Chapter XIV: Part II (3)

The most harmless teasing is the obvious kind which forms the basis of much social play, such as games for a company like “Blind-Man’s Buff,” “Fox Chase,” “Copenhagen,” and similar diversions. A striking instance occurs in The Sorrows of Werther. During a violent storm Lotta attempts to cheer the frightened company; she places chairs in a circle and seats everybody in them—many acceding in the hope of being rewarded with a sweet forfeit or two, and getting their lips all ready. “We are going to play counting,” said Lotta. “Now, attention! I am going round the circle from right to left, and you must count, each taking the number that comes to him; and we are going like lightning, and whoever hesitates or blunders gets a box on the ear, and we are going on to thousands.” She then stretched out her arms and flew around the circle, faster and faster. If any one missed, bang! came a box on his ear, and in the laugh that followed, bang! came another, and always faster and faster. Werther, however, noticed with inward satisfaction that the two blows which he received were somewhat harder than Lotta gave the others. When the company is still less refined than this, joking sometimes becomes so rough as to lose its playful character. The ancient Thracians were celebrated for this sort of thing. Gutsmuth says truly that from this circumstance much could be inferred concerning the state of civilization among them, if we had no other sources of information. “A man stands on a round stone holding a sickle in his hand and having his head through a noose suspended from above. When he is not expecting it a bystander pushes the stone away and there hangs the poor wretch who has been chosen by lot for this fate. If he has not sufficient skill and presence of mind to cut the knot at once with the sickle he flounders there until he dies, amid the laughter of the spectators.”[457]

Turning now to other forms of teasing than direct bodily annoyance, we find again that children very early understand it. When the pretence is made of great alarm at his beating with a spoon or banging a book or at a sudden cry, a child as young as two years old shows great delight, and will repeat the performance with a roguish expression. From this time on, to cause sudden fright is a favourite method of gratifying the taste for teasing. The ghostly manifestations which terrify each generation in turn can often be traced to some mischievous urchins.

I remember a joke played on a geographical professor at the gymnasium who, as he carelessly opened a closet door, was confronted by a skeleton which had been used in the previous lecture. Students could hardly subsist without the ancient trick of stuffing the clothes of a “suicide,” and placing the figure on the floor of their victim’s room with a pistol lying near, or hanging it by a rope to the window frame, to give the late home-comer a genuine scare. In Athenäus we find a beautiful instance of readiness to meet such a trick. King Lysimachus, who took delight in teasing his guests, one day at a banquet threw a skilfully made artificial scorpion on to the dress of one Bithys, who recoiled; but, quickly recovering himself, said to the rather penurious king: “My lord, it is now my turn to frighten you; I beseech you give me a talent.”[458] Such sport with fear, though harmless in these instances, becomes a passion with all narrowminded, tyrannous natures, and leads to cruelty which is anything but playful. Slatin’s dramatic work, Fire and Sword in the Soudan, gives an instance of such traits in the character of the Caliph Abdullah. Indeed, Abdullah had a part in, or rather was the occasion of, Slatin’s first experience during the life of the Mahdi. Slatin was taken prisoner by the Mahdi’s army before the gates of Khartoum. The morning after the city was taken, alarming rumours reached him; half incredulous, he looked out of his tent. “A mob had collected before the quarters of the Mahdi and his caliphs; it seemed to be getting into motion and making toward me, and I soon saw clearly that they were coming in the direction of my tent. I could now distinguish single persons. First walked the negro soldiers, one of whom, whose name was Shetta, carried a bloody burden on his head. Behind him howled the mob. The slaves entered my tent and stood glowering before me, and Shetta opened the roll of cloth and showed me—Gordon’s head! I grew faint and dizzy at the sight, my breath stopped, and it was only by the greatest effort that I commanded myself sufficiently to gaze upon that pallid face.” The Mahdi and his caliphs had ordered this hideous cruelty.[459]

