Consequently, there is a natural relationship, which we equally naturally recognise, between the two images we have been comparing with i EXPANSION OF THE COMIC 57 each other, the mind crystallising in certain grooves, and the body losing its elasticity through the influence of certain defects. Whether or not our attention be diverted from the matter to the manner, or from the moral to the physical, in both cases the same sort of impression is conveyed to our imagination; in both, then, the comic is of the same kind. Here, once more, it has been our aim to follow the natural trend of the movement of the imagination. This trend or direction, it may be remembered, was the second of those offered to us, starting from a central image. A third and final path remains unexplored, along which we will now proceed.
3. Let us then return, for the last time, to our central image: something mechanical en¬ crusted on something living. Here, the living being under discussion was a human being, a person. A mechanical arrangement, on the other hand, is a thing. What, therefore, incited laughter was the momentary transfor¬ mation of a person into a thing, if one considers the image from this standpoint. Let us then pass from the exact idea of a machine to the LAUGHTER LAUGHTER CHAP.
58 vaguer one of a thing in general. We shall have a fresh series of laughable images which will be obtained by taking a blurred impression, so to speak, of the outlines of the former and will bring us to this new law: We laugh every time a person gives us the impression of being a thing.
We laugh at Sancho Panza tumbled into a bed-quilt and tossed into the air like a football. We laugh at Baron Munchausen turned into a cannon - ball and travelling through space. But certain tricks of circus clowns might afford a still more precise exemplification of the same law. True, we should have to eliminate the jokes, mere interpolations by the clown into his main theme, and keep in mind only the theme itself, that is to say, the divers attitudes, capers and movements which form the strictly “clownish" element in the clown’s art. On two occasions only have I been able to observe this style of the comic in its unadulterated state, and in both I received the same im¬ pression. The first time, the clowns came and went, collided, fell and jumped up again in a uniformly accelerated rhythm, visibly intent upon affecting a crescendo. And it was more and more to the jumping up again, the rebound, i EXPANSION OF THE COMIC 59 that the attention of the public was attracted. Gradually, one lost sight of the fact that they were men of flesh and blood like ourselves; one began to think of bundles of all sorts, falling and knocking against each other. Then the vision assumed a more definite aspect. The forms grew rounder, the bodies rolled together and seemed to pick themselves up like balls. Then at last appeared the image towards which the whole of this scene had doubtless been unconsciously evolving — large rubber balls hurled against one another in every direction. The second scene, though even coarser than the first, was no less instructive. There came on the stage two men, each with an enormous head, bald as a billiard ball. In their hands they carried large sticks which each, in turn, brought down on to the other’s cranium. Here, again, a certain gradation was observable. After each blow, the bodies seemed to grow heavier and more unyielding, overpowered by an increasing degree of rigidity. Then came the return blow, in each case heavier and more resounding than the last, coming, too, after a longer interval The skulls gave forth a formidable ring throughout 6o LAUGHTER CHAP.
the silent house. At last the two bodies, each quite rigid and as straight as an arrow, slowly bent over towards each other, the sticks came crashing down for the last time on to the two heads with a thud as of enormous mallets falling upon oaken beams, and the pair lay prone upon the ground. At that instant appeared in all its vividness the suggestion that the two artists had gradually driven into the imagination of the spectators: “We are about to become...we have now become solid wooden dummies.”
A kind of dim, vague instinct may enable even an uncultured mind to get an inkling here of the subtler results of psychological science. We know that it is possible to call up hallucina¬ tory visions in a hypnotised subject by simple suggestion. If he be told that a bird is perched on his hand, he will see the bird and watch it fly away. The idea suggested, however, is far from being always accepted with like docility. Not infrequently, the mesmeriser only succeeds in getting an idea into his subject’s head by slow degrees through a carefully graduated series of hints. He will then start with objects really perceived by the subject, and will eni EXPANSION OF THE COMIC 61 deavour to make the perception of these objects more and more indefinite; then, step by step, he will bring out of this state of mental chaos the precise form of the object of which he wishes to create an hallucination. Something of the kind happens to many people when dropping off to sleep; they see those coloured, fluid, shapeless masses, which occupy the field of vision, insensibly solidifying into distinct objects. Consequently, the gradual passing from the dim and vague to the clear and dis¬ tinct is the method of suggestion par excellence. I fancy it might be found to be at the root of a good many comic suggestions, especially in the coarser forms of the comic, in which the trans¬ formation of a person into a thing seems to be taking place before our eyes. But there are other and more subtle methods in use, among poets, for instance, which perhaps unconsciously lead to the same end. By a certain arrange¬ ment of rhythm, rhyme and assonance, it is possible to lull the imagination, to rock it to and fro between like and like with a regular see-saw motion, and thus prepare it submissively to accept the vision suggested. Listen to these few lines of Rdgnard, and see whether 62 LAUGHTER CHAP.
