path. Chicago, struggling with vast and difficult
problems, felt the need of laughter, and required of Mr. Field that
he should make her laugh. He accepted the responsibility, and, as
a reward, his memory is hallowed in the city he loved and derided.
New York echoes this sentiment (New York echoes more than she
proclaims; she confirms rather than initiates); and when Mr. Francis
Wilson wrote some years ago a charming and enthusiastic paper for
the "Century Magazine," he claimed that Mr. Field was so great a
humourist as to be--what all great humourists are,--a moralist as
well. But he had little to quote which could be received as evidence
in a court of criticism; and many of the paragraphs which he deemed
it worth while to reprint were melancholy instances of that jaded
wit, that exhausted vitality, which in no wise represented Mr.
Field's mirth-loving spirit, but only the things which were ground
out of him when he was not in a mirthful mood.

The truth is that humour as a lucrative profession is a purely modern
device, and one which is much to be deplored. The older humourists
knew the value of light and shade. Their fun was precious in
proportion to its parsimony. The essence of humour is that it should
be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that
it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all,
must be our habitual frame of mind. But the professional humourist
cannot afford to be unexpected. The exigencies of his vocation compel
him to be relentlessly droll from his first page to his last, and
this accumulated drollery weighs like lead. Compared to it, sermons
are as thistle-down, and political economy is gay.

It is hard to estimate the value of humour as a national trait. Life
has its appropriate levities, its comedy side. We cannot "see it
clearly and see it whole," without recognizing a great many
absurdities which ought to be laughed at, a great deal of nonsense
which is a fair target for ridicule. The heaviest charge brought
against American humour is that it never keeps its target well in
view. We laugh, but we are not purged by laughter of our follies;
we jest, but our jests are apt to have a kitten's sportive
irresponsibility. The lawyer offers a witticism in place of an
argument, the diner-out tells an amusing story in lieu of
conversation. Even the clergyman does not disdain a joke, heedless
of Dr. Johnson's warning which should save him from that pitfall.
Sma