Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackeraythat you are brimming over with fun—you mayn’t makejokes, but you could if you would—you know you could:and in your quiet way you enjoy them extremely. Nowmany people neither make them, nor understand themwhen made, nor like them when understood, and aresuspicious, testy, and angry with jokers. Have you everwatched an elderly male or female—an elderly “party,”so to speak, who begins to find out that some youngwag of the company is “chaffing” him? Have you evertried the sarcastic or Socratic method with a child? Littlesimple he or she, in the innocence of the simple heart,plays some silly freak, or makes some absurd remark,which you turn to ridicule. The little creature dimlyperceives that you are making fun of him, writhes,blushes, grows uneasy, bursts into tears,—upon my wordit is not fair to try the weapon of ridicule upon thatinnocent young victim. The awful objurgatory practicehe is accustomed to. Point out his fault, and lay barethe dire consequences thereof: expose it roundly, andgive him a proper, solemn, moral whipping—but do notattempt to castigare ridendo. Do not laugh at him writhing,and cause all the other boys in the school to laugh.Remember your own young days at school, my friend—the tingling cheeks, burning ears, bursting heart, andpassion of desperate tears, with which you looked up,after having performed some blunder, whilst the doctorheld you to public scorn before the class, and crackedhis great clumsy jokes upon you—helpless, and a prisoner!Better the block itself, and the lictors, with theirfasces of birch-twigs, than the maddening torture ofthose jokes!Now with respect to jokes—and the present companyof course excepted—many people, perhaps most people,are as infants. They have little sense of humor. Theydon’t like jokes. Raillery in writing annoys and offendsthem. The coarseness apart, I think I have met very,very few women who liked the banter of Swift and Fielding.Their simple, tender natures revolt at laughter. Isthe satyr always a wicked brute at heart, and are theyrightly shocked at his grin, his leer, his horns, hoofs,and ears? Fi donc, le vilain monstre, with his shrieks,and his capering crooked legs! Let him go and get a pair43