"To laugh heartily we must have
reality," writes Marmontel, and it is remarkable that most good comic
situations have been taken from the author's own experience. The best
kind of humour is the most artistic embellishment of the ludicrous.
The fact that humour is often found in comparisons, probably led Leon
Dumont to consider that it arose from the meeting of two opposite ideas
in the mind. But often there is no contrast. It does not always strike
us that the state of things present before us is different from some
other clearly defined condition. We do not necessarily see that a thing
is wrong as differing from something else, but as opposing some
standard in our minds which it is often difficult to determine. We
sometimes laugh at another person's costume, though it does not occur to
us that he should be dressed as ourselves, or according to some
particular fashion, nor could we point out at what precise point it
diverges from the code of propriety. But by reflecting we could probably
mark the deviation. The ludicrous often suggests comparisons; when we
see something absurd we often try to find a resemblance to something
else, but this is after we have been amused, and we sometimes say of a
very ridiculous man, that we "do not know what he is like."
Humorous complications appear under many forms and disguises.
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