THE BRAVE HUMOUR OF WAR.
ITO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."'
enclose a little article by Miss Agnes Repplier from one of the publications of the University of Pennsylvania—not because it is amusing and well written, but because there shines through it the opinion of the war and of the attitude of this country which is held by representative Americans, among whom Miss Repplier can perhaps be considered the most brilliant essayist.—/ am, Sir, &c., C. A. Grascom, Twenty-fifth Avenue, New York, December 7th, 1915.
"War, as a natural and recurrent feature of human life, has always presented its humorous aspect to the world. We are well acquainted with historic jests, born of courage and cowardice, of man's inborn dcaire to fight, and inborn impulse to run away. Some- times these jests are of a savage character, as when Frederick the Great shouted to his wavering soldiers : 'Come on, you scoundrels ! Do you expect to live for ever?' Sometimes they have a purely "rational flavour, as when a British officer in the War of the Peninsula said feelingly to his regiment : You Englishmen, who are fed upon beef, don't surely mean to be beaten by a d—d lot of Spaniards who live on oranges.' Sometimes they are wholly delightful, as when Marshal Saxe, too ill to walk, was driven with his physician, Sense, within range of the cannon; and, observing the doctor's nervousness, said to him kindly : • If you are afraid of the guns, pray close the window.' Even the horror, the injustice, and the devastation of the present war have not sufficed to dry the genial founts of humour. In this country, indeed, war jokes are apt to offend. The taste of the nation is against them. It is not for us who sit snug, and safe, and prosperous at home, with English gold pouring into our treasury, and the sale of American munitions, safe-guarded by the British navy, making us all rich—it is not for us to wax merry over the pli...ht of Europe. We cannot be gay because we have earned no right to be gay. But it is becoming for Englishmen and Frenchmen to jest, because they also fight, and suffer, and die. Laughter on their lips does not indicate callous unconcern ; but that straight, clean courage, which we honour and commend. The amazing thing is, not only the cheerfulness, but the ready fun, and the sustained good temper of the English joke—the pleasing absence of ferocity. There has been no English cartoon to equal in bitterness Life's drawing of the vast over-shadowing Satan bidding the Kaiser, 'Quit calling me God ! I detest the word.' This is a conception Swift might have envied, and Swift alone could have surpassed. There has been no cartoon to approach the sombre horror of Louis Raemaekers's Epiphany, with Germany, and Austria, and Turkey presenting themselves as the Magi, and bearing gifts of shrapnel, sword and gun—offerings from which the Holy Child averts his hidden face. The Dutch artist and the American cartoonist have touched the profoundest depths of irony ; but irony is a world's distance from humour. It lives and burns where humour sparkles and dies, but it does not hearten the heavy spirits of men. This is what Punch—brave old Punch /—is striving successfully to do. It has not been so amusing for years as during the last fourteen months. We laugh over its pages, no matter how sad we are, and we hope that England—sadder far—laughs too. The humours of recruiting have always been a favourite topic with Punch. Leech jeered at the fat men, and pompous men, and irascible men, drilling for their country's service, as genially as Frank Reynolds jeers to-day, The happy blundering of the recruit is a tradition, just as the pug- nacious patriotism of the London slum-child is a tradition : while the loyal old lady, fat, fussy and absurd, is more than a tradition ; she is a permanent and established feature in the jest-books of the world. When we meet her in Punch, beaming at an austere young parson who has recently enlisted, and who, stiff and self-conscious in his khaki uniform, is solemnly swallowing his tea, and when we hear her saying to him : Well, my lad, isn't this better than hanging -about street corners, and spending your time in public-houses ? ' we hail her as a fellow mortal and a friend. Nature has always seen to it that old ladies of this order should be on hand when the world needs to laugh. The inventors who haunt the war-office, and the amateur detectives who track down German spies, are fair game ; while a more intimate touch is given by the village child, who, when asked by the vicar's daughter where she got her nice new mittens, answers artlessly : 'Daddy sent them from the front.' All of us who have knitted industriously for a year past, and have watched the knitting of others, can appreciate that joke. Whatever bitterness Punch keeps stored up in his heart of gold is poured upon the unworthy heads of English strikers and labour leaders, who play a traitor's role. As far as Germany goes, the jests at her expense are droll rather than stinging. Nothing could be less savage, and nothing more flawlessly funny, than the picture of a Prussian household having its morning hate— a picture now familiar to the world. Every great national crisis gives birth to certain phrases which live for ever in the minds and on the tongues of men. Cromwell's 'Fear God, and keep your powder dry,' is such a phrase ; and so is C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.' The present war offers two permanent contributions : A scrap of paper,' and Too proud to fight.' The first will be repeated as long as history is taught; the second has endeared itself to music-halls, and fits with charming precision into an infinite variety of jests. Perhaps the morning hate' may take third rank, and achieve immortality."—The Alumni Register, December, 1915.
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