When I am in France, I often bore my friends with advice, and find, as usual, that advice is a luxurious gift thoroughly enjoyed by the one who gives it. "You don't know how to do these things," I say to them; "in England or in America, they are much more intelligent; they do like this and like that." And my friends generally advise me to return to England or America, where things are so beautifully managed. But, when I am out of France, the old Frenchman is all there, and if you pitch into my mother country, I stand up ready to fight at a minute's notice. [Illustration] CHAPTER XLII. THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN HUMOR AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS--THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE--THE GERMANS AND AMERICAN HUMOR--MY CORPSE WOULD "DRAW," IN MY IMPRESARIO'S OPINION. _Madison, Wis., April 22._ Have been lecturing during the past fortnight in about twelve places, few of which possessed any interest whatever. One of them, however--Cincinnati--I was glad to see again. This town of Madison is the only one that has really struck me as being beautiful. From the hills the scenery is perfectly lovely, with its wooded slopes and lakes. Through the kindness of Governor Hoard, I have had a comprehensive survey of the neighborhood; for he has driven me in his carriage to all the prettiest spots, delighting me all the while with his conversation. He is one of those Americans whom you may often meet if you have a little luck: witty, humorous, hospitable, kind-hearted, the very personification of unaffected good-fellowship. The conversation turned on humor. I have always wondered what the origin of American humor can be; where is or was the fountain-head. You certainly find humor in England among the cultured classes, but the class of English people who emigrate cannot have imported much humor into America. Surely Germany and Scandinavia cannot have contributed to the fund, either. The Scotch have dry, quiet, pawky, unconscious humor; but their influence can hardly have been great enough to implant their quaint native "wut" in American soil. Again, the Irish bull is droll, but scarcely humorous. The Italians, the Hungarians, have never yet, that I am aware of, been suspected of even latent humor. What then, can be the origin of American humor, as we know it, with its naïve philosophy, its mixture of the sacred and the profane, its exaggeration and that preposterousness which so completely staggers the foreigner, the French and the German especially?