through the war, but could never realize the idea that the war at last was over. One day the General, having travelled from the South to Chicago, was on the point of leaving, and ordered this man to pack a valise. The one he selected was so enormous that the General remonstrated, and examined what could be within. It was filled with hotel towels that had been looted from Atlanta clear through, in company with table-spoons of the Milledgeville Hotel; the German plundering on every route as if we were still marching through Georgia. This incongruous behavior has all the effect of a ludicrous incident.