The Comic
spirit eyes but does not touch it. Put into action, it would be farcical.
It is too gross for Comedy.
Incidents of a kind casting ridicule on our unfortunate nature instead of
our conventional life, provoke derisive laughter, which thwarts the Comic
idea. But derision is foiled by the play of the intellect. Most of
doubtful causes in contest are open to Comic interpretation, and any
intellectual pleading of a doubtful cause contains germs of an Idea of
Comedy.
The laughter of satire is a blow in the back or the face. The laughter of
Comedy is impersonal and of unrivalled politeness, nearer a smile; often
no more than a smile. It laughs through the mind, for the mind directs
it; and it might be called the humour of the mind.
One excellent test of the civilization of a country, as I have said, I
take to be the flourishing of the Comic idea and Comedy; and the test of
true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.
If you believe that our civilization is founded in common-sense (and it
is the first condition of sanity to believe it), you will, when
contemplating men, discern a Spirit overhead; not more heavenly than the
light flashed upward from glassy surfaces, but luminous and watchful;
never shooting beyond them, nor lagging in the rear; so closely attached
to them that it may be taken for a slavish reflex, until its features are
studied.
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