something like the fleeting image of a doll does not cross the field of your imagination:...Plus, il doit a maints particulars La somme de dix mil une livre une obole, Pour Pavoir sans relache un an sur sa parole Habilld, voiturd, chauffe, chaussd, gantd, Alimentd, rasd, ddsaltdre, portd.1 Is not something of the same kind found in the following sally of Figaro’s (though here an attempt is perhaps made to suggest the image of an animal rather than that of a thing): “ Quel homme est-ce? — C’est un beau, gros, court, jeune vieillard, gris pommeld, rus6, rase, blas£ qui guette et furette, et gronde et geint tout 4 lafois.”2 Now, between these coarse scenes and these subtle suggestions there is room for a countless 1 Further, he owes to many an honest wight Item — the sum two thousand pounds, one farthing, For having on his simple word of honour Sans intermission for an entire year Clothed him, conveyed him, warmed him, shod him, gloved him, Fed him and shaved him, quenched his thirst and borne him.
2 “ What sort of man is here? — He is a handsome, stout, short, youthful old gentleman, iron-grey, an artful knave, clean shaved, clean ‘used up,’ who spies and pries and growls and groans all in the same breath.”
i EXPANSION OF THE COMIC 63 number of amusing effects, for all those that can be obtained by talking about persons as one would do about mere things. We will only select one or two instances from the plays of Labiche, in which they are legion.
Just as M. Perrichon is getting into the railway carriage, he makes certain of not forgetting any of his parcels: “ Four, five, six, my wife seven, my daughter eight, and myself nine.” In another play, a fond father is boasting of his daughter’s learning in the following terms: “ She will tell you, without faltering, all the kings of France that have occurred.” This phrase, “ that have occurred,” though not exactly transforming the kings into mere things, likens them, all the same, to events of an impersonal nature.
As regards this latter example, note that it is unnecessary to complete the identification of the person with the thing in order to ensure a comic effect. It is sufficient for us to start in this direc¬ tion by feigning, for instance, to confuse the person with the function he exercises. I will only quote a sentence spoken by a village mayor in one of About ’s novels: “ The prefect, who has always shown us the same kindness, though 64 LAUGHTER chap.
he has been changed several times since 1847..
All these witticisms are constructed on the same model. We might make up any number of them, when once we are in possession of the recipe. But the art of the story-teller or the playwright does not merely consist in concoct¬ ing jokes. The difficulty lies in giving to a joke its power of suggestion, i.e. in making it acceptable. And we only do accept it either because it seems to be the natural product of a particular state of mind or because it is in keep¬ ing with the circumstances of the case. For instance, we are aware that M. Perrichon is greatly excited on the occasion of his first rail¬ way journey. The expression “ to occur ” is one that must have cropped up a good many times in the lessons repeated by the girl before her father; it makes us think of such a repetition. Lastly, admiration of the governmental machine might, at a pinch, be extended to the point of making us believe that no change takes place in the prefect when he changes his name, and that the function gets carried on independently of the functionary.
We have now reached a point very far from i EXPANSION OF THE COMIC 65 the original cause of laughter. Many a comic form, that cannot be explained by itself, can indeed only be understood from its resemblance to another, which only makes us laugh by reason of its relationship with a third, and so on indefinitely, so that psychological analysis, however luminous' and searching, will go astray unless it holds the thread along which the comic impression has travelled from one end of the series to the other. Where does this progressive continuity come from? What can be the driving force, the strange impulse which causes the comic to glide thus.from image to image, farther and farther away from the starting-point, until it is broken up and lost in infinitely remote analogies? But what is that force which divides and subdivides the branches of a tree into smaller boughs and its roots into radicles? An inexorable law dooms every living energy, during the brief interval allotted to it in time, to cover the widest pos¬ sible extent in space. Now, comic fancy is indeed a living energy, a strange plant that has flourished on the stony portions of the social soil, until such time as culture should allow it to vie with the most refined products of art, F 66 F 66 LAUGHTER CHAP. I True, we are far from great art in the examples of the comic we have just been reviewing. But we shall draw nearer to it, though without attaining to it completely, in the following chapter. Below art, we find artifice, and it is this zone of artifice, midway between nature and art, that we are now about to enter. We are going to deal with the comic playwright and the wit.
