ellow got to be so very sublime, as he is in the Paradise Lost."

"You irreverent jackanapes! to speak so of the immortal bard! I suppose
you mean,

'But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing mirth;
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek:
Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.'"

"That is the passage I mean, and that is the very company I should like
to invite, if the rest have no objection."

All approved of the suggestion, and soon the whole party was busily
engaged in various lively games, "Graces," "Battledore and Shuttlecock,"
"Hunt the Slipper," etc., which combined bodily exercise with healthful
excitement of the mirthful organs, which some philosophers assert to be,
after all, the distinguishing trait of mankind. Some call man a
"thinking animal," but this is so self-evident a slander upon the great
majority of the species, that no words are needed to refute it: one
attempted to define him as "a biped without feathers," but when a
plucked fowl was brought forward as a specimen of his man, he was
obliged to give up that definition. Others again describe him as "a
cooking animal," but while dogs can act as turnspits, and monkeys can
roast chestnuts, he cannot claim this lofty epithet as peculiarly his
own; besides, some savages have been found so degraded as to be
unacquainted with the use of fire. But wherever man is found, whether
under the heats of an African sun, or shivering in the cold of a Lapland
winter, upon the steppes of Tartary, or the pampas of South America, his
joyful laughter shows that he is a man, intended for social life and for
happiness. 'Tis true, we read of the _hyena laugh_, but we protest
against such a misapplication of terms: the fierce, mocking yell of that
ferocious creature has nothing in common with hearty, genial, human
laughter: other animals can weep, but man alone can laugh. And how great
a refreshment is it! It relieves the overtasked brain, and the heart
laden with cares; it makes the blood dance in the veins of youth, and
gives a new impetus to the spirits; work goes on more briskly, when a
gay heart sets the active powers in motion. Well did the Wise King say,
"A me