ous. Truly wise people--and by wisdom I mean an aggregation of
those qualities and acceptances and compromises that make for a fairly
unruffled progress through this difficult life--truly wise people are
not fastidious. They are easily pleased, they are not critical, and--and
this is very important--they allow of no exceptions among human beings.
Originals bore them as much as they did Mr. Magnus. One of the astutest
men that I know has achieved a large measure of his prosperity and
general contentment by behaving always as though all men were alike.
Because, although of course they are not alike, the differences are too
trifling to matter. He flatters each with the same assiduity and
grossness, with the result that they all become his useful allies. Those
that do not swallow the mixture, and resent it, he merely accuses of
insincerity or false modesty; yet they are his allies too, because,
although they cannot accept his methods, being a little uncertain as to
whether his intentions may not have been genuinely kind, or his judgment
honestly at fault, they give him the benefit of the doubt.

The Oldest Joke

Many investigators have speculated as to the character of the first
joke; and as speculation must our efforts remain. But I personally have
no doubt whatever as to the subject-matter of that distant pleasantry:
it was the face of the other person involved. I don't say that Adam was
caustic about Eve's face or Eve about Adam's: that is improbable. Nor
does matrimonial invective even now ordinarily take this form. But after
a while, after cousins had come into the world, the facial jest began;
and by the time of Noah and his sons the riot was in full swing. In
every rough and tumble among the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, I
feel certain that crude and candid personalities fell to the lot, at any
rate, of the little Shems.

So was it then; so is it still to-day. No jests are so rich as those
that bear upon the unloveliness of features not our own. The tiniest
street urchins in dispute always--sooner or later--devote their retorts
to the distressing physiognomy of the foe. Not only are they conforming
to the ancient convention, but they show sagacity too, for to sum up an
opponent as "Face," "Facey," or "Funny Face," is to spike his gun. There
is no reply but the cowardly _tu quoque_. He cannot say, "My face is not
comic, it is handsome"; because that does not touch the root of the
matter. The root of the