A common and early developed form of teasing is the deception which imparts to the perpetrator a feeling of intellectual superiority. Children display this in their tender years principally by pretending that they are going to do forbidden or improper things, as revolt against authority. When the little girl observed by Pollock was twenty-three months old she often declined to kiss her father good-night. She turned from him as if annoyed or indifferent, to make a _fausse sortie_, and then called him back and gave the kiss.[460] Sigismund’s boy often exhibited a “kind of humorous defiance of authority,” such as grasping at a light standing near him, but not so that it could burn him, and looking slyly at his father.[461]

Older children have innumerable tricks of this kind. A sort of game is to strike on a table with a spoon or on the floor with a card and repeat the formula “He can do little who can’t do this, this,” and pass the stick or spoon to the next neighbour with the left hand. The uninitiated who attempt to do this usually pass it with the right hand and are much puzzled when told that they are wrong. There is much of this element, too, in the games of magic which children are so fond of. For examples of it among adults it is only necessary to turn again to the old jokes of students. In a university town a merchant, Karl Klingel, was roused in the middle of the night by a ring at the bell. The visitor was a student named Karl, who pretended to think that the name on the sign was a signal for him. “Mystification,” says Goethe in Wahrheit und Dichtung, “is and ever will be amusement for idle people who are more or less intelligent. Indolent mischievousness, selfish enjoyment of doing some damage is a resource to those who are without occupation or any wholesome external interests. No age is entirely free from such proclivities.” Moreover, one whole day in every year is given over to this jesting deception. The civilized world over the first of April is fool’s day. Wagner thinks that this custom arose from the change of the new year from the vernal equinox to January 1st, thus giving to the customary exchange of New Year’s gifts the character of jests, and to those who should forget the change of time the appearance of fools. So they are called Aprilnarren, poisson d’Avril, April fools, and in Scotland gowks.[462]

Memory forms another important division of our subject. The child’s natural impulse is easily aroused by new and striking peculiarities—for instance, he soon learns by example to stammer, to talk through his nose, or imitate any other defect without at first intending to tease. When his mimicry is laughed at he attempts intentional caricature, yet we are not to suppose from this that he would never do so alone. As a rule, though, it is the amusement of adults which stimulates him to improve on his former efforts. And as soon as he perceives that his victim is annoyed his mimicry becomes teasing.[463] At school this sort of teasing attacks unmercifully any little weakness or peculiarity, such as a halting or limping gait, stammering or lisping speech, a strange accent or foreign pronunciation. All these become the objects of ridiculous exaggeration even in the presence of older persons if they show no signs of disapproval.[464] In our club in the high school there was a boy who ran his words together in a comical fashion, and from imitating his manner of speech we constructed a formal language, some words of which still survive in the memories of his contemporaries. The most important sphere of this sort of imitation is that of pictorial art, where the caricaturist seeks to amuse by his exaggerated representations of familiar peculiarities. Children attempt this too. Their efforts are at first, of course, the grossest deformities with projecting ears, huge noses, etc., which they label with the name of some comrade whom they wish to annoy, but later when they have learned to draw they achieve some creditable caricaturing. I well remember our portrait of a French teacher who had two deep lines from the base of his nose to the corners of his mouth, forming with his long nose the letter M. Such pictures are, of course, not to be classed with methods of teasing unless the intention is to show them to the subject, which is by no means always the case, and unless their _raison d’être_ is something less than serious malice or hatred. There is always a charm in wielding, under the safe refuge of anonymity, these effective weapons against the mighty of the earth. What has not the nose of Napoleon III, for instance, suffered in this way!

Political caricatures were known to the early Egyptians;[465] and in Venezuela, besides pre-Columbian figures, a statuette with a gigantic nose has been found which is supposed to represent the Spanish invader.[466] Indirect satire forms a poetic analogue to these creations of the pictorial art, as it is an ironical form of teasing which imitates in an exaggerated manner, and makes the most of awkwardness and weakness, to raise a laugh against their possessor. Here play and earnest are frequently mingled, the poet usually setting out with the serious intention of annoying his victim, and yet taking such pleasure in the effort that the attack becomes genuine play. Indeed, we may say that the happiest and most effective satires are usually those which reveal such playfulness. The _epistolæ obscurorum virorum_ afford brilliant examples as well as many passages in Rabelais’s immortal work.

