That grievous deficiency, no sense of humour, is another of the tiny little rocks on which married happiness often splits. This is natural enough, since an absence of this priceless quality is about the worst deprivation a traveller on life’s journey can suffer from. Among men the conviction is rife that women invariably suffer thus, but I think we can afford to leave them this delusion, since it affords them so much satisfaction. At one time I had a journalist friend of a painfully stodgy and unusually depressing literary habit. This poor soul fancied his vein was humour, and from him I have often endured the reading aloud of the dreariest laboured pages of japes and jests, which to his thinking were sparkling with wit. My patient, long-suffering listening only brought bitter derision for my alleged lack of humorous perception, but my criticism inspired the young man to write a cynical article on ‘Women and Humour,’ of the kind that editors--being men--delight in, and for which he consequently got well paid. As a fact, the things that amuse men frequently fail to amuse women and _vice versâ_ but it is surely illogical to deduce from this that women’s humorous sense is inferior to men’s--or non-existent. As, however, this apparently insignificant question is of such importance in life generally, whether it be in a palace, a convent, a villa or a workhouse--I think a wife would be well-advised to assume amusement if she feels it not, laugh with her lord even when she doesn’t see the point, and cultivate indifference when he fails to laugh with her. Writers on marriage seem to have paid very little attention to this important point. Stevenson is one of the exceptions: ‘That people should laugh over the same sort of jest,’ he says, ‘and have many an old joke between them which time cannot wither or custom stale is a better preparation for life, by your leave, than many other things higher and better-sounding in the world’s ears. You could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a joke with someone else.’ In a beautiful poem, Stephen Phillips describes how a bereaved lover can think calmly of his dead, when he looked at her possessions, the things she had worn, even when he read her letters; and her saddest words had no power to pain him, but when he came to-- ‘A hurried, happy line! A little jest too slight for one so dead: This did I not endure-- Then with a shuddering heart no more I read,’ In truth, the little joke shared, the old allusion at which both are accustomed to laugh, is a more potent bond than many a deeper feeling. One can recall these trifles long after one has forgotten the poignant moments of passion, the breathless heartbeats, the wild embraces which at the time seemed to promise such deathless memories. All, all are forgotten, but the silly little joke has still the power to bring tears to our eyes if the one with whom we shared it is lost to us. * * *