from the absence of sensibility and
generalization. We find that those whose experience is imperfect are
most inclined to mirth. This is the reason why children, especially
those of the prosperous classes, are so full of merriment. They are not
only highly emotional, but have inquiring and progressive minds, while
their experience being small, and generalization imperfect, they see
much that appears strange and perplexing to them; but their laughter is
never hearty as in the case of those whose views are more formed.[22]

Exaggeration always contains either falsity, or complication, and when
it is used for humour the deficiency is made up. It easily affords
amusement, because it can bring together the most distant and discordant
ideas. American wits have made great use of it. Thus we read of a man
driving his gig at such a pace along the high road that his companion,
looking at the mile stones, asked what cemetery they were passing
through? One of the same country described the extent of his native land
in the following terms: "It is bounded on the North by the Aurora
Borealis, on the South by the Southern Cross, on the East by the rising
sun, and on the West by the Day of Judgment." The same may be said of
diminution which is only humorous when connecting distant ideas. In "The
Man of Taste," a poem, by the Rev. T. Bramstone in Dodsley's collection,
we read--

"My hair I'll powder in the women's way,
And dress and talk of dressing more than they;
I'll please the maids of honour if I can,
Without black velvet breeches--what is man?"

Longinus, says, "He was possessor of a field as small as a Lacedaemonian
letter." Their letters often consisted only of two or three words. A
gentleman I met on one occasion in a train, speaking of a lady friend,
observed--"She's very small, but what there is of her is very, very
good. Why, she'd go into that box," pointing to one for sandwiches.
"She's not bigger than that umbrella. 'Pon my honour as a gentleman,
she's not."

Humour, by means of the perplexity it produces, often gains the victory
over strong emotions. This fact has been practically recognised by
orators, who see that when a man is struck by a humorous allusion,
powerful feelings which could not otherwise be swayed give way, and even
firm resolutions seem for the moment shaken and changed. We are bribed
by our desire for pleasure, and a man thus often seems to sympathise
with those he really opposes and can eve