the fanciful names, the griefs and ecstasies, are not only ridiculous
in themselves, but lead us to regard lovers generally as bereft of
reason.

Dumont observes, in support of his theory, that "when a small man bobs
his head in passing under a door, we laugh." But if a puppet or a
pantaloon were to do so we should scarcely be amused, for we could
account for it, and see nothing wrong in his action. He goes on to ask
how the other view is applicable in the case of Ariosto's father, who
rates his son at the very moment when the latter is wanting a model of
an enraged parent to complete his comedy. It is our general idea that
the anger of a father is something alarming and painful to endure, but
here we see it regarded as a most fortunate occurrence. The man is
producing the contrary effect to what he supposes, he is not effecting
what he is intending; here is a strange kind of failure or ignorance.
Suppose we had known that the father was only simulating anger, we
should probably not have laughed, or if we were amused, it would be at
Ariosto's expense, who was being deceived in his model of parental
indignation.

Leon Dumont defines the laughable to be that of which the mind is forced
to affirm and to deny the same thing at the same time. He attributes it
to two distant ideas being brought together. We might thus conclude that
there was something droll in such expressions as "eyes of fire," "lips
of dew."

Everyone is aware that humour is generally evanescent, the feeling goes
almost as soon as it arrives; and the same spell, if repeated, has lost
its charm. It may be said that all repetition is, in its nature,
wearisome, because it is not in accordance with the progress of the
human mind, but we must admit that it is less damaging to poetry in
which there is a perpetual spring and rebirth, and to proverbs which
have ever fresh and useful application.

"Nothing," writes Amelot, "pleases less than a perpetual pleasantry,"
and we all know that a jest-book is dull reading. Humour seems the more
fugitive, because we do not know by what means to reproduce and continue
it. We can, almost at will, call up emotions of love, hatred or sorrow,
and when we feel them we can aggravate them to any extent, but humour is
not thus under our command. We cannot invent or summon it. When we have
heard a "good thing" said, we shall find that the mere repetition of the
words originally uttered are more fully successful in reproducing and