CASUAL COMMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 20137, 30 March 1929, Page 2

CASUAL COMMENTS

LIFE ADD LAUGHTER [By Leo Fanning.] All are at one now. roses and lovers. .Not known of the clifls and the fields and the sea. Not a breath of the time that has been hovers In the air now suit with a summer to be. Not a breath shall there sweeten the. seasons hereafter. Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep, When as they that are tree now ol weeping and laughter* We shall sleep. —From Swinburne’s ‘ Forsaken Garden.’ Live to laugh, and laugh to live — laugh anyhow. That is the kind of advice which we give to one another, in various proverbial sayings, such as “ Langb and grow tat.” “All I lie world loves a laugher ” (even if he is only an amusing loafer). Anybody who knows how to make ihe world laugh will never be short of a loal and a eup of sack or cocoa.

Man imagines vainly that lie is the only animal that has learnt how lo laugh, hut this error is revealed at mice in the phrase, “ Asinine laugh,” which an angry man may throw at somebody who is beating him in an argument. Indeed, the donkey is probably the world’s heartiest laugher. The heehaw of the ass is commonly regarded as an expression of stupidity—but is it? The donkey probably has the laugh on the world.” The donkey pretends to he stupid, because lie is lazy, and his hee-haw may be really a guffaw o( triumph.

Consider. 100. the tui. tlie parsouhird. the chuckling chorister of tlie forest. Is there no thought, no conscious amusement, behind the gurgling laughter of the tui ? No person on this earth can prove there is nob deliberate merriment in the tin's laugh. Nobody but a perfect fool would deny design in the hearty laughter of file Australian kookaburra, comedian of the woods. Parrots also arc natural laughers, apart altogether from their mimicry of human peals of joy. Even goose have 1 licit jokes, and gabble about them.

That term “horse laughier ’’ is an insult to the horse. The laugh ol a horse may he sometimes terrifying, but it is never stupid. Anybody who is inclined to deride horse laughter should read again that passage of Job on the war horse: “'..He saith among the trumpets. Ha. Hal ami lie smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the .shouting.’’

“Your laughter must be natural.’’ somebody advises-—hut some natural laughs would make hyenas feel proud of their trills. Indeed some of the most, pleasant laughs arc artificial —the laughs of talented actors and actresses, mi ami off the stage. In private life Sir Harry hander is not given to laughter, ’ But lie perhaps owes more of his singe success to his laughing, than to his singing.

AVo are judged by so many things now—our clothing, boots, hair dressing. hand writing, manner of entering or leaving a. room, drinking tea or soup —that it is very worrying to bo told that it is vain to have everything else right if the style of laughing is wrong. The woman who look's like, Helen of Troy and laughs like a hoyden ! Ihe man who looks like Napoleon and laughs like a drunken hooligan. * « * * Yet there is probably a correspondence. course to cure such delects in laughter. It is easy to imagine, a prospectus—“ Is your laugh a hindrance to social success? Does your laugh knock you back on the ladder of life? Our course of t wenty lessons will put yon on the right notes of laughter for all occasions. Read our testimonials Irom satisfied students. l).b. writes; ‘Before 1 took your course nobody loved my laugh. New I’m making much money with it on the stage.’ ”

An oft-heard .saving is; Laugh and the world laughs with yon. Weep and yon weep alone. But that philosophy does not apply to all times ami places. 1 know a man who had a most musical laugh— a range ol two octaves, in delightful ripples up and down the scale. When women wished to weep at the heart-molting '■ sob stuff of the musical baritone at a popular entertainment, he used to laugh, and therefore he was often howled down and pushed out.

“ Laugh! i thought J. would have died —or words to that effect came into a long-forgotten comic song, fet I have heard of a man who laughed himself to death. Ho was in a mental hospital. Something had tickled liw mind before be went there—ami he began to laugh, and did not care to stop. Many of ns could give a dozen or more good reasons why that mood could come upon anybody, '(’his man’s only interest in life was to laugh, and lie laughed on. merrily, month alter month, until he laughed out his last breath—an enviable end.

It is a common .saying _ Unit ridicule is better than sharp criticism for the suppression or repression oi nonsense. Unfortunately, the method ot redblooded ridicule, arousing laughter, is not enough practised. There was not nearly enough gibing at the test critics, who tried to prove that the worst fountain pens were mightier than the best hats. They should have been shouted ddwn with laughter.

Now Zealand has seen some good n-c ; ; of laughter bv members of Parliament lor the discomfortnrc or opponents. Perhaps the most successful laughter in that way was the late Sir William Heme’s, it was not a forced laugh—far from it. lie was genuinely amusou —not cynically. There was plenty to laugh at in various speeches —and lie laughed. He couldn't lielp it. .He had a keen sense of humour, and enjoyed the situations. Trite retorts about the empty laugh and the vacant mind made him laugh more, of course. His merry laugh could win always.

It is a long time since 1 saw an oldfashioned melodrama, but 1 lemember well the traditional hollow laugh of the villain, that pitiless laugh which drew hisses from the gallery, distressed by the piled-up troubles of the hero and heroine. I .should dearly like to hear again that mocking hollow laugh. It must have required much practice. There are other laughs—the moist laugh (which makes the eyes water), r

the dry laugh (which is like the crack--ling oi paichmoiit, or the swishing' ot sandpaper), the snigger, the cackle, and the half-grunt.

Some men telling a funny story keep’ • a, very grave lace Dear old Dan Lcm> was like that—and therefore. Ins laco was his I'orliinc. Do wo not all know and do we not al. dic-ul, (ho mail vim hionopolises the tun of Ids olt-told story? Long before he reaches tho end ho is sipping (he juiciness ol it, and laughs until lie becomes incoherent.' He seems very surprised. when Ids audience looks like waxworks.

A man may laugh at much in life - and some of Hie laughter may bo ignoble—but the best subject for his laughter will he always himself, if ho can only get a right view of himself.' The more dignified he is, according to conventional canons or standards of dignity, the more he will he able lo laugh,” at himself, behind the scenes.' The ability to laugh hopefully—not despairingly at oneself —is it great comfort in times of tribulation.But, it must lie real laughter. It is a.' widespread belief that a man can do tins better than a woivi.an can— -lint who knows definitely? So many timehonoured notions are being disproved these davs that it is not sale to dogmatise ’ about anything—especially about women.