no prospect for him in this life of anything but a
dismal stumbling down into disease and want, yet I do not in the least
believe that that is the end of his horizon or his pilgrimage; and
thirdly, one may be genuinely and not in the least evilly amused at
the contrast between the disreputable squalor of the scene and the
lofty claim advanced. The three emotions are not at all inconsistent.
The pessimistic moralist might say that it was all very shocking, the
optimistic moralist might say that it was hopeful, the unreflective
humourist might simply be transported by the absurdity; yet not to be
amused at such a scene would appear to me to be both dull and
priggish. It seems to me to be a false solemnity to be shocked at any
lapses from perfection; a man might as well be shocked at the
existence of a poisonous snake or a ravening tiger. One must "see life
steadily and see it whole," and though we may and must hope that we
shall struggle upwards out of the mess, we may still be amused at the
dolorous figures we cut in the mire.

I was once in the company of a grave, decorous, and well-dressed
person who fell helplessly into a stream off a stepping-stone. I had
no wish that he should fall, and I was perfectly conscious of intense
sympathy with his discomfort; but I found the scene quite
inexpressibly diverting, and I still simmer with laughter at the
recollection of the disappearance of the trim figure, and his furious
emergence, like an oozy water-god, from the pool. It is not in the
least an ill-natured laughter. I did not desire the catastrophe, and I
would have prevented it if I could; but it was dreadfully funny for
all that; and if a similar thing had happened to myself, I should not
resent the enjoyment of the scene by a spectator, so long as I was
helped and sympathised with, and the merriment decently repressed
before me.

I think that what is called practical joking, which aims at
deliberately producing such situations, is a wholly detestable thing.
But it is one thing to sacrifice another person's comfort to one's
laughter, and quite another to be amused at what a fire-insurance
policy calls the act of God.

And I am very sure of this, that the sane, healthy, well-balanced
nature must have a fund of wholesome laughter in him, and that so far
from trying to repress a sense of humour, as an unkind, unworthy,
inhuman thing, there is no capacity of human nature which makes life
so frank and pleasant a business.