enormously encouraged and developed into "roars of merriment" by the sympathy of others around him who are experiencing the same emotion and expressing it in the same way. The laugh of derision and contempt and the laugh of exultation and triumph are of a different character. I cannot now discuss them further than to say that they are either genuine or pretended assertions of joy in one's own superior vitality or other superiority. The "sardonic smile" and "sardonic laughter" have been supposed by some learned men to refer to the smiles of the ancient Sardinians when stoning their aged parents. But they have no more to do with Sardinians than they have with sardines or sardonyx. The word "sardonic" is related to a Greek word which means "to snarl," and a sardonic grin is merely a snarl. In it the teeth are shown with malicious intent, and not as they are in the benevolent appeal of true laughter. Mrs. Grote, the wife of the great historian (who was herself declared by a French wit to furnish the explanation of the word "grotesque"), wrote of "Owen's sugar-of-lead smile"--referring to the great naturalist, Richard Owen. There was no malice in the description, for he had, as some others have, a very sweet smile, accompanied by a strangely grave and disapproving glare in his large blue prominent eyes. It was only apparently sugar of lead; really, it was sugar of milk--the milk of human kindness. The smile of the lost picture called "La Gioconda" is by fanciful people regarded as something very wonderful. It is really the clever portraiture of the habitual "leer" of a somewhat wearied sensual woman. It had a fascination for the great Leonardo, but no profound significance. CHAPTER XIII FATHERLESS FROGS