_Mam._ Dwelt by a churchyard—I will tell it softly; Yond crickets shall not hear it. _Her._ Come on then, And give’t in mine ear. There is enough Keltic quality here, surely, to satisfy both Mr. Yeats and Mr. Shorter. In fine, this tiny episode out of _A Winter’s Tale_ is quite as good, and quite as Keltic, as anything the Blake School, to give it its honest title, has managed hitherto to produce. What the average Irishman would think about it is another story. It is a pity to take from Ireland even a trifle over which she might, not improperly, plume herself. But Mr. Yeats in the figure of Irish poet reminds us of nothing so much as a peacock butterfly purchased in the chrysalis state out of France by the careful entomologist, hidden in a plant-pot at his parlor window, and slaughtered and labeled British so soon as it has had time to spread its wistful wings. CHAPTER XIV WIT AND HUMOR It has been remarked by a certain hawker of platitudes that humor is that which makes a man laugh. There have been several definitions of wit, one of them by Sydney Smith, and all of them more or less wanting in completeness. But in a general way nobody is particularly keen on definitions, provided they can get for their amusement and exhilaration either humor or wit. During the past few decades we have heard a vast deal of the advantages which accrue from the possession of what is called a sense of humor. This especial sense or faculty for appreciating a joke is nowadays cultivated, and consciously cultivated, by all sorts and conditions of people. The gravest and most reverend persons are wont to enliven their conversation or their discourse with quips, cranks, gibes, and other sallies, ingeniously calculated to set the listener in a roar. The House of Commons has latterly appeared to be filled with gentlemen who live to amuse each other; there are judges who seem almost incapable of opening their mouths without attempting the hilarious, and even bishops and bankers must have their little joke. The press also strains after humorsomeness in every degree, and when critics wish to be particularly severe they write simply, “Mr. So-and-So has no sense of humor.” And here, in effect, we have what I conceive to be another distinct injustice to Ireland. For Irish wit and humor have passed into a tradition, and are believed by good judges to be the very wittiest and most humorous wit and humor the gods are likely to vouchsafe to us. In the course of years many fairly thick volumes have been compiled out of the abundance of humorous material Ireland has furnished forth. To turn to such a volume, however, is in my opinion to experience a certain disappointment. There are jokes, it is true, and jokes innumerable; but somehow for the modern laughter seeker there is a distinct flatness about them. Furthermore, they are nearly all “chestnuts,” a fact which renders