Truth may perhaps come to the price of a
pearl that showeth well by day, but it will not rise to the price
of a diamond or carbuncle that shineth best in varied lights. A
mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if
there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering
hopes, false valuations, imagination, and the like, but that it
would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things full
of melancholy indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves."
Mr. Dallas goes so far as to say that "it is impossible that laughter
should be an unmixed pleasure, seeing it arises from some aspect of
imperfection or discordance." The fact that many people would undergo
almost any kind of suffering rather than be exposed to ridicule,
indicates that it contains some very unpleasant reflection. We sometimes
feel uncomfortable even when we hear laughter around us, the cause of
which we do not know, fearing that we may be ourselves the object of
it--even dogs dislike to be laughed at. Our ordinary modes of speech
seem to point to some imperfection or error in humour, as when we say
"there is many a true word spoken in jest," or "life is a jest,"
signifying its unreality. Sometimes we say that an observation "must be
a joke," implying that it is false.
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