it is scattering seeds of kindness or getting into mischief. In the mental realm the same trick of camouflage prevails. Out of spiritual cowardice we conceal from ourselves the disturbing facts of life, and purchase optimism at the easy price of sentimentalism.
But just why this ubiquitous habit should be the peculiar province of the satirist, is another psychological problem; and as such, is best reached through a psychological solution. Why is there about deception something inherently repugnant and at the same time automatically amusing? Why is our incorrigible human predilection for belonging to the Great Order of Shams equalled only by our incorrigible human predilection for joyous exposure of others? The game seems to be mutual and perpetual, and the honors about even.
The repugnance undoubtedly comes less from a noble devotion to truth than from the dislike we all have of being deceived. Nothing do we discover with more exasperation, and admit with more reluctance than the fact that we have been fooled or hoodwinked. It is an experience that fosters present irritation and future distrust; but one which, from its very nature, demands the retort ironic rather than the lofty indignation accorded to an open injury. Most emphatically "We all hate fustian and affectation," and any knavish trickery, especially in others.
The amusement arises from the triumph of frustrating this attempt at deceptive concealment, intensified by the pleasure in perceiving an incongruity—in this case, between the assumed and the actual—which is the essence of humor.[1] The zest lies in the endless sport of hide and*
- ↑ Hazlett, in his essay on Wit and Humour, remarks that "it has appeared that the detection and exposure of difference, particularly where this implies
