Humor Best That Seems to Happen By Itself

1901

UNCONSCIOUS HUMOR BEST

It Gives a Charm Which is Not Found In the Manufactured Article

One characteristic of the finest humor, touched on already, we must come back to: the quality of unconsciousness, says Charles Johnston in the February Atlantic.

Neither Bret Harte nor Mark Twain, when they wrote of the Luck, of M'liss, of Captain Ned Blakely, of Buck Fanshaw and Scotty Briggs, had any idea how great they were, or even that they were great at all; they never dreamt that these sketches for the local journal would outlive the week that saw their birth, and at last make the circuit of the world, becoming a part of the permanent wealth of man. That gives these stories their inimitable charm. There is none of the striving of the funny man in what belongs to that first period, no setting of traps for our admiration. This is the same as saying that there is none of that instinct of egotism which prompts a man to laugh at his fellow, to show how much wiser and cleverer be himself is. It is all free, generous, and bountiful as the sunshine of the land where it was conceived, full of the spontaneous life of nature herself.


The Definition of a Joke

How You Are to Know One When You See It, Explained By Charles Johnston

What is a joke? And how are you to know one if you see it? asks Charles Johnston in the February Atlantic. My justification for this wanton malice is that I think I have discovered the charm to lay these haunting presences to rest; that I have in some sort discovered the true inwardness of humor, and even been able to draw the shadowy line dividing it from wit.

Here is a story which seems to me to come close to the heart of the secret. The scene is laid in the Wild and Wooly West. A mustang has been stolen, a claim jumped, or a poker pack found to contain more right and left bowers than an Arctic brig; and swift Nemesis has descended in the form of Manila hemp. The time has come to break the news to the family of the deceased. A deputation goes ahead, and the leader knocks at the door of the bereaved homestead, asking, "Does Widow Smith live here?"

A stout and cheerful person replies, "I'm Mrs. Smith, but I ain't no widow!"

The deputation answers: "Bet you a dollar you are! But you've got the laugh on us, just the same, for we've lynched the wrong man."

That story is irresistible. It is as full of sardonic fire as anything in all literature, but you would hardly call it humor. It seems to me to lie so directly on the border line that we may use it as a landmark.