And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.
I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart for the joys of the multitude. And I would not have the tears that sadness makes to flow from my every part turn into laughter. I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.
What I find interesting is how close you can run the laughter along the seam of seriousness, and occasionally cross it, so that half the house genuinely doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Custard pie humour is fairly universal, but at the other end, which I'm more interested in, there's the humour that hovers on the darkness, that walks in the shadow of something else, not always that obvious.
For a significant man
woman, the one thought he values greatly, to the laughter and scorn of insignificant men, is a key to hidden treasure chambers; for those others, it is nothing but a piece of old iron.
There is no mission, nor interest to convert, and yet I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter. We should see at once that the high ideals for which we are killing and regimenting each other are empty and abstract substiutes for the unheeded miracles that surround us - not only in the obvious wonders of nature but also in the overwhelming uncanny fact of mere existence.
I never hear parents exclaim impatiently, "Children, you must no make so much noise," that I do not think how soon the time may come when, beside the vacant seat, those parents would give all the world, could they hear once more the ringing laughter which once so disturbed them.
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.