should have regarded skill in punning in his selections of
bishops and privy councillors.
The most wasted of all days, says Chamfort, is that on which one has not
laughed.
It is, moreover, no small merit of laughter that it is quite spontaneous.
"You cannot force people to laugh; you cannot give a reason why they
should laugh; they must laugh of themselves or not at all.... If we think
we must not laugh, this makes our temptation to laugh the greater." [5]
Humor is, moreover, contagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of
himself, "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in
other men."
But one may paraphrase the well-known remark about port wine and say that
some jokes may be better than others, but anything which makes one laugh
is good. "After all," says Dryden, "it is a good thing to laugh at any
rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness,"
and I may add, of health.
I have been told that in omitting any mention of smoking I was overlooking
one of the real pleasures of life.
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