CHAPTER II THE COMIC ELEMENT IN SITUATIONS AND THE COMIC ELEMENT IN WORDS I We have studied the comic element in forms, in attitudes, and in movements gener¬ ally; now let us look for it in actions and in situations. We encounter, indeed, this kind of comic readily enough in everyday life. It is not here, however, that it best lends itself to analysis. Assuming that the stage is both a magnified and a simplified view of life, we shall find that comedy is capable of furnishing us with more information than real life on this particular part of our subject Perhaps we ought even to carry simplification still farther, and, going back to our earliest recollections, try to discover, in the games that amused us as children, the first faint traces of the 67 68 LAUGHTER CHAP.
combinations that make us laugh as grown-up persons. We are too apt to speak of our feelings of pleasure and of pain as though full grown at birth, as though each one of them had not a history of its own. Above all, we are too apt to ignore the childish element, so to speak, latent in most of our joyful emotions. And yet, how many of our present pleasures, were we to examine them closely, would shrink into nothing more than memories of past ones! What would there be left of many of our emotions were we to reduce them to the exact quantum of pure feeling they contain, by subtracting from them all that is merely reminiscence? Indeed, it seems possible that, after a certain age, we become impervious to all fresh or novel forms of joy, and the sweetest pleasures of the middle-aged man are perhaps nothing more than a revival of the sensations of childhood, a balmy zephyr wafted in fainter and fainter breaths by a past that is ever receding. In any case, whatever reply we give to this broad question, one thing is certain: there can be no break in continuity between the child’s delight in games and that of the grown-up person. Now, comedy is a game, a n THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 69 game that imitates life. And since, in the games of the child when working its dolls and puppets, many of the movements are produced by strings, ought we not to find those same strings, somewhat frayed by wear, reappearing as the threads that knot together the situations in a comedy? Let us, then, start with the games of a child, and follow the imperceptible process by which, as he grows himself, he makes his puppets grow, inspires them with life, and finally brings them to an ambiguous state in which, without ceasing to be puppets, they have yet become human beings. We thus obtain characters of a comedy type. And upon them we can test the truth of the law of which all our preceding analyses gave an inkling, a law in accordance with which we will define all broadly comic situations in general. Any ar¬ rangement of acts and events is comic which gives us, in a single combination, the illusion of life and the distinct impression of a mechanical arrangement.
1. The fack-in-the-box. — As children we have all played with the little man who springs out of his box. You squeeze him flat, he 70 LAUGHTER CHAP.
jumps up again. Push him lower, and he shoots up still higher. Crush him down beneath the lid, and often he will send every¬ thing flying. It is hard to tell whether or no the toy itself is very ancient, but the kind of amusement it affords belongs to all time. It is a struggle between two stubborn elements, one of which, being simply mechanical, generally ends by giving in to the other, which treats it as a plaything. A cat playing with a mouse, which from time to time she releases like a spring, only to pull it up short with a stroke of her paw, indulges in the same kind of amusement.
We will now pass on to the theatre, begin¬ ning with a Punch and Judy show. No sooner does the policeman put in an appearance on the stage than, naturally enough, he receives a blow which fells him. He springs to his feet, a second blow lays him flat. A repetition of the offence is followed by a repetition of the punishment. Up and down the constable flops and hops with the uniform rhythm of the bend¬ ing and release of a spring, whilst the spectators laugh louder and louder.
Now, let us think of a spring that is rather of a moral type, an idea that is first expressed, n THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 71 then repressed, and then expressed again; a stream of words that bursts forth, is checked, and keeps on starting afresh. Once more we have the vision of one stubborn force, counter¬ acted by another, equally pertinacious. This vision, however, will have discarded a portion of its materiality. No longer is it Punch and Judy that we are watching, but rather a real comedy.
Many a comic scene may indeed be referred to this simple type. For instance, in the scene of the Mariage forcd between Sganarelle and Pancrace, the entire vis comica lies in the con¬ flict set up between the idea of Sganarelle, who wishes to make the philosopher listen to him, and the obstinacy of the philosopher, a regular talking-machine working automatically. As the scene progresses, the image of the Jack-in-the- box becomes more apparent, so that at last the characters themselves adopt its movements, — Sganarelle pushing Pancrace, each time he shows himself, back into the wings, Pancrace returning to the stage after each repulse to continue his patter. And when Sganarelle finally drives Pancrace back and shuts him up inside the house — inside the box, one is tempted 72 LAUGHTER chap.
to say — a window suddenly flies open, and the head of the philosopher again appears as though it had burst open the lid of a box.
