It was
a spontaneous effort of nature, coming from the head as well as the
heart: an unbending of the bow, a reaction from study, which study
alone could occasion, and which could occur only in adult life.
There are some people who cannot laugh, but these are not necessarily
either morose or stupid. They may laugh in their heart, and with their
eyes, although by some unlucky fatality, they have not the gift of
oral cachinnation. Such persons are to be pitied; for laughter in
grown people is a substitute devised by nature for the screams and
shouts of boyhood, by which the lungs are strengthened and the health
preserved. As the intellect ripens, that shouting ceases, and we learn
to laugh as we learn to reason. The society we have mentioned studied
the harder the more they laughed, and they laughed the more the harder
they studied. Each, of course, to be of use, must be in its own place.
A laugh in the midst of the study would have been a profanation; a
grave look in the midst of the merriment would have been an insult to
the good sense of the company.
If there are some people who cannot laugh, there are others who will
not. It is not, however, that they are ashamed of being grown men, and
want to go back to babyhood, for by some extraordinary perversity,
they fancy unalterable gravity to be the distinguishing characteristic
of wisdom.
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