"after All," As A Pretty Girl Once

It Distresses Me, This Failure To Keep Pace With The Leaders Of Thought, As They Pass Into Oblivion.

I Was A Modest, Good-humoured Boy. It Is Oxford That Has Made Me Insufferable.

The Delicate Balance Between Modesty And Conceit Is Popularity.

Few, As I Have Said, Are The Humorists Who Can Induce This State. To Master And Dissolve Us, To Give Us The Joy Of Being Worn Down And Tired Out With Laughter, Is A Success To Be Won By No Man Save In Virtue Of A Rare Staying-power. Laughter Becomes Extreme Only If It Be Consecutive. There Must Be No Pauses For Recovery. Touch-and-go Humour, However Happy, Is Not Enough. The Jester Must Be Able To Grapple His Theme And Hang On To It, Twisting It This Way And That, And Making It Yield Magically All Manner Of Strange And Precious Things.

Has The Gift Of Laughter Been Withdrawn From Me? I Protest That I Do Still, At The Age Of Forty-seven, Laugh Often And Loud And Long. But Not, I Believe, So Long And Loud And Often As In My Less Smiling Youth. And I Am Proud, Nowadays, Of Laughing, And Grateful To Any One Who Makes Me Laugh. That Is A Bad Sign. I No Longer Take Laughter As A Matter Of Course.