The same by-play occurs in the Malade Imaginaire. Through the mouth of Monsieur Purgon the outraged medical profession pours out its vials of wrath upon Argan, threatening him with every disease that flesh is heir to. And every time Argan rises from his seat, as though to silence Purgon, the latter disappears for a moment, being, as it were, thrust back into the wings; then, as though impelled by a spring, he rebounds on to the stage with a fresh curse on his lips. The self-same ex¬ clamation: “ Monsieur Purgon! ” recurs at regular beats, and, as it were, marks the tempo of this little scene.
Let us scrutinise more closely the image of the spring which is bent, released, and bent again. Let us disentangle its central element, and we shall hit upon one of the usual processes of classic comedy, — repetition.
Why is it there is something comic in the repetition of a word on the stage? No theory of the ludicrous seems to offer a satisfactory answer to this very simple question. Nor can XI THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 73 an answer be found so long as we look for the explanation of an amusing word or phrase in the phrase or word itself, apart from all it suggests to us. Nowhere will the usual method prove to be so inadequate as here. With the exception, however, of a few special instances to which we shall recur later, the repetition of a word is never laughable in itself. It makes us laugh only because it symbolises a special play of moral elements, this play itself being the symbol of an altogether material diversion. It is the diversion of the cat with the mouse, the diversion of the child pushing back the Jack-in-the-box, time after time, to the bottom of his box, — but in a refined and spiritualised form, transferred to the realm of feelings and ideas. Let us then state the law which, we think, defines the main comic varieties of word- repetition on the stage: In a comic repetition of words we generally find two terms: a repressed feeling which goes off like a spring; and an idea that delights in repressing the feeling anew.
When Dorine is telling Orgon of his wife’s illness, and the latter continually interrupts him with inquiries as to the health of Tartuffe, the question: “ Et Tartuffe? ” repeated every 74 LAUGHTER CHAP.
few moments, affords us the distinct sensation of a spring being released. This spring Dorine delights in pushing back, each time she resumes her account of Elmire’s illness. And when Scapin informs old G6ronte that his son has been taken prisoner on the famous galley, and that a ransom must be paid without delay, he is playing with the avarice of Gdronte exactly as Dorine does with the infatuation of Orgon. The old man’s avarice is no sooner repressed than up it springs again automatically, and it is this automatism that Moliere tries to indicate by the mechanical repetition of a sentence express¬ ing regret at the money that would have to be forthcoming: “ What the deuce did he want in that galley? ” The same criticism is applic¬ able to the scene in which Val&re points out to Harpagon the wrong he would be doing in marrying his daughter to a man she did not love. “No dowry wanted!” interrupts the miserly Harpagon every few moments. Be¬ hind this exclamation, which recurs automatic¬ ally, we faintly discern a complete repeating- machine set going by a fixed idea.
At times this mechanism is less easy to detect, and here we encounter a fresh difficulty n THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 75 in the theory of the comic. Sometimes the whole interest of a scene lies in one character playing a double part, the intervening speaker acting as a mere prism, so to speak, through which the dual personality is developed. We run the risk, then, of going astray if we look for the secret of the effect in what we see and hear, — in the external scene played by the characters, — and not in the altogether inner comedy of which this scene is no more than the outer refraction. For instance, when Alceste stubbornly repeats the words, “ I don’t say that! ” on Oronte asking him if he thinks his poetry bad, the repetition is laughable, though evidently Oronte is not now playing with Alceste at the game we have just described. We must be careful, however, for, in reality, we have two men in Alceste: on the one hand, the “ misanthropist ” who has vowed hence¬ forth to call a spade a spade, and on the other the gentleman who cannot unlearn, in a trice, the usual forms of politeness, or even, it may be, just the honest fellow who, when called upon to put his words into practice, shrinks from wounding another’s self-esteem or hurting his feelings. Accordingly, the real scene is not LAUGHTER CHAP.
76 between Alceste and Oronte, it is between Alceste and himself. The one Alceste would fain blurt out the truth, and the other stops his mouth just as he is on the point of telling everything. Each “ I don’t say that! ” reveals a growing effort to repress something that strives and struggles to get out. And so the tone in which the phrase is uttered gets more and more violent, Alceste becoming more and more angry — not with Oronte, as he thinks — but with himself. The tension of the spring is continually being renewed and reinforced until it at last goes off with a bang. Here, as else¬ where, we have the same identical mechanism of repetition.
