Humour, which ought to give rise to only the most light-hearted and gay feelings, can often stir up vehemence and animosity. Evidently it is dearer to us than we realize. Men will take almost any kind of criticism except the observation that they have no sense of humour. A man will admit to being a coward or a liar or a thief or a poor mechanic or a bad swimmer, but tell him he has a dreadful sense of humour and you might as well have slandered his mother. Even if he is civilized enough to pretend to make light of your statement, he will still secretly believe that he has not only a good sense of humour but are superior to most. He has, in other words, a completely blind spot on the subject. This is all the more surprising when you consider that not one man in ten million can give you any kind of intelligent answer as to what humour is or why he laughs.
One day when I was about twelve years old, it occurred to me to wonder about the phenomenon of laughter. At first I thou
A. demonstrate why people are amused
B. display what people laugh at
C. bring to light the phenomenon of laughter
D. accent what a phenomenon laughter really is
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