Finally, we must note the kind of teasing which is implied in provocative words and actions. Children often have the desire to use insulting and abusive language to their elders, but, not quite daring to utter it, they assume an impertinent air which sometimes seems partly playful. Thus Compayré tells of a child who said to his mother, “Vilaine!” but added immediately, “poupée vilaine”; and Marie G—— in her third year said to her father, “Papa, you are a—stove, you are a—tray,” while the expression of her face plainly showed that she had a more offensive epithet in mind.

There can be no doubt that the fighting instinct often finds expression in the direct effort to excite others to anger by provoking words. Such taunts are frequently thrown into rhythmical form, and so constitute a primitive lyric in which the musical element is not wanting. This is especially the case when there are several participants, who chant them in a sort of recitative, and usually adopt, as far as my observation goes, that fundamental stereotyped measure which forms the basis of all[467] primitive German child-song, and which in its simplest form is this:

In this measure the street urchins call mockingly after a teamster:

“’S hängt eener hinde dran,
’S hängt eener hinde dran,”

or when they wittily compare a tipsy man with an over-loaded and toppling wagon:

“Er hot, er hot,
Er hot zu scheppe gelade,”

or taunt a young Englishman with

“Beefsteak, Wasserweck
Auf dem Kopf e grosse Schneck?”

or scoff at a tale-bearing comrade:

“Angeber, geb mich an
Kriegst ’n hohle Backezahn.”

This same motive is always used for such songs now as it was in the days of our pagan forefathers, who doubtless gave it a wider application.

Grosse points out that the derisive songs of savages have a strong similarity to such childish taunts. He cites one which Grey heard Australians sing in scorn of one of their own number:

“Oh, what a leg he has!
Oh, what a leg he has!
The old kangaroo jumper”—

and compares it to a scene before the door of a school in Berlin where a troop of children followed a little lame girl, calling out:

“Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch,
Anna has a crooked leg,
Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch.”[468]

Scornful speech among the common people is more than teasing. I must confine myself to only one or two examples of this important group. The above will suffice as an instance of the common jeering at physical infirmity.

Banter between the sexes begins even in childhood. In Alsace the little girls sing a rhyme which recalls the English

“Girls are made of sugar and spice
And all that’s nice;
Boys are made of rats and snails
And puppy dogs’ tails.”

“Räge, Räge, Tropfe!
D’Buäwe muess mä klopfe,
D’Maidle kummen in Hommelbett,
D’Buäwe kummen in Knotensäck!”

While in Bohemia the boys have it—

“Zeisig, Zeisig,
Die Buben sind fleissig.
Stieglitz, Stieglitz,
Die Mädeln sind gar nichts nütz.”[469]

“Boys are the busy ones,
Goldfinch, goldfinch.
Girls are no use at all.”

At the festivals, and especially the weddings of mountain folk, the youths and maidens carry on a veritable poetic warfare, which sometimes becomes pretty severe.

Ten different German tribes too had champions who sang in scornful contests like that of the two Greenland poets.[470] In trade rivalry the tailor suffers most. Religious differences have given rise to such jargon as this:

“Franz Willwanz
Willwippke Kadanz,
Willwippke Kadippke
Katholischer Franz!”[471]

