THE GIFT OF HUMOUR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 18 June 1926, Page 2

THE GIFT OF HUMOUR

~ Suppose. your three sisters aiid stepgone . oft teethe ball, where the Prince might! daiic*» with tKem,v.ahd had -left you alone in the bleitk house—to clean ui> and wash 't'liei" dish eg,'and _ sweep the mats and "straighten the rooms too—and sudd^jjil^.;there- appeared before you a wee, dainty}- old-young-looking little woman with a. wonderful smile and eyes like two stars, and sparkling pearls in her hair and ears, and. a magic wand in her '"right hand—yes, none, other than your fairy godmother, whose veiy existence 20 years ago you "poolr-poohcd—and that she, wanting to cheer you up, told you' that' .any two Wishes that you wished would come true; what would they be? Ah, there I have tne" advantage over yOu j !for, maybe right away, ypu ddn't know just what you want most; but I've been thinking of it a long time, a#d I have my wishes all ready. Grant me the gift of humour and h> stout philosophy—and all else can go to the winds; aiid if I.have to choose between the. two. grant rne, 0 fairy godmother, the gift of humour. mThere is that in a humouraome mind that is going to see the Jaaghter in being tarred and feathered, or being burned alive.. It. just cannot help itself. It .isn't only,.that the affair is disagreeable,* tr jagic,! and .must be taken in as brave a* manner as possible, since taken it nTiist be; it is not resignation, not calmness in the face of direness, not bizarre>ie, nor superhuman courage, nor fortitude; but it's—well, it's like a wink pf a last-century- schoolboy, who, having been caught sucking peppermints when he should.have been conning his :'Collar and Daniel" bas been standing oh. a form waiting for the written repriruand from the head master, and the thrashing it is sure to evoke from his daddy,-when, despite his tenor and the t&ars that tremble on his lashes, he gives chum. Dick, a wink as he passes h'efore hirn with the rest of the buys at recess hour. Only a wink, but as much as to say. "There's something awfully funnyin"it'after all." For a schoolboy's humour-is -quite as great as, if not greater ' than, any other human . creature's ; he is alive to the humorous at that age even more than when he oldens in maturity and conventionality. '.Humour is not something you acquire like a beard, or moustache when you reach a certain number of years; but something you are born with; and if tho deities leave it out of your luck' bjag when you condescended to this earth, you'll go begging for it to the end of your days. To me it is. an innate philosophy that well-nigh defies description. There is something "Peter Pan-y" about it that eludes shackling by any amount of words; but a real humourist is one who lives a great deal within His better self, a man of more than usual vision. He is one that has a charm of his own, ;fid whenever serious or overwhelming, he invokes this charm, and transforms all the difficulties of the occasion.- into shingles protecting the house of his gladsomeness. —Emmc'.t Small, in the Theosophical Path,