For a man to make a resolution never hence¬ forth to say what he does not think, even though he “openly defy the whole human race,” is not necessarily laughable; it is only a phase of life at its highest and best. For another man, through amiability, selfishness, or disdain, to prefer to flatter people is only another phase of life; there is nothing in it to make us laugh. You may even combine these two men into one, and arrange that the individual waver between offensive frankness and delusive politen THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 77 ness, this duel between two opposing feelings will not even then be comic, rather it will appear the essence of seriousness if these two feelings through their very distinctness complete each other, develop side by side, and make up between them a composite mental condition, adopting, in short, a modus vivendi which merely gives us the complex impression of life. But imagine these two feelings as inelastic and unvarying elements in a really living man, make him oscillate from one to the other; above all, arrange that this oscillation becomes entirely mechanical by adopting the well-known form of some habitual, simple, childish con¬ trivance: then you will get the image we have so far found in all laughable objects, something mechanical in something living; in fact, some¬ thing comic.
We have dwelt on this first image, the Jack-in-the-box, sufficiently to show how comic fancy gradually converts a material mechanism into a moral one. Now we will consider one or two other games, confining ourselves to their most striking aspects.
78 LAUGHTER chap.
able comedies in which one of the characters thinks he is speaking and acting freely, and, consequently, retains all the essentials of life, whereas, viewed from a certain standpoint, he appears as a mere toy in the hands of another who is playing with him. The transition is easily made, from the dancing-jack which a child works with a string, to Geronte and Argante manipulated by Scapin. Listen to Scapin himself: “The machine is all there”; and again: “ Providence has brought them into my net,” etc. Instinctively, and because one would rather be a cheat than be cheated, in imagination at all events, the spectator sides with the knaves; and for the rest of the time, like a child who has persuaded his playmate to lend him his doll, he takes hold of the strings himself and makes the marionette come and go on the stage as he pleases. But this latter condition is not indispensable; we can remain outside the pale of what is taking place if only we retain the distinct impression of a mechanical arrangement. This is what happens whenever one of the characters vacillates be¬ tween two contrary opinions, each in turn appeal¬ ing to him, as when Panurge asks Tom, Dick, n THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 79 and Harry whether or no he ought to get married. Note that, in such a case, a comic author is always careful to personify the two opposing decisions. For, if there is no spec¬ tator, there must at all events be actors to hold the strings.
All that is serious in life comes from our freedom. The feelings we have matured, the passions we have brooded over, the actions we have weighed, decided upon, and carried through, in short, all that comes from us and is our very own, these are the things that give life its ofttimes dramatic and generally grave aspect. What, then, is requisite to transform all this into a comedy? Merely to fancy that our seeming freedom conceals the strings of a dancing-jack, and that we are, as the poet says,...humble marionettes The wires of which are pulled by Fate.1 So there is not a real, a serious, or even a dramatic scene that fancy cannot render comic by simply calling forth this image. Nor is there a game for which a wider field lies open.
1...d’humbles marionnettes Dont le fil est aux mams de la N6cessit6 Sully-Prudhomme.
8o LAUGHTER CHAP.
3. The Snow-ball,. — The farther we proceed in this investigation into the methods of comedy, the more clearly we see the part played by childhood’s memories. These memories refer, perhaps, less to any special game than to the mechanical device of which that game is a particular instance. The same general device, moreover, may be met with in widely different games, just as the same operatic air is found in many different arrangements and variations. What is here of importance and is retained in the mind, what passes by imperceptible stages from the games of a child to those of a man, is the mental diagram, the skeleton outline of the combination, or, if you like, the abstract formula of which these games are particular illustrations. Take, for instance, the rolling snow-ball, which increases in size as it moves along. We might just as well think of toy soldiers standing behind one another. Push the first and it tumbles down on the second, this latter knocks down the third, and the state of things goes from bad to worse until they all lie prone on the floor. Or again, take a house of cards that has been built up with infinite care: the first you touch seems uncertain ii THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 81 whether to move or not, its tottering neighbour comes to a quicker decision, and the work of destruction, gathering momentum as it goes on, rushes headlong to the final collapse. These instances are all different, but they suggest the same abstract vision, that of an effect which grows by arithmetical progression, so that the cause, insignificant at the outset, culminates by a necessary evolution in a result as important as it is unexpected. Now let us open a children’s picture-book; we shall find this arrangement already on the high road to becoming comic. Here, for instance — in one of the comic chap- books picked up by chance — we have a caller rushing violently into a drawing-room; he knocks against a lady, who upsets her cup of tea over an old gentleman, who slips against a glass window which falls in the street on to the head of a constable, who sets the whole police force agog, etc. The same arrangement re¬ appears in many a picture intended for grown¬ up persons. In the “stories without words” sketched by humorous artists we are often shown an object which moves from place to place, and persons who are closely connected with it, so that through a series of scenes a G 82 LAUGHTER CHAP.
