It is a good sign. It means that we are a “peculiar people”--not perhaps in the sense in which the expression was used regarding the ancient Hebrews, yet in some respects it means the same. Conceit aside, it really means that we are better than other people. Long may we remain so! CHAPTER XXIV. AMERICAN HUMOR. The burden of foreign criticism of the people of the United States may be expressed in the language of the vulgar by saying that we are “too fresh.” Well, if we are, we have the salt that will save us, and that salt is American Humor. Whatever may be the failing of any American, whether native or adopted, he may generally be depended upon for a sense of humor. If there is no other point of contact between him and the stranger who encounters him, it is quite safe to fall back upon humor as a common meeting ground. This is the only country in the world in which everybody indulges in joking. Other countries have their wits and humorists who are a special class among themselves. But here any and every man must have a sense of humor and know how to use it if he wants to get along with his fellow-citizens. Some of our most humorous men are solemn judges. Others are physicians. Editors are humorists as a matter of course, and even the clergyman with a level head leans to the belief that his education is incomplete until he can turn a joke as well as he can preach a sermon. We joke about everything. This does not mean that we make fun of everything, but that, as everything has its possible humorous side, we are competent to see it and call attention to it. There is no department of American history, political, military, social or religious, in which traces of the humorist may not be found. There was considerable sense of fun among the grim old fellows who came over in the Mayflower, as any one may find out for himself if he will take the trouble to look to the original records, and in the many volumes of correspondence which have appeared in genealogical history of the first families of New England. There is quite as much sense of humor manifested as in similar records of the first families of Virginia. It is the custom in history to draw a sharp dividing line between these two classes of American pioneers, but the line disappears as soon as one gets beneath the surface. Solemnity and seriousness, whether counterfeit or genuine, can be maintained for only a certain length of time by any one. So Puritan and Cavalier speedily went back to a distinguishing trait of their common ancestors in the old country, and improved upon it.