Cruelty and Humour
humour. The happy thought of calling the horse Algernon gave a rich twang to this comic episode, and saved the cheerful reader from any intrusive sentiment of pity. When a pious periodical, published in the interests of a Christian church, can tell us in a rollicking Irish story how a farmer, speeding through the frozen night, empties a bag of kittens into the snow, and whips up his horse, pretending playfully that the "craitures" are overtaking him, we make comfortably sure that religion lends itself as deftly as journalism to the light-hearted drolleries of the cruel.
Novelists, who understand how easy a thing it is to gratify our humorous susceptibilities, venture upon doubtful jests. Mr. Tarkington knows very well that the spectacle of a boy dismembering an insect calls for reprobation; but that if the boy's experiments can be described as "infringing upon the domain of Dr. Carrell," they make a bid
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