A comic type is a failure of a considerable energy, an imitation and standardising of self, suggesting the existence of a uniform humanity,—creating, that is, a little host as like as ninepins; instead of one synthetic and various Ego. It is the laziness of a successful personality. It is often part of our own organism become a fetish. Sairey Gamp and Falstaff are minute and rich religions. They are illusions hugged and lived in. They are like little dead Totems. Just as all Gods are a repose for humanity, the big religions an immense refuge and rest, so these little grotesque idols are. One reason for this is that, for the spectator or participator, it is a world in a corner of the world, full of rest and security. Moran, even, advances in life with his rows of bottles and napkins; Julie is Brobdingnag’s Goddess, and figures for intercessions, if the occasion arises. All these are forms of static and traditional art, then. There is a great deal of divine Olympian sleep in English Humour. The most gigantic spasm of laughter is sculptural, isolated and essentially simple. IV 1 Laughter is the Wild Body’s song of triumph. 2 Laughter is the climax in the tragedy of seeing, hearing and smelling self-consciously. 3 Laughter is the bark of delight of a gregarious animal at the proximity of its kind. 4 Laughter is an independent, tremendously important, and lurid Emotion. 5 Laughter is the representative of Tragedy, when Tragedy is away. 6 Laughter is the emotion of tragic delight. 7 Laughter is the female of Tragedy. 8 Laughter is the strong elastic fish, caught in Styx, springing and flapping about until it dies. 9 Laughter is the sudden handshake of mystic violence and the anarchist. 10 Laughter is the mind sneezing. 11 Laughter is the one obvious commotion that is not complex, or in expression dynamic. 12 Laughter does not progress. It is primitive, hard and unchangeable. V The chemistry of personality (subterranean in a sort of cemetery whose decompositions are our lives) puffs up in frigid balls, soapy Snow-men, arctic Carnival Masks, which we can photograph and fix. Upwards from the surface of Existence a lurid and dramatic scum oozes and accumulates into the characters we see. The real and tenacious poisons, and sharp forces of vital vitality, do not socially transpire. Within five yards of another man’s eyes we are on a little crater, which, if it erupted, would split up as a cocoa-tin of nitrogen would. Some of these bombs are ill-made, or some erratic in their timing. But they are all potential little bombs. Capriciously, however, the froth-forms of these darkly-contrived machines, twist and puff in the air, in our legitimate and liveried masquerade.