A Community of Humorists by Samuel M. Crothers

Humor is not usually looked upon as a civic virtue. It is for the most part confined to a modest sphere of usefulness, and is accepted as an alleviation to the lot of the private man. He learns to find pleasure in his small misadventures and to smile amiably at his discomfitures. The most ancient pleasantries have almost always an element of domesticity. They form the silver lining to the clouds that sometimes gather over the most peaceful homes. What comfort an ancient Hebrew must have taken in the text from Ecclesiasticus: "As climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man. " The quiet man would murmur to himself, "How true! " He would seize the simile as a dog snatches a bone, and would carry it off to enjoy it by himself.

But it would never occur to him to treat the large affairs of the community in this fashion. Here everything seems too dignified to allow of pleasant conceits. The quiet man could not treat the prolixity of his social superiors as he could the too long drawn out wisdom of his wife. He must take it, as he would take the invariable laws of nature, with unsmiling acquiescence. Lord Bacon in his list of works that ought to be undertaken declared the need of one to be entitled "Sober Satire; or the Insides of Things. " Such sober satire might express the moods of a philosophical statesman, who could contrast the inside of great affairs with the outside. It implies a certain familiarity with the institutions of society which the common man does not possess.