inferiority, and stupidity of the actors stand out clearly may be taken the following anecdote:

A lady was bragging that she had overthrown her enemy in a lawsuit. One of her servants, standing by, said he took a wrong sow by the ear, when he meddled with her ladyship.

CHAPTER XXVI

NONSENSE AND RIDICULE

Ordinary nonsense verses or sayings such as Irish bulls are apt to afford us the pleasure of laughter, like any absurdity which we can readily discover and regard as a relation of inferiority in respect to our intellectual activity. We are amused at the nonsense verses of "Alice in Wonderland," or even at the still more nonsensical verses of "Mother Goose." This is not due to the fact, as some imagine, of removal of inhibitions and ease of thought, but it is solely due to the relation of superiority and inferiority as well as to the satisfaction with ourselves and our mental resources which those absurdities and nonsense statements set into action. In short, the laughter in such cases is not due to diminution of activity and saving of mental energy, but, on the contrary, to the sense of increase and free expenditure of mental activity.

The feeling of presence of sources of reserve energy, the sense of buoyancy, of mental activity, the upheaval of inner, latent energies raised from the conscious and the subconscious regions by associations of the relation of inferiority-all these conditions constitute the essence of the funny, the ludicrous, and the comic. It is not the saving, not the economizing of energy; but, quite the contrary, it is the reckless expenditure, the

expansion of inner forces, the revelation of untold wealth, which can be carelessly thrown away at our pleasure, disclosed to our superior view by things and relations of an inferior character, it is that alone that gives rise to the mirth and merriment of the laughter, of the comic and the ludicrous. The laughter of the comic and the ludicrous is like the joy of viewing lowlands, valleys, ravines, and lower peaks from the height of some overtowering mountain top. The enjoyment does not consist so much in the fact that we ourselves feel bigger, as that we have the sensation of standing on higher ground. It is not we, it is the mountain and its scenery that are grand. Such sensations of grandeur, added to the feeling of our inner powers, are given to us subconsciously in laughter. In nonsense we experience the strength of our sense.

Nonsense is often employed to bring out the inner absurdity of some saying or of some real relation in life or of some of the institutions which are regarded as holy and inviolable. The moral poems which children are made to memorize by rote in school are well ridiculed by the nonsense verses which Alice is made to repeat before the Caterpillar:

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think at your age it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure my brain;

But now I am perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again."

At the same time in his frolicsome merriment and

under the cloak of nonsense the writer manages to throw out a hint as to marital relations and family happi

ness:

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose with the bones and the beak; Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

Take again the nonsense verses repeated as school lessons before the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle: 'Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare, You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair. As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. "That is different from what I used to say when I was a child," said the Gryphon.

"Well I never heard it before," said the Mock Turtle; "but it sounds uncommon nonsense."

Take the parody on the silly verses, "Mary had a Little Lamb":

Mary had a little lamb,

Likewise a lobster stew,

And ere the sunlit morning dawned

She had a nightmare, too.

We may take another version:

Mary had a little lamp,

Filled with benzoline;
Tried to light it at the fire,

Has not since benzine.

To quote from "Mother Goose":

Three wise men of Gotham

Went to sea in a bowl;

If the bowl had been stronger,

My song had been longer.

The nonsense of "Alice Through the Looking Glass" is specially instructive:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"When you say 'hill,'" the Queen interrupted, “I could show you hills, in comparison with which you'd call that a valley."

"No, I shouldn't," said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last; "a hill can't be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense."

"It's only the Red King snoring," said Tweedledee. "Come and look at him!" the brothers cried, and they each took one of Alice's hands, and led her up to where the king was sleeping.

"Isn't he a lovely sight?" said Tweedledum.

Alice couldn't say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud, "fit to snore his head off!" as Tweedledum remarked.

"I'm afraid he'll catch cold with lying on the damp grass," said Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl. "He's dreaming now," said Tweedledee; "and what do you think he's dreaming about?"

Alice said, "Nobody can guess that."