almost any young man will testify that it will not do. The tendency of our minor art, therefore, is such that we can hardly expect it to bring forth and nourish the illustrators of an American "Punch," but we may count largely on the young woman with the prize Christmas-card and the decorative plate.
But if the artistic outlook is somewhat calculated to discourage the colonial mind in its hope for an American "Punch," does the humorous outlook inspirit it? In the volumes of Doyle's "Punch" before us we discover the Snob Papers,—the most important piece of literature which has ever appeared in any paper taking the unassuming comic style,—and many other things by the same hand, things which gave "Punch" an impetus on which it may be said to be running even yet. Does American humor afford anything of the same general nature—not, of course, demanding the degree—to take their place in the pages of an American "Punch," to perform their function in giving us our friends and commenting on American life? American humor is—it is hardly necessary to say so—a very amusing thing. They think so in London, which is sufficient for the extreme type of the colonial mind, and every uncolonial American has a strong natural relish for it, takes all he can get, and tries his own hand at it whenever he sees the ghost of an opportunity. But, though its intention is excellent, it is even more amusing than it intends to be; it is amusing as a phenomenon, it is entertaining as a subject of discussion, it fascinates us as a new doll does a child into attempts at analysis, we long to lay hands on this phantom of delight and find out what it is made of. Its value and availability for the comic paper are of course quite beyond dispute; it is the sure hope and reliance of many very comic papers, and we may trust in the future to gather much more of that kind of fruit from its copious branches. But how will it serve an American "Punch"?
Here is what the American humorist offers in lieu of social comment. The scene is the ball of a commodity "king:" "Where are your kids?" asks the Society Man scornfully of the Poor Editor.
"My kids!" replies the Poor Editor. "Why, home in bed, of course. You don't suppose I'd bring 'em to a thing like this?"
To any one with a natural fondness for the article such things are exceedingly laughable, and by the light of their brightness the "general gloom" of "Punch" is sufficiently apparent. But the question is whether they are of a nature calculated to present and exhibit our friends with fulness and reality. A discriminating admirer, it seems to us, would hardly claim for the performance of the American humorist anything of the sort. His virtues, in fact, lie in an exactly opposite direction. Instead of showing us our friends, he has the magical faculty of making our next-door neighbor seem like a very extraordinary stranger. The author of the Snob Papers has said of humor in general that "it appeals to a great number of other faculties besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness, your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture, your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost." But as a description of the calling of the American humorist this reads like a rather good joke after the latter's own heart. He has no pretension to be a rose of that kind, or even to occupy the same garden. His function is, as the poet says, to make the prairie smile. That is his only care, and he wears it with an airy lightness. None of us would care to deny that he is American, but it seems possible that the author of the Snob Papers might deny that he is the other thing. The actor's paradox is that to express emotion artistically one must be sufficiently unmoved; and the humorist's paradox may be said to be that to elicit a civilized smile one must be sufficiently serious. One can do it, of course, by
