MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
SIR ALAN HERBERT, as this year's President of the English Association, has chosen as the theme for his address the subject of the " English Laugh." His lecture, if I may so call it, has now been published by the Oxford University Press for the sum of three shillings and sixpence. In expounding his thesis, Sir Alan has relied upon illustration rather than upon argument ; he provides us with a long list of jokes, ancient and modern, most of which are excellent, and one or two of which I had not heard before. This inductive method is perhaps preferable to the deduc- tive systems imposed by other philosophers, such as Hobbes, Herbert Spencer, Krapelin, Sully, Nencioni, and Henri Bergson. I agreed with Jean Paul Richter that " the laughable has from the beginning refused to enter into the definitions of philosophers, except unwillingly," and I am glad, therefore, that Sir Alan has been chary of definitions and lavish of examples. The laughable is so varied and volatile a thing, so dependent upon the transitory chemical conditions of the human body, that it is as otiose to track its movements as it would be to chart the flittings of a butterfly upon some August afternoon. But it is certainly profitable to produce a list of jokes, some of which seem funny to some of us all the time, but most of which would not stimulate even a polite cachinnation among our Slav or Latin friends. It is true, I think, that there does exist a special type of sensibility to the laughable which we are justified in calling " The English Sense of Humour," and that it is possible to define, or at least to isolate, this brand of risibility by citing the sort of things which make Englishmen, but not others, laugh. Yet it is slapdash of Sir Alan to have included in his list of jokes so many that were made, not by English- men, but by the Scots, the Irish or the French. You cannot isolate, or even illustrate, a genus if you choose specimens drawn from other types.
* * * * In his introductory remarks, Sir Alan, with his accustomed modesty, admits that it is not possible " to claim any sort of monopoly in laughter or in a sense of humour for the English race." But he contends that we are " specially proud and sensitive about what we call the British sense of humour." The use of the term " British " in this connection appears to me to beg one of the many questions which Sir Alan begs ; he would admit, on reflection, that there exist many important and strange differences between the English and the Scottish sense of humour, and that, if you are to isolate the former, it is essential to draw some distinction between the Scottish chuckle and the English laugh. He goes on to assert, and rightly to assert, that the English are peculiarly sensitive to the reproach of possessing no sense of humour. They enjoy being called stupid, illiterate or lazy ; but " tell an Englishman that he has no sense of humour and he will knock you down." I do not deny the truth of this assertion ; it is indeed curious that, whereas a German will be wounded if you call him " ungebildet," or a Frenchman pained if you refer to him as an " individu," the Englishman will beam at any insult, so long as his sense of humour h not called in question. This idiosyncrasy is, we are assured, extremely winning ; but the philosopher might argue that it is as vain to mind whether one possesses or does not possess this eccentric, and quite uncreative, balance of the nerves, as it would be to worry about whether one's feet are large or small. Yet Sir Alan is so positive that a sense of humour is an important asset that, since I revere all that he says and does, I must bow myself low before his premises.
* * * * In that he is by nature most humane, Sir Alan excludes from the kindly areas of a sense of humour those occasions for laughter which are provided by the misfortunes of others. He does not agree with Thomas Hobbes that decent laughter is " nothing else but sudden glory, arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others,
or with our own formerly." Nor does he agree with Herbert Spencer that laughter is produced by a " descending incongruity, when consciousness is unawares transferred from great things to small." He does not deny that the misadventures of others may arouse momentary amusement, and, in fact, he himself cites the example of a Chancellor of the Exchequer slipping on a banana- skin when on his way to a Budget debate ; but he contends that these forms of derisive laughter are experienced by the lowest types of humanity, and have little to do with the delicate and affable movements of amusement which we proudly assert to be the very essence of the English sense of humour. For him that sense is aroused " by the perception of the difference between things as they are and things as they Gught to be." This is a simple definition. It implies that the English sense of humour is, as an emotion, sympathetic rather than derisive, subjective rather than objective, and operates at a level of consciousness precariously and always delightfully balanced between thought and feeling. I should, on the whole, agree with such a definition. But in the illustrations with which Sir Alan provides us there are many examples which fall outside any category which could be devised.
* He does not, for instance, examine in any detail the phenomenon of nonsense. He admits that many of the jokes which stimulate the English sense of humour are based upon the impossible or the fantastic, and bear no relation whatsoever to " things as they are." Being lamentably deficient in a sense of humour, I am bored by imaginary conversations between an Englishman, a Scot and an American, even as I am bored by jokes which possess no logical content. I agree rather with Dr. Johnson's lapidary remark: "The value of every story depends on its being true. A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general. If it is false, it is a picture of nothing " Yet in my more eupeptic moods (and they are frequent) I am capable of deriving clean amusement from nonsense. I admit also that, whereas the Germans, the Persians, and the Americans can indulge with great effect in the nonsensical, it is only the English who really love nonsense for nonsense's sake. That, I suppose, is part of our charm, of which we are ourselves so conscious and to which foreigners are so obstinately obtuse. The English love of nonsense derives from their intense hatred of logic. It represents a rebellion against the discipline of orderly thinking ; it reflects our nappy childishness and the delight which we take in all forms of play, even word- play ; and it is therefore frowned on by foreigners as a symptom of infantilism and unworthy of the dignity of the adult mind. Yet if our enjoyment of nonsense be a defect, it is certainly an engaging and convivial defect. And how agreeable it is, when we become tired by the task of thinking, to escape into the upper air where the birds wear policemen's helmets and the cows have wings.
I am glad that I have read Sir Alan Herbert's pamphlet. If one approaches the English sense of humour too seriously, one may end by coming to the really horrible conclusion that it is little more than a temperamental habit, in which mental indolence has accustomed itself to find comfort and escape. Sir Alan convinces us that it is a continuous, instinctive and perfectly respectable adjustment of proportions. It certainly provides an unguent for seared feelings and an emollient in an unpredictable but angry world. " Laughter," says Sir Alan, " is good for us. . . . When we laugh, richly and gloriously, without restraint or bitterness, we forget ourselves and the world, and we are as angels looking down on life, laughing at it but loving it." I shall endeavour, therefore, to cultivate a sense of humour, to laugh loud and long at stock- exchange stories, to find Mr. Malik funny, and to shake with loving amusement at the thought of the atom bomb. I shall then become as an angel looking down.
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