As it is not expedient to dwell on the higher forms of satire here,[472] I will close this section with some remarks on the provocative manner and bearing. Like all other teasing, a scornful manner results from a feeling of superiority, and is always calculated to depreciate its object. When serious, such scornful behaviour constitutes a challenge to actual combat, but when playful it becomes the sort of teasing in which the perpetrator enjoys annoying others. The gesture which naturally accompanies it is pointing with the finger, and children usually add laughter. Even dogs understand this laughter, as their half-angry, half-depressed demeanour well proves. Sticking out the tongue, which with some children only means awkwardness and embarrassment, is sometimes employed in the same way. Sittl thinks that it was unknown to the Greeks and early Romans[473] (?); yet the Gauls made use of it as a means of expressing contempt, as did also the Jews. I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation of this or for the “turned-up nose.” In Romeo and Juliet this passage occurs: “I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it”; and Persius refers to the same thing as expressing scornful depreciation of one’s opponent. Italians and Greeks place the thumb nail on the front teeth and snap it forward with like intent.[474] _Minimo digito provocare_, which may be freely interpreted as “I can manage you with my little finger,” serves the same purpose as does snapping the fingers also. Tylor remarks that in the language of deaf-mutes the rubbing together or snapping of small objects signifies contempt, depreciation, etc.[475] Many scornful gestures are obscene in character, and some such have been perpetuated in plastic art, especially during the middle ages (as, for instance, on the door of the Schwäbisch Hall). They all no doubt originated in the desire to express contempt in a forcible manner,[476] though the appropriateness of some of them is not apparent, as, for instance, jeering challenges to some degrading act, direct accusations, symbolic threats of defilement, where the idea seems to be that the assailant wishes to prove himself not only fearless in the presence of his foe, but shameless as well.

While on one side teasing is an expression of the fighting impulse, on the other it seems to be of considerable value as a promoter of sociability. The educational quality of school comradeships and students’ clubs depends in no small degree on the hardening of the super-sensitive by teasing, and thus preparing them for the future buffetings of fortune. It is useful, too, in stirring up heavy and phlegmatic natures. Bastian writes from Siam: “When a boy misses his aim and stands like a whipped poodle, his comrades mock him with ‘Kui, kui,’ which is very provoking. Some poor fellows are so sensitive to this blame and jeering, and so emulous of praise that they are quite beside themselves, and beat their heads against a wall. They are then said to be ‘Ba-Jo,’ or mad from shame. When, on the contrary, they meet such scorn with indifference, they are regarded as fearless.”[477]

7. _Enjoyment of the Comic_

There are two theories of the comic—that of the feeling of superiority and that of contradiction; the one being more subject to the will and the other to reasoning processes. That which Hobbes sets forth and which is perpetuated in modern psychology by Bain, Kirchmann, Neberhorst, and others, emphasizes the connection between laughter and ridicule. As the latter is a pleasure, “orta ex eo, quod aliquid, quod contemnimus in re quam odimus ei inesse imaginamu” (Spinoza), so too our appreciation of the comic is derived from our own powers of exaggeration over and above the contradictions inherent in the object of our depreciation. Erdmann says that we never think of Christ’s laughing, because we have an innate feeling that there is something malicious in unrestrained laughter.[478] The other theory, which also has many supporters, lays most stress on the intellectual side of the phenomenon, on the idea of contradiction, of inconsequence, of incongruity as displayed by the comic object. This startles us at first by its unexpectedness, and then appeals agreeably to our sense of the ridiculous. These two theories are by no means exclusive the one of the other, and are only opposed in that each accuses the other of failure to cover all the facts. Sully and Ribot[479] attempt to unite them by deriving the more refined sense of incongruity from the first exaggeration, progressively excluding the latter by mental play with contraries. We will be satisfied with the undeniable fact that pleasure derived from the comic is usually not only experimentation with attention, the shock of surprise, and a more or less logical enjoyment of the incongruities involved, but also an agreeable pharisaical feeling of being superior to the occasion. So far, then, as such pleasure can be referred at all to reason it does consist in this sense of superiority, and belongs in the category of fighting plays.

