es. Certainly on my return I was at once assailed with the
question on all sides, "Have they got a sense of humour? Even if it is
only a rudimentary sense, have they got it or have they not?" I propose
therefore to address myself to the answer to this question.

A peculiar interest always attaches to humour. There is no quality of
the human mind about which its possessor is more sensitive than the
sense of humour. A man will freely confess that he has no ear for music,
or no taste for fiction, or even no interest in religion. But I have yet
to see the man who announces that he has no sense of humour. In point of
fact, every man is apt to think himself possessed of an exceptional gift
in this direction, and that even if his humour does not express itself
in the power either to make a joke or to laugh at one, it none the less
consists in a peculiar insight or inner light superior to that of other
people.

The same thing is true of nations. Each thinks its own humour of
an entirely superior kind, and either refuses to admit, or admits
reluctantly, the humorous quality of other peoples. The Englishman may
credit the Frenchman with a certain light effervescence of mind which he
neither emulates nor envies; the Frenchman may acknowledge that English
literature shows here and there a sort of heavy playfulness; but neither
of them would consider that the humour of the other nation could stand a
moment's comparison with his own.

Yet, oddly enough, American humour stands as a conspicuous exception to
this general rule. A certain vogue clings to it. Ever since the spacious
days of Artemus Ward and Mark Twain it has enjoyed an extraordinary
reputation, and this not only on our own continent, but in England. It
was in a sense the English who "discovered" Mark Twain; I mean it
was they who first clearly recognised him as a man of letters of the
foremost rank, at a time when academic Boston still tried to explain him
away as a mere comic man of the West. In the same way Artemus Ward is
still held in affectionate remembrance in London, and, of the later
generation, Mr. Dooley at least is a household word.

This is so much the case that a sort of legend has grown around American
humour. It is presumed to be a superior article and to enjoy the same
kind of pre-eminence as French cooking, the Russian ballet, and Italian
organ grinding. With this goes the converse supposition that the British
people are inferior in humour, that a joke