f reaching the
production stage, if, indeed--which is extremely unlikely--it is
accepted at all.

"Good sense is at once the basis of and the limit to all humor. He who
lacks a fine perception of 'the difference between what things are and
what they ought to be,' as the always-to-be-quoted Hazlitt expressed
it, can never write humor. All the way through we shall find that
mirth is a matter of relationships, of shift, of rigidity trying to be
flexible, of something shocked into something else.

"Let us think of a circle on which four points have been marked:

[Illustration:

5 The Serious 1

4 The Contemptible 2 The Laughable

3 The Ridiculous]

"Beginning with a serious idea, we may swiftly step from point to
point until we return to the serious, with only slight variations from
the original conception. Take the perennial comedy-theme of the impish
collar, and visualize the scenes:

"1. A man starts to button his collar. Nothing is less comical, as
long as the operation proceeds normally.

"2. But the button is too large and his efforts begin to exasperate
him, with the result that his expression and movements become
incongruous. We see, and laugh--though he does not.

"3. He begins to hop around in a mad attempt to button the
unbuttonable, and soon rips off the collar, addressing it in
unparliamentary language. He is ludicrous, ridiculous, absurd.

"4. In his rage he violently kicks a pet dog that comes wagging up to
him. Our laughter subsides, for the fellow is more contemptible than
amusing--a deeper feeling has been born in us.

"5. The little dog limps off with a broken leg--we are no longer
amused, we are indignant. What is more, not only have we gotten back
to the serious, but there is no amusement left in any of the previous
scenes.

"Still applying the test of the _extent_ of the variation from the
normal as shown in the effects, we conclude that _serious consequences
kill humor_. The mere idea of such consequences, when we know that in
the circumstances they are really impossible, may convulse us with
merriment, as when we see a comedian jab a long finger into the mouth
of his teammate and the latter chews it savagely. In real life this
might sicken us with disgust--I say 'might,' because we can easily
conceive of such a situation's exciting laughter if the victim were
well deserving of the punishment. It is human for us to laugh when the
biter is bit; ind