It is a familiar remark that we find something not altogether disagreeable in hearing of the misfortunes of even our best friends. From the standpoint of social science it is evident that humanity is not entirely dominated by the social and sympathetic instincts since even when these are most strongly manifested there is always a remnant of the fighting impulse in ambush, which greets with joy any damage to a friend as to a foe. This is the principle of competition. We know that untutored savages make violent demonstrations of joy over the misfortunes of an enemy, their fiendish laugh of triumph has been often described, and childhood recollections furnish most of us with striking data in the same line. “A ten-year-old boy who had daubed a comrade with filthy mud from the street danced around his victim and screamed with laughter.”[480] Sometimes scornful and contemptuous laughter serves as a weapon, for it is not always a mere expression of feeling, being frequently used to infuriate an opponent much as a provoking manner is employed. We find, too, that in numerous cases it originates in a triumphant feeling, as when the teasing we have been considering is successful, and also when spectators applaud such success. Then, too, there is laughter at the artistic representation of such scenes, pictorial, plastic, and poetic. Yet we are far from exhausting the list. As a result of the struggle for life, every inferiority calls forth a triumphant feeling in the observer, be it in physical or mental fitness or in opportunity or ability. Thence comes, too, the opposition among gregarious animals to anything which menaces the social norm or its usages, anything which is too small or too great to be reduced to the general average, provided the greatness is not sufficient to inspire awe or fear. And inferiority, too, in the courtship contest is often subject for ridicule. In all these cases, embracing as they do a large proportion of things comic, the instinct for fighting enjoys a triumph, and this enjoyment forms a large part of the general sense of satisfaction.

Yet we rightly hesitate to identify enjoyment of the comic with mere maliciousness. There is evidently something more. But what? Is Aristotle’s explanation, that the misfortune to another which excites our mirth is really a harmless thing, sufficient? By no means. While this may be quite true considered subjectively, it does not bear on our special question. It is at this point, I think, that the other theory becomes applicable, especially in a connection which has not been sufficiently brought forward. In all the relations of the comic with which we have so far had to do, only a small part of the stimulus of contrast has come from the object itself and from the relief of tension. By far the most significant feature of the process is the fact that the observer alternates between æsthetic feeling or inner imitation and the external sense of triumph. Hereby alone does the comic win the right to a place in the sphere of æsthetics. It is a psychological law that sufficient observation of any object stirs the imitative impulse to such a degree as to cause us inwardly to sympathize with the object, and the law holds good with regard to what we consider inferior if it impresses us as amusing as well. Our feeling, then, is so far from being pure malice that we actually spend an interval in inward participation in the inferiority, though at the next moment, it is true, exulting triumphantly in our own superiority. All this is a play grounded on the instinctive indulgence of our fighting impulse, aided and enlarged by the idea of contrast, the two together constituting appreciation of the comic. Mere mischief is not æsthetic, and the mere idea of contrast does not necessarily produce laughter; but, then, synthesis does call forth this characteristic effect of the comic.[481] The mischievous factor is sometimes of much less importance, and the laugh not at all like ridicule, yet in the vast majority of cases the idea of resistance mingles, if for nothing else, then to overcome the shock which is apt to stagger us at first, but is finally conquered. I proceed now to adduce some instances to which, in spite of their diversity, this explanation is applicable. We have seen that surprise is one of the first causes for laughter in children. They thoroughly enjoy the moment of recognition of a picture which has puzzled them, and adults have the same feeling when they have wrestled with almost illegible handwriting and at last decipher it. There is a slight shock of it, too, when we hear a child express precocious sentiments or see an animal act like a man. Then arises what Kries calls a state of false psychic disposition, from which we escape in the next instant. We may test this sensation by turning from a comic sheet to some serious reading. We are apt to conceive of the first sentences as if they were meant to be ironical, and find the recognition and correction of the misapprehension a pleasure in itself. Such a stimulus is also mildly operative in the amusement we derive from masquerades and other pretences. The charm of juggling and sleight-of-hand tricks is dependent on the unexpected performance of an apparently impossible task or the solution of an apparently insurmountable difficulty. As an instance of the surprise whose conquest forms a part of our amusement and which at first gives us a shock which has something of superstition in it, I will mention that which I felt on receiving “in the very nick of time,” as it were, the article of Hall and Allin’s, to which I have so often referred, just as I was about to begin my attempt to analyze the comic.

