It must be recognised that the history of literature furnishes forth no
great international figure, whose fame rests solely upon the basis of
humour, however human, however sympathetic, however universal that
humour may be. Behind that humour must lurk some deeper and more
serious implication which gives breadth and solidity to the art-product.
Genuine humour, as Landor has pointed out, requires a "sound and
capacious mind, which is always a grave one." There is always a breadth
of philosophy, a depth of sadness, or a profundity of pathos in the very
greatest humorists. Both Rabelais and La Fontaine were reflective
dreamers; Cervantes fought for the progressive and the real in pricking
the bubble of Spanish chivalry; and Moliere declared that, for a man in
his position, he could do no better than attack the vices of his time
with ridiculous likenesses. Though exhibiting little of the melancholy
of Lincoln, Mark Twain revelled in the same directness of thought and
expression, showed the same zest for broad humour reeking with the
strong but pungent flavour of the soil.
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