change in the position of the object mechanically brings about increasingly serious changes in the situation of the persons. Let us now turn to comedy. Many a droll scene, many a comedy even, may be referred to this simple type. Read the speech of Chicanneau in the Plaideurs: here we find lawsuits within lawsuits, and the mechanism works faster and faster — Racine produces in us this feeling of increasing acceleration by crowding his law terms ever closer together — until the lawsuit over a truss of hay costs the plaintiff the best part of his fortune. And again the same arrangement occurs in certain scenes of Don Quixote; for instance, in the inn scene, where, by an extraordinary concatenation of circum¬ stances, the mule-driver strikes Sancho, who belabours Maritornes, upon whom the inn¬ keeper falls, etc. Finally, let us pass to the light* comedy of to-day. Need we call to mind all the forms in which this same combination appears? There is one that is employed rather frequently. For instance, a certain thing, say a letter, happens to be of supreme importance to a certain person and must be recovered at all costs. This thing, which a THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 83 always vanishes just when you think you have caught it, pervades the entire play, “ rolling up ” increasingly serious and unexpected incidents as it proceeds. All this is far more like a child’s game than appears at first blush. Once more the effect produced is that of the snow¬ ball.
It is the characteristic of a mechanical com¬ bination to be generally reversible. A child is delighted when he sees the ball in a game of ninepins knocking down everything in its way and spreading havoc in all directions; he laughs louder than ever when the ball returns to its starting-point after twists and turns and waverings of every kind. In other words, the mechanism just described is laughable even when rectilinear, it is much more so on be¬ coming circular and when every effort the player makes, by a fatal interaction of cause and effect, merely results in bringing it back to the same spot. Now, a considerable number of light comedies revolve round this idea. An Italian straw hat has been eaten up by a horse.1 There is only one other hat like it in the whole of Paris; it must be secured regardless of cost.
1 Un Chapeau depaille d'ltalie (Labiche).
LAUGHTER CHAP.
84 This hat, which always slips away at the moment its capture seems inevitable, keeps the principal character on the run, and through him all the others who hang, so to say, on to his coat tails, like a magnet which, by a suc¬ cessive series of attractions, draws along in its train the grains of iron filings that hang on to each other. And when at last, after all sorts of difficulties, the goal seems in sight, it is found that the hat so ardently sought is precisely the one that has been eaten. The same voyage of discovery is depicted in another equally well- known comedy of Labiche.1 The curtain rises on an old bachelor and an old maid, acquaint¬ ances of long standing, at the moment of enjoying their daily rubber. Each of them, unknown to the other, has applied to the same matrimonial agency. Through innumerable difficulties, one mishap following on the heels of another, they hurry along, side by side, right through the play, to the interview which brings them back, purely and simply, into each other’s presence. We have the same circular effect, the same return to the starting-point, in a more recent play.2 A henpecked husband imagines 1 La Cagnotte. * Les Surprises du divorce.
ir THE COMIC IN SITUATIONS 85 he has escaped by divorce from the clutches of his wife and his mother-in-law. He marries again, when, lo and behold, the double com¬ bination of marriage and divorce brings back to him his former wife in the aggravated form of a second mother-in-law!
When we think how intense and how common is this type of the comic, we under¬ stand why it has fascinated the imagination of certain philosophers. To cover a good deal of ground only to come back unwittingly to the starting-point, is to make a great effort for a result that is nil. So we might be tempted to define the comic in this latter fashion. And such, indeed, seems to be the idea of Herbert Spencer: according to him, laughter is the indication of an effort which suddenly en¬ counters a void. Kant had already said something of the kind: “ Laughter is the result of an expectation, which, of a sudden, ends in nothing.” No doubt these definitions would apply to the last few examples given, although, even then, the formula needs the addition of sundry limitations, for we often make an ineffectual effort which is in no way provocative of laughter. While, however, the 86 LAUGHTER CHAP.