How much lies in laughter!--the cipher
key wherewith we decipher the whole man!... The man who cannot laugh is
not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is
already a treason and a stratagem." Let us, then, laugh at what is
laughable while we are yet clothed in "this muddy vesture of decay,"
for, as delightful Elia asks, "Can a ghost laugh? Can he shake his gaunt
sides if we be merry with him?"
It is a remarkable fact that a considerable proportion of the familiar
jests of almost any country, which are by its natives fondly believed to
be "racy of the soil," are in reality common to other peoples widely
differing in language and customs. Not a few of these jests had their
origin ages upon ages since--in Greece, in Persia, in India. Yet they
must have set out upon their travels westward at a comparatively early
period, for they have been long domiciled in almost every country of
Europe. Nevertheless, as we ourselves possess a goodly number of droll
witticisms, repartees, and jests, which are most undoubtedly and beyond
cavil our own--such as many of those which are ascribed to Sam Foote,
Harry Erskine, Douglas Jerrold, and Sydney Smith; though they have been
credited with some that are as old as the jests of Hierokles--so there
exist in what may be termed the lower strata of Oriental fiction,
humorous and witty stories, characteristic of the different peoples
amongst whom they originated, which, for the most part, have not yet
been appropriated by the European compilers of books of facetiae, and a
selection of such jests--choice specimens of Oriental Wit and
Humour--gleaned from a great variety of sources, will, I trust, amuse
readers in general, and lovers of funny anecdotes in particular.
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