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Page 72
In one sense, no doubt, these amusements of childhood are matters of
little moment; but, in spite of their seeming triviality, they have a
genuine importance which should not be overlooked. The spontaneous
exhibitions of children at play often reveal latent tastes, tendencies,
or traits of character to one who is able to interpret them aright. If
this be so,--and it is no longer open to doubt,--it is clear that even
infant acting may furnish hints and assistance of the highest value to
an intelligent system of education. It is true, no doubt, that till
quite lately any such possibility was steadily ignored; but it is only
quite lately that anything like an intelligent system of early education
has been attempted. The idiosyncrasies of a child, instead of being
carefully observed, were either disregarded as meaningless or repressed
as being naughty. No greater mistake could be possible; and this at last
is beginning to be understood. The first struggles of a young
consciousness to express itself externally are nearly always eccentric,
and often seem perverse. But this is nothing more than we ought to
expect. The oddities of a child's conduct are in reality nothing else
than direct expressions of character, uncurbed by the conventions which
regulate the demeanor of adults, or direct revelations of some taste or
aptitude, which education may foster, but which neglect will hardly
crush. The world contains a woful number of human pegs thrust forcibly
into holes which do not fit them, and the world's work suffers
proportionately from this misapplication of energy. The mischief is
abundantly clear, but the remedy, if we do not shut our eyes to it, is
tolerably clear also. Just as this condition of things is largely due to
our unscientific neglect of variations in character and the wooden
system of education which this neglect has produced, so we may expect to
see its evils disappear by an abolition of the one and a reform of the
other. If the world be indeed a stage, with all humanity for its _corps
dramatique_ it must surely be well for the success of the performance
that the cast should take account of individual aptitudes, and that to
each player should be allotted the part which he can best support in the
great drama of Life.
NORMAN PEARSON.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
"The Man who Laughs."
The degree of culture and good breeding which a man possesses may be
very correctly determined by the way he laughs. The primeval savage,
from whom we trace descent, was distinguished above everything else by
his demonstrativeness; and there is much in our present type of social
manners and conduct which betrays our barbarous origin. The brute-like
sounds that escape from the human throat in the exercise of laughter,
the coarse guffaw, the hoarse chuckle, and the high, cackling tones in
which many of the feminine half of the world express their sense of
amusement, attest very painfully the animal nature within us. It was
Emerson, I believe, who expressed a dislike of all loud laughter; and it
is difficult to imagine the scene or occasion which could draw from that
serene and even-minded philosopher a broader expression of amusement
than that conveyed in the "inscrutable smile" which Whipple describes as
his most characteristic feature. Yet Emerson was by no means wanting in
appreciation of the comic. On the contrary, he had an abiding sense of
humor, and it was this--a keen and lively perception of the grotesque,
derived as part of his Yankee inheritance--that kept him from uniting in
many of the extravagant reform movements of the day. Few of us, however,
even under the sanction of an Emerson, would wish to dispense with all
sound of laughter.
The memory of a friend's voice, in which certain laughing notes and
tones are inextricably mingled with the graver inflections of common
speech, is almost as dear as the vision of his countenance or the warm
pressure of his hand. Yet among such remembrances we hold others, of
those from whom the sound of open laughter is seldom heard, the absence
of which, however, denotes no diminished sense of the humorous and
amusing. A quick, responsive smile, a flash or glance of the eye, a
kindling countenance, serve as substitutes for true laughter, and we do
not miss the sound of that which is supplied in a finer and often truer
quality.
The freest, purest laughter is that of childhood, which is as
spontaneous as the song of birds. It is impossible that the laughter of
older people should retain this sound of perfect music. Knowledge of
life and the world has entered in to mar the natural harmonics of the
human voice, which not all the skill and efforts of the vocal culturists
can ever again restore. It is only those who in attaining the years and
stature of manhood have retained the nature of the child, its first
unconscious truth and simplicity, whose laughter is wholly pleasant to
hear. I recall the laugh of a friend which corresponds to this
description, a laugh as pure and melodious, as guiltless of premeditated
art or intention, as the notes of the rising lark; yet its owner is a
man of wide worldly experience. It is natural that I, who know my
friend so well, should find in this peculiarly happy laugh of his the
sign and test of that type of high, sincere manhood which he represents;
but it is a dangerous business, this attempting to define the character
and disposition of people by the turn of an eyelid, the curve of a lip,
or a particular vocal shade and inflection. Not only has Art learned to
imitate Nature very closely, but Nature herself plays many a trick upon
our credulity in matters of this kind. Upon a woman who owns no higher
motive than low and selfish cunning she bestows the musical tones of a
seraph, as she sheathes the sharp claws of all her feline progeny in
cases of softest fur. Rosamond Vincy is not the only example which might
be furnished, either in or out of print, in proof that a low, soft
voice, that excellent thing in woman, may have a wrongly persuasive
accent, luring to disappointment and death, like the Lorelei's song, to
which the harsh tones of the most strong-minded Xantippe are to be
preferred.
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