【Appreciation of Classics】Qian Zhongshu: Jest and Laughter
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Since the promotion of humorous literature, performing comedy has become a profession for scholars. Humor is certainly expressed through laughter, but laughter does not necessarily mean humor. Liu Jizhuang wrote in his “Guangyang Zaji”: “Donkeys cry-like when they make sounds, while horses sound like they are laughing.” ”Horses are not known for their sense of humor, probably because of their long faces. To be honest, the laughter of most people is nothing more than the sound of horses neighing; it doesn’t amount to true humor. Using humor to distinguish humans from animals seems to be something Aristotle was the first to do. He said in *Zoology*: “Man is the only animal that can laugh.” ”The modern eccentric W.S. Blunt wrote a sonnet titled \"Laughter and Death,\" in which it is suggested that in nature, creatures such as birds and beasts express all their emotions—joy, anger, love, fear—through appropriate sounds; what is lacking is the laugh that denotes humor. However, if laughter is meant to express humor, then it can only be considered useless or a luxury, as not everyone needs to laugh. The calls of birds and beasts are more than enough to express the emotions of ordinary people: lions roar in anger, apes cry out in sorrow, frogs make noise in conflict; when faced with an enemy, they bark like dogs, and when they see their loved ones, they coo like doves. How many people really have a sense of humor and need to laugh to express it? Yet the Creator has distributed the ability to laugh fairly among all of humanity, enabling them to form smiles on their faces and emit laughter from their throats ； It would be a shame to have such a skill and not use it. Therefore, ordinary people do not laugh because they have a sense of humor; rather, they laugh as a way to conceal their lack of it. The original meaning of laughter is gradually lost ； What was originally an expression of rich humor gradually turned into a cover for a lack of humor. So you see the foolish grin of fools, the mockery by the blind—and the humor literature that was popular at the time.
A smile is the most fluid and rapid expression, spreading from the eyes to the corners of the mouth. The ‘Shenyi Jing·Donghuang Jing’ by Dong Fangshuo recounts that when the Eastern King failed to hit the target with his pot-throwing game, the heavens laughed at him; Zhang Hua’s annotation states that this laughter of the heavens was actually lightning, a truly ingenious imagination. According to Lady Holland’s Memoirs, Sidney Smith also said: “Lightning is the wit of heaven.” ”Laughter can indeed be described as a flash of light on a person’s face; it brings brightness to the eyes, and the teeth shine between the lips. We cannot retain lightning to replace the sun and moon that shine high in the sky, so we cannot either turn laughter into a fixed, collective expression. Humor that arises from imitation is bound to be artificial humor. Such a mechanical smile is merely like the exposure of teeth by a skeleton; it cannot be considered the natural expression of a living person. In Bergson’s \"Le Rire\", it is said that all that is funny arises when something flexible becomes rigid, and lively movements turn into mechanical ones (mechanical patterns on the living). Thus, the monotonous speech and actions upon returning are all amusing, resembling stuttering, verbal clichés, or children deliberately imitating adults. Old men are often more ridiculous than young people, simply because they lack the agility of the young and are bound by a series of rigid habits. Humor should not be promoted, and that is why. Once advocated, what is natural and spontaneous turns into imitation; what is flexible and varied turns into rigidity. This kind of humor is itself material for humor; this laughter is funny in itself. A truly humorous person has their own way of understanding things; they laugh quietly or with a cool smile, bringing some relief to a dull life. Perhaps only after hundreds of years, thousands of miles away, will another person be on the other side of the river of time and space, sharing a deep bond of friendship and smiling at each other. If a large group of people open their mouths, raise their voices, coordinate their timing, and gather together to laugh, it can only be considered a silly spectacle in some low-class entertainment venues. The promotion of domestic products has even led to counterfeits, let alone the fact that humor is not something that can be produced in large quantities. Thus, after humor was promoted, no true humorists emerged; only countless trivial writers appeared. Under the guise of humor, the little-faced actor’s value certainly soared; he left the theater world and entered the literary sphere ； Conversely, after adopting the look of a small-faced impostor, the sense of humor diminishes, and the majority of literary works can only be considered mere entertainment. The little face also makes us laugh; that’s good! But he is completely different from those who truly have a sense of humor. Those who truly have a sense of humor can laugh, and we laugh along with them ； It’s ridiculous to pretend to be a funny clown; we laugh at him. The little face makes us laugh, not because it has humor, but because we ourselves have humor.
Therefore, humor is at most a temperament; it must never be presented as a doctrine, let alone as a profession. Let us not forget that the Latin origin of the word Humour means liquid ； In other words, it seems that in Jia Baoyu’s eyes, the humor associated with women is like water. To treat humor as an inherent principle or one’s livelihood for life is like liquid turning into solid, or a living being being turned into a specimen. There are indeed humorous people, but if they have to make a living by performing comedy, their works are not of high quality; Mark Twain is an example of such a person. Since the late 18th century, Germans have enjoyed using humor, yet it has become increasingly irrelevant – because Germans are a people who make sausages, and they mistakenly think that humor, just like ground meat, can be neatly packaged to serve as ready-made intellectual food. Humor reduces the seriousness of life; one must never take oneself too seriously. True humor is the ability to laugh at oneself; it is not only a humorous perspective on life, but also a humorous perspective on humor itself. Advocating humor as a slogan, a standard, is precisely an act that lacks humor ； This is not humor; it is serious promotional humor, a serious attempt at making people laugh. It reminds us of the rustling of horses again! It sounds like a laugh, but there’s no trace of joy on that horse-like face; it remains stretched out, resembling that of a friend who has died at a funeral, or that of an advanced master on a lectern.
Generally, when someone pretends to be something, there are always two motives. Or out of respect, for example, when ordinary people show respect for art, they collect antiques to appear cultured. Or for exploitation, for example, when villains have certain schemes, they exploit religious morality to pose as upright people. Humor is misused; I can’t think of two reasons for this. However, fakes can never replace the real thing. Western proverbs describe a bright, clear laugh as a \"silver laugh\"; false humor, like counterfeit money mixed with lead, produces a dull and heavy sound, and can only be considered a \"lead laugh\". However, “Silver Smile” might refer to making a profit from performing comedic acts, with the word \"silver\" implying something valuable in that smile – much like the saying \"There are houses of gold in books.\"” ； Mentioned here for the reference of lexicographers.