It may be that as we reason more we laugh less; and that brings the question whether it were wiser to check the reasoning or quench the laughter. Since, however, laughter is likely to improve in quality as it diminishes in quantity, we may be content to abjure the witticism at which “the fool lifteth up his voice with laughter,” and substitute the reflective wit over which “the clever man will scarce smile quietly.” Such was the mild aspiration of the humorous Victorians; but though mild, the spirit was ubiquitous. It gave tone to the pessimism of Thompson and temper to the optimism of Stevenson; it colored darkly the defiant pages of Carlyle and tinged lightly the protesting paragraphs of Arnold; it lent an edge to the sentiment of Tennyson and humanized the philosophy of Browning. It even dignified the comicality of _Punch_, for Douglas Jerrold, at least, was far from being an irresponsible jester. His gruesome _Dish of Glory_, with its ironical advice to the French to eat the Algerians as fast as they conquer them, will bear comparison with _The Modest Proposal_. The dedication of volume eight also illustrates the new effect of self-turned irony: “As young Aurora, with her blaze of light, Into the shade throws all the pride of night, And pales presumptuous stars, who vainly think That every eye is on them as they blink: So _Punch_, the light and glory of the time, His wit and wisdom brilliant as sublime, Scares into shades Cant’s hypocritic throng, Abashes Folly, and exposes wrong.” This may sound like an echo from the Elizabethans and the Augustans; but the difference wherewith the Victorians wear their rue is as important as it is subtle. The two great influences of their time, Science and Democracy, operating upon their life and literature, made them at once sensitive to the reasons for man’s shortcomings, and sensible of the absurd position of the avowed castigator--who, moreover, by his very situation as a sharp-shooter renders himself in turn the more conspicuous target. Man’s record here below gives little cause, it is true, for congratulation; so discounted are his astonishing successes by his disheartening, hopeless failures. Colossal in blunder as in achievement, stupendous in fanaticism as in imagination, nevertheless he may maintain, on the authority of a deterministic philosophy, that he has literally done the best he could. His very faculty of deception is often but an adoption of that protective coloring recognized as one of Nature’s most admirable devices. The human race is indeed provocative, but who that understands can have the heart to yield to the provocation? Even the most accomplished satirist of his time concluded that he would stick to sober philosophy,--[469] “And irony and satire off me throw. They crack a childish whip, drive puny herds, Where numbers crave their sustenance in words.”