Thus,
"Have you seen Patti?" _A._ "Yes." _Q._ "What in?" _A._ "A brougham."
Indelicacy or irreverence is unpleasant in itself, and yet when
complication is added to it few of us can avoid laughing, and I am
afraid that some considerably enjoy objectionable allusions. To tell a
man to go to h---, or that he deserves to go there, is merely coarse and
profane abuse, but when a labourer is found by an irritable country
gentleman piling up a heap of stones in front of his house, and being
rated for causing such an obstruction, asks where else he is to take
them, and is told "to h--- if you like," we are amused at the
answer--"Indeed, then, if I was to take them to heaven, they'd be more
out of your way." Thus, also, to call a man an ass would not win a smile
from most of us, but we relax a little when the writers in a high church
periodical, addicted to attacking Mr. Spurgeon, upon being accused of
being actuated by envy, retort that they know the commandment--"Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour's ass."
If we examine carefully the circumstances which awaken the ludicrous, we
shall probably come to conclude that they often contain something which
puzzles our understanding. An act which seems ridiculous would not
appear so if we could entirely account for it, for instance, if it were
done to win a bet.
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