t preserve our
gaiety; otherwise we could not preserve our balance. By some freak of
nature, the average man strikes attitudes as readily as the average boy
whistles. We know how the _poseur_ works mischief to every cause, and we
can see the _poseur_ on every side. In politics, he has made the
platform contemptible, which is a danger to the nation, needing the
right use of platform; in literature--well, we all know bourgeois, but
who has done justice to the artist who gets on a platform to talk about
the bourgeois?--in religion, the _poseur_ is more likely to make
agnostics than all the Rationalist Press; and the agnostic _poseur_ in
turn is very funny. Now all these are an affliction, a collection of
absurdities of which we must cure the nation. If we cannot cure the
nation of absurdity we cannot set her free. Let it be our rule to
combine gaiety with gravity and we will acquire a saving sense of
proportion. Only the solemn man is dull; the serious man has a natural
fund of gaiety: we need only be natural to bring back joy to serious
endeavour. Then we shall begin to move. Let us remember a revolution
will surely fail when its leaders have no sense of humour.

V

But our humour will not be a saving humour unless it is of high order. A
great humorist is as rare as a great poet or a great philosopher. Though
ours may not be great we must keep it in the line of greatness.
Remember, great humour must be made out of ourselves rather than out of
others. The fine humorist is delightfully courteous; the commonplace
wit, invariably insulting. We must keep two things in mind, that in
laughter at our own folly is the beginning of wisdom; and the keenest
wit is pure fun, never coarse fun. We start a laugh at others by getting
an infallible laugh at ourselves. The commonplace wit arranges incidents
to make someone he dislikes ridiculous; his attitude is the attitude of
the superior person. He is nearly always--often unintentionally--offensive;
he repels the public sometimes in irritation, sometimes in amusement, for
they often see point in his joke, but see a greater joke in him, and they
are often laughing, not at his joke, but at himself. Let us for our
salvation avoid the attitude of the superior person. Don't make sport
of others--make it of yourself. Ridicule of your neighbour must be
largely speculation; of the comedy in yourself there can be no doubt.
When you get the essential humour out of yourself, you get the infall