Punning, the introductory step to wit, is enjoyed by children too young to appreciate true wit. It consists in an incongruous association of ideas which at first amazes and then delights. Wit presents ideas in unexpected associations full of suggestion which prove either to be illusory or to conceal some jesting or serious meaning. Finally, we may include in his list some lying tales and extravagances which are too grotesque to represent any intention to deceive.

In all these instances we can trace the combination of fighting play with the contrast of ideas. The former, however, possesses here a deeper and more subjective significance, since it is no longer inspired by external inferiority, but by the necessity for overcoming the shock which at the first blush staggers and overwhelms us, but which it enables us to shake off immediately. We can thus speak of an offensive and a defensive triumph; in the former the laugh has something of the character of an attack, while in the latter we are warding off surprise. Yet the contrast of ideas coming in here makes it difficult to maintain this distinction clearly. Inner imitation falls in many cases into the background or entirely out of view, indicating that we are no longer dealing with æsthetic enjoyment. In the simpler cases contrast between stressed attention and its sudden unexpected release becomes the most prominent feature, while in others it is the contrast of opposing qualities which the object really possesses or has ascribed to it.

Summing up now the important data we find that enjoyment of the comic depends in the large majority of cases, though not in all, on the union of fighting play with the idea of contrast. This kind of fighting play naturally falls into two distinct groups, involving everything comic. The one is essentially composed of aggressive fighting plays, and makes prominent the contrast between inner imitation and the triumphant feeling of superiority. In the other group we find more defensive fighting play, and the idea of contrast takes the form primarily of sudden relaxation of the stressed attention and the impression of contradiction. That the first group represents an earlier stage of development from which the second is evolved, as Sully and Ribot intimate, is not easily proved. Children exhibit both very early.

Are there cases which do not exhibit fighting play in any form? I do not deny the possibility, though up to this time I have not been able to discover any such. The first difficulty to surmount in trying to establish this possibility would, it seems to me, be the laughter of children when they mimic anything (for example, the cries or movements of animals), which is not in itself amusing, nor is their intention mischievous. Can this be a case where the idea of contrast works alone and there is no fighting play? I think not, for I am convinced that the child’s first impression of the comic depends on his æsthetic sympathy with the model and on his conscious shaking off of this feeling; and, furthermore, the idea of contrast is in this instance connected with the conquest of difficulty, an association which always indicates an approach to fighting play, and is especially significant in this case, since mimicry singles out the salient and individual characteristics of the model.[482]

8. _Hunting Play_

Having learned to recognise the three principal groups of fighting plays we turn now to a special application of the fighting instinct. The name “hunting play” will include, for the sake of brevity, playful pursuit, flight, and hiding.

The chase is, in connection with the collecting of fruits, the oldest and most primitive method of obtaining a food supply known to us. It is not impossible that in some more primitive stage than that of modern savages human beings subsisted entirely (with the exception of some insects, young birds, and eggs) on vegetable food, as monkeys do. But we have no definite knowledge of this, and, however it may be, the facts justify the deduction that the impulse to pursue a fleeing creature, or, on the other hand, to flee and hide from approaching danger, is as much an inborn instinct in man as in the lower animals. It is true, indeed, that the arts of the chase are of vast service to evolution in other ways than in the pursuit of and escape from wild beasts, for it is often enough his fellow-man from whom the fugitive flees and must escape by speed or guile. In the case of animals the instinctiveness of the impulse is proved by their play. The kitten treats a ball of yarn exactly as an adult carnivorous animal does its prey, and that before she takes note of a living mouse; and young dogs show their wolfish nature in their chasing of one another when there is no real game to pursue. In the life of man, too, phenomena are not wanting which point to an instinctive basis for the hunting instinct, and they all belong to the sphere of play.

First, then, we must consider actual hunting of animals, which is not for the purