Jokes For All Occasions.
by Anonymous.
PREFACE
The ways of telling a story are as many as the tellers themselves. It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which any one may perfect himself in the art, but it is possible to offer suggestions by which to guide practise in narration toward a gratifying success.
Broadly distinguished, there are two methods of telling a story. One uses the extreme of brevity, and makes its chief reliance on the point.
The other devotes itself in great part to preliminary elaboration in the narrative, making this as amusing as possible, so that the point itself serves to cap a climax. In the public telling of an anecdote the tyro would be well advised to follow the first method. That is, he should put his reliance on the point of the story, and on this alone. He should scrupulously limit himself to such statements as are absolutely essential to clear understanding of the point. He should make a careful examination of the story with two objects in mind: the first, to determine just what is required in the way of explanation; the second, an exact understanding of the point itself. Then, when it comes to the relating of the story, he must simply give the information required by the hearers in order to appreciate the point. As to the point itself, he must guard against any carelessness. Omission of an essential detail is fatal. It may be well for him, at the outset, to memorize the conclusion of the story. No matter how falteringly the story is told, it will succeed if the point itself be made clear, and this is insured for even the most embarra.s.sed speaker by memorizing it.
The art of making the whole narration entertaining and amusing is to be attained only by intelligent practise. It is commonly believed that story-sellers are born, not made. As a matter of fact, however, the skilled raconteurs owe their skill in great measure to the fact that they are unwearying in practise. It is, therefore, recommended to any one having ambition in this direction that he cultivate his ability by exercising it. He should practise short and simple stories according to his opportunities, with the object of making the narration smooth and easy. An audience of one or two familiar friends is sufficient in the earlier efforts. Afterward, the practise may be extended before a larger number of listeners on social occasions. When facility has been attained in the simplest form, attempts to extend the preliminary narrative should be made. The preparation should include an effort to invest the characters of the story; or its setting, with qualities amusing in themselves, quite apart from any relation to the point. Precise instruction cannot be given, but concentration along this line will of itself develop the humorous perception of the story-teller, so that, though the task may appear too difficult in prospect, it will not prove so in actual experience. But, in every instance, care must be exercised to keep the point of the story clearly in view, and to omit nothing essential in the preparation for it.
In the selection of stories to be retailed, it is the part of wisdom to choose the old, rather than the new. This is because the new story, so called, travels with frightful velocity under modern social conditions, and, in any particular case, the latest story, when told by you to a friend, has just been heard by him from some other victim of it. But the memory of most persons for stories is very short. Practically never does it last for years. So, it is uniformly safe to present as novelties at the present day the humor of past decades. Moreover, the exercise of some slight degree of ingenuity will serve to give those touches in the way of change by which the story may be brought up to date. Indeed, by such adaptation, the story is made really one"s own--as the professional humorists thankfully admit!
INTRODUCTION
Wit and humor, and the distinction between them, defy precise definition. Luckily, they need none. To one asking what is beauty, a wit replied: "That is the question of a blind man." Similarly, none requires a definition of wit and humor unless he himself be lacking in all appreciation of them, and, if he be so lacking, no amount of explanation will avail to give him understanding. Borrow, in one of his sermons, declared concerning wit: "It is, indeed, a thing so versatile, multiform, appearing in so many shapes and garbs, so variously apprehended of several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting wind." Nor is it fitting to attempt exact distinctions between wit and humor, which are essentially two aspects of one thing. It is enough to realize that humor is the product of nature rather than of art, while wit is the expression of an intellectual art. Humor exerts an emotional appeal, produces smiles or laughter; wit may be amusing, or it may not, according to the circ.u.mstances, but it always provokes an intellectual appreciation.
Thus, Nero made a pun on the name of Seneca, when the philosopher was brought before him for sentence. In speaking the decree that the old man should kill himself, the emperor used merely the two Latin words: "Se neca." We admit the ghastly cleverness of the jest, but we do not chuckle over it.
The element of surprise is common to both wit and humor, and it is often a sufficient cause for laughter in itself, irrespective of any essentially amusing quality in the cause of the surprise. The unfamiliar, for this reason, often has a ludicrous appeal to primitive peoples. An African tribe, on being told by the missionary that the world is round, roared with laughter for hours; it is told of a Mikado that he burst a blood-vessel and died in a fit of merriment induced by hearing that the American people ruled themselves. In like fashion, the average person grins or guffaws at sight of a stranger in an outlandish costume, although, as a matter of fact, the dress may be in every respect superior to his own. Simply, its oddity somehow tickles the risibilities. Such surprise is occasioned by contrasting circ.u.mstances.
When a pompous gentleman, marching magnificently, suddenly steps on a banana peel, pirouettes, somersaults, and sits with extreme violence, we laugh before asking if he broke a leg.
The fundamentals of wit and humor are the same throughout all the various tribes of earth, throughout all the various ages of history. The causes of amus.e.m.e.nt are essentially the same everywhere and always, and only the setting changes according to time and place. But racial characteristics establish preferences for certain aspects of fun-making, and such preferences serve to some extent in differentiating the written humor of the world along the lines of nationality. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the really amusing story has an almost universal appeal. I have seen in an American country newspaper a town correspondent"s humorous effort in which he gave Si Perkins"s explanation of being in jail. And that explanation ran on all fours with a Chinese story ages and ages old. The local correspondent did not plagiarize from the Chinaman: merely, the humorous bent of the two was identical. In the ancient Oriental tale, a man who wore the thief"s collar as a punishment was questioned by an acquaintance concerning the cause of his plight.
"Why, it was just nothing at all," the convict explained easily. "I was strolling along the edge of the ca.n.a.l, when I happened to catch sight of a bit of old rope. Of course, I knew that old piece of rope was of no use to anyone, and so I just picked it up, and took it home with me."
"But I don"t understand," the acquaintance exclaimed. "Why should they punish you so severely for a little thing like that? I don"t understand it."
"I don"t understand it, either," the convict declared, "unless, maybe, it was because there was an ox at the other end of the rope."
The universality of humor is excellently ill.u.s.trated in Greek literature, where is to be found many a joke at which we are laughing to-day, as others have laughed through the centuries. Half a thousand years before the Christian era, a platonic philosopher at Alexandria, by name Hierocles, grouped twenty-one jests in a volume under the t.i.tle, "Asteia." Some of them are still current with us as typical Irish bulls.
Among these were accounts of the "Safety-first" enthusiast who determined never to enter the water until he had learned to swim; of the horse-owner, training his nag to live without eating, who was successful in reducing the feed to a straw a day, and was about to cut this off when the animal spoiled the test by dying untimely; of the fellow who posed before a looking gla.s.s with his eyes closed, to learn how he looked when asleep; of the inquisitive person who held a crow captive in order to test for himself whether it would live two centuries; of the man who demanded to know from an acquaintance met in the street whether it was he or his twin brother who had just been buried. Another Greek jest that has enjoyed a vogue throughout the world at large, and will doubtless survive even prohibition, was the utterance of Diogenes, when he was asked as to what sort of wine he preferred. His reply was: "That of other people."
Again, we may find numerous duplicates of contemporary stories of our own in the collection over which generations of Turks have laughed, the tales of Nasir Eddin. In reference to these, it may be noted that Turkish wit and humor are usually distinguished by a moralizing quality.
When a man came to Nasir Eddin for the loan of a rope, the request was refused with the excuse that Nasir"s only piece had been used to tie up flour. "But it is impossible to tie up flour with a rope," was the protest. Nasir Eddin answered: "I can tie up anything with a rope when I do not wish to lend it."
When another would have borrowed his a.s.s, Nasir replied that he had already loaned the animal. Thereupon, the honest creature brayed from the stable. "But the a.s.s is there," the visitor cried indignantly. "I hear it!" Nasir Eddin retorted indignantly: "What! Would you take the word of an a.s.s instead of mine?"
In considering the racial characteristics of humor, we should pay tribute to the Spanish in the person of Cervantes, for _Don Quixote_ is a mine of drollery. But the bulk of the humor among all the Latin races is of a sort that our more prudish standards cannot approve. On the other hand, German humor often displays a characteristic spirit of investigation. Thus, the little boy watching the pupils of a girls"
school promenading two by two, graded according to age, with the youngest first and the oldest last, inquired of his mother: "Mama, why is it that the girls" legs grow shorter as they grow older?" In the way of wit, an excellent ill.u.s.tration is afforded by Heine, who on receiving a book from its author wrote in acknowledgment of the gift: "I shall lose no time in reading it."
The French are admirable in both wit and humor, and the humor is usually kindly, though the shafts of wit are often barbed. I remember a humorous picture of a big man shaking a huge trombone in the face of a tiny canary in its cage, while he roars in anger: "That"s it! Just as I was about, with the velvety tones of my instrument, to imitate the twittering of little birds in the forest, you have to interrupt with your infernal din!" The caustic quality of French wit is ill.u.s.trated plenteously by Voltaire. There is food for meditation in his utterance: "Nothing is so disagreeable as to be obscurely hanged." He it was, too, who sneered at England for having sixty religions and only one gravy. To an adversary in argument who quoted the minor prophet Habakkuk, he retorted contemptuously: "A person with a name like that is capable of saying anything."
But French wit is by no means always of the cutting sort. Its more amiable aspect is shown by the declaration of Brillat Savarin to the effect that a dinner without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye. Often the wit is merely the measure of absurdity, as when a courtier in speaking of a fat friend said: "I found him sitting all around the table by himself." And there is a ridiculous story of the impecunious and notorious Marquis de Favieres who visited a Parisian named Barnard, and announced himself as follows:
"Monsieur, I am about to astonish you greatly. I am the Marquis de Favieres. I do not know you, but I come to you to borrow five-hundred luis."
Barnard answered with equal explicitness:
"Monsieur, I am going to astonish you much more. I know you, and I am going to lend them to you."
The amiable malice, to use a paradoxical phrase, which is often characteristic of French tales, is capitally displayed in the following:
The wife of a villager in Poitou became ill, and presently fell into a trance, which deceived even the physician, so that she was p.r.o.nounced dead, and duly prepared for burial. Following the local usage, the body was wrapped in a sheet, to be borne to the burial place on the shoulders of four men chosen from the neighborhood. The procession followed a narrow path leading across the fields to the cemetery. At a turning, a thorn tree stood so close that one of the thorns tore through the sheet and lacerated the woman"s flesh. The blood flowed from the wound, and she suddenly aroused to consciousness. Fourteen years elapsed before the good wife actually came to her deathbed. On this occasion, the ceremonial was repeated. And now, as the bearers of the body approached the turn of the path, the husband called to them:
"Look out for the thorn tree, friends!"
The written humor of the Dutch does not usually make a very strong appeal to us. They are inclined to be ponderous even in their play, and lack in great measure the sarcasm and satire and the lighter subtlety in fun-making. History records a controversy between Holland and Zealand, which was argued pro and con during a period of years with great earnestness. The subject for debate that so fascinated the Dutchmen was: "Does the cod take the hook, or does the hook take the cod?"
Because British wit and humor often present themselves under aspects somewhat different from those preferred by us, we belittle their efforts unjustly. As a matter of fact, the British attainments in this direction are the best in the world, next to our own. Moreover, in the British colonies is to be found a spirit of humor that exactly parallels our own in many distinctive features. Thus, there is a Canadian story that might just as well have originated below the line, of an Irish girl, recently imported, who visited her clergyman and inquired his fee for marrying.
He informed her that his charge was two dollars. A month later, the girl visited the clergyman for the second time, and at once handed him two dollars, with the crisp direction, "Go ahead and marry me."
"Where is the bridegroom?" the clergyman asked.
"What!" exclaimed the girl, dismayed. "Don"t you furnish him for the two dollars?"
It would seem that humor is rather more enjoyable to the British taste than wit, though there is, indeed, no lack of the latter. But the people delight most in absurd situations that appeal to the risibilities without any injury to the feelings of others. For example, d.i.c.kens relates an anecdote concerning two men, who were about to be hanged at a public execution. When they were already on the scaffold in preparation for the supreme moment, a bull being led to market broke loose and ran amuck through the great crowd a.s.sembled to witness the hanging. One of the condemned men on the scaffold turned to his fellow, and remarked:
"I say, mate, it"s a good thing we"re not in that crowd."
In spite of the gruesome setting and the gory antics of the bull, the story is amusing in a way quite harmless. Similarly, too, there is only wholesome amus.e.m.e.nt in the woman"s response to a vegetarian, who made her a proposal of marriage. She did, not mince her words:
"Go along with you! What? Be flesh of your flesh, and you a-living on cabbage? Go marry a gra.s.s widow!"
The kindly spirit of British humor is revealed even in sarcastic jesting on the domestic relation, which, on the contrary, provokes the bitterest jibes of the Latins. The shortest of jokes, and perhaps the most famous, was in the single word of _Punch"s_ advice to those about to get married:
"Don"t!"
The like good nature is in the words of a woman who was taken to a hospital in the East End of London. She had been shockingly beaten, and the attending surgeon was moved to pity for her and indignation against her a.s.sailant.
"Who did this?" he demanded. "Was it your husband?"
"Lor" bless yer, no!" she declared huffily. "W"y, my "usband "e "s more like a friend nor a "usband!"
Likewise, of the two men who had drunk not wisely but too well, with the result that in the small hours they retired to rest in the gutter.
Presently, one of the pair lifted his voice in protest:
"I shay, le"s go to nuzzer hotel--this leaksh!"
Or the incident of the tramp, who at the back door solicited alms of a suspicious housewife. His nose was large and of a purple hue. The woman stared at it with an accusing eye, and questioned bluntly:
"What makes your nose so red?"