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awfulness, and sometimes obscurity tend to that result. Then there is a style of expression called beauty. Beauty tends toward the sublime but does not quite reach that altitude. Next to sublimity, beauty affords the highest pleasure to the taste; but it is also a calmer feeling, more gentle and soothing. Beauty is expressed in many ways. We have beautiful trees and flowers, beautiful forms and faces, a beautiful character, a beautiful theorem. There is beauty of color, and beauty of figure, and beauty of motion; beauty of countenance, and, last but not least, moral beauty.456

To be pronounced beautiful, however, the object under consideration must not awaken sublimity. A rose may be beautiful but who ever heard of a sublime rose. On the other hand, Niagara Falls is beautiful but it is more than beautiful — it is sublime. Its beauty is swallowed up in its sublimity. The higher emotion monopolizes the feelings, unless the attention is confined to some little details; as a beautiful crest, a beautiful spray, a beautiful tint in the water, the beautiful rainbow in the mist. Now the style of expression that will adequately describe beauty or awaken sublimity is peculiarly fitted for its task, and we shall refer to it again, after we have disposed of the next branch of our subject, namely, Wit and Humor.

This brings us to a consideration of the philosophy of wit. How funny! It sounds almost like a contradiction of terms. As if mirth and fun and jollity could be reduced to rule and law! As if a man who is capable of seeing the point of a joke, could ignore the tickling effect thereof long enough to seriously consider why it has a point! Sensible nonsense! Show me a good sidesplitter, and by the time I get through laughing I shall not care a straw for scientific investigation of the cause. Of course there is a cause. There isn't any

doubt but what the atmospheric molecules forced by your diaphragm between the tense membranes connecting your pharynx with your larynx will cause vibrations of ether, which vibrations will be further modified by latitudinal deflections of your palatal protuberance, and the genuflexions of the base of your lingual organic fibers of muscularity, and still further modified

by dentitional conditions, and both inferior and superior labial action, and will traverse radially thenceforward by undulatory methods of propagation with sufficient force to penetrate the external orifice of my auricular appendages, and thence be conducted obliquely downward anteriorly through the tubular passages against the tympanum, which tympanum will readily communicate the force of these molecular vibrations directly through the cochlea and transversely across the posterior orifice of the eustachian tube, whereat the liquid secretions of the labyrinth will delicately undulate against the malleus, to the effect that a sensation of sound will be set up in my sensorium, because of the conductive properties of the aural nerve terminating therein, and its ability to transmit the acoustic effects existing in the interior chambers, and the said sensorium being situated anteriorly to the cerebellum and inferiorly to the cerebrum, will therefore deliver its charge immediately into the multitudinous channels connecting the various organs of cerebration, to the effect that certain concepts will take possesion of my consciousness, whereupon my judgment will weigh the sentiments thus awakened in my subjective mentality, and test the same by the criterion of truth, and finding the ideas ludicrously inharmonious, will pass sentence of amusing incongruity, immediately after which my orbicular muscles will become extremely relaxed, causing my face to assume the expression of a broad grin.283 Now there isn't any doubt of that whatever. And as I further contemplate the degree of ludicrousness contained in the relation of the aforesaid concepts, my diaphragm contracts spasmodically and my extensors relax and flexors contract until the carpal and metacarpal phalanges are brought into proximity with the lumbar regions, and the digitals assume a protective position over the dorsal cavity, whereupon I give vent to a series of explosive exclamations, thus: Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!!! And then my deltoid muscles operate on my humerus, and my intercostals elevate the sternum, thereby opening the pneumatic chamber, and-away I go again-Ho! ho! ho! ho!-Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! And then I communicate this same bit of intelligence to Aunt Jane and straightway she jumps up (and the cat jumps in her

chair), and she proceeds to Je! he! he! he! he! - He! he! he! (sits down on the cat) - he! he! Quisgchx! quisgchx! he! he! he! quisgchx! quish - wisch - wisch - wisch - ptsv! ptsv! quisgchx

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Well, you all know what a conundrum is, and what a pun is, and repartee and various other kinds of wit are too common to need definition. Sometimes one conundrum is based on another conundrum. Here is a sample: "Why do travellers in the Sahara Desert never go hungry?" "Because of the sand-which-is there." "But how came the sandwiches there?" "Because it was meet that the descendants of Ham bred and mustered there." Now for an up-to-date conundrum — " Why does a cat purr when you look out at the window?" "Because you rubber neck."

Humor differs from wit. Wit is short and sharp Humor is mild and funny. Wit may be keen and sarcastic, comes in quick flashes and is often directed against our enemies Humor is kind, may be extended to any length and is often indulged in at the expense of our friends. The leading element of wit is surprise, but nothing higher.

If it contains beauty or sublimity as well as surprise, the surprise will be swallowed up in the higher emotion. Other emotions, if strongly excited, have the same extinguishing effect. Thus if a dandy with a $10.00 hat on a 1oc. head in attempting to show off before a crowd, should slip and fall in the mud, we would laugh at his ridiculous plight; but if a poor old woman carrying a child across a muddy street should fall and hurt herself or the child, our pity would quench the feeling of humor completely. Fear operates in the same way, whenever an otherwise ludicrous accident involves danger.

In puns and various forms of wit, there is a double meaning to be attached to some word or phrase, and the surprise consists in the discovery that the same expression can have two such unlike meanings. It must also be so expressed that the hearer must use his mind diligently to discover the unexpected relation, and the surprise is the more agreeable as it reflects the more credit on the person who is smart enough to see the joke. People differ greatly in their perspicacity along this

line. Tell an Irishman a joke and he will instantly fire back a fitting rejoinder. Tell the same joke to an Englishman, and next morning he may sit down on the back doorstep and take a good laugh over it. It is just beginning to dawn upon him that that was a joke.

Slang phrase is a form of humor that should be used with care, if at all. It is too well known to require definition and classification, although it is capable of both; so instead of going into details of philosophy, I will quote a few samples.* Now, in all kinds of wit and humor the things described must be congruous in the midst of their incongruity, and, of course, both congruity and incongruity can only be determined by comparison.

Besides expression in language, there is a certain amount of expression of ideas conveyed through symbols. Foremost in this form of idealism is Nature, and Nature's most faithful、 representative, Art. Indeed, so close is the relation between. nature and art in all matters of expression that the standard of art is nature. Hence the Latin maxim, Artis est celare artem " The art is to conceal art.*

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You have heard of the two artists who loved the same lady, and she, not being able to decide between them, left the choice to her father, who was himself an art critic on flowers. Each lover was to paint a bouquet, and the one that was truest to nature should win the grand prize.

On the day for competitive examination one lover arrived first and his picture was carefully scrutinized from every viewpoint and under various forms of illumination, and the father found it so perfect that he gave the artist to understand that his prize was as good as won. Finally the other artist arrived and placed his picture by the side of the other one, but with a thin veil thrown over it. The father compared them faithfully

The reader is here referred to "Buck Fanshaw's Funeral" in Mark Twain's "Roughing It," which is regarded by literateurs as the best hit on slang phrase ever published. For a sample of modern theatrical slang phrase, read "John Henry." For exceptions to this view, read "Art For Art's Sake," "How To Understand Pictures" and others by J. C. Van Dyke.

and conscientiously, and found the second picture almost equal to the first, even with the veil over it, and finally decided that if the second picture didn't look coarse when the veil was removed, there would be some show for lover No. 2. So he told him to remove the veil, but the artist replied "There is no veil there. The veil is simply painted on. It is part of the picture!" "Nough said. The bride is yours."

Some years ago I was teaching a select school and a young lady came to me for art criticism and architecture. She had been in my school a year before for logic and mental philosophy, and I knew she could comprehend art expression almost intuitively, if paintings and statuary could be selected so as to present the principles in their logical order. When she had read up on the elements of criticism and I had pointed out to her their application through all the harmonies of color blending, grouping, configuration etc., I took her to a famous art gallery for illustrations. Each time our line of inquiry brought us into the realm of the ideal, I was careful to commence on a new line, before we should approximate too closely to the consideration of nude figures. The following occurrence, however, forced the issue: We were studying a landscape when a strange man and woman entered.

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"Well Mi-ran-dy," said the man, did you ever see the

beat!"

The woman tittered. Supposing me to be the proprietor, she caught my sleeve, and pointing to a lovely painting of Musidora" from Thompson's Seasons, said,

"Why don't you kiver that up?"

"Is it not beautiful?" I asked.

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"Yes, but she hain't got a stitch of clothes on."

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Very true; but how would she look in that sequestered pool with her clothes on?"

"Well, if that hain't a vulgar picture, I'd like to have you show me one that is."

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I replied, "There are no vulgar pictures here, Madam, but there are pictures of vulgar people. There, for instance,' and I pointed to a group of a dozen men and women engaged in a bacchanalian revelry. "They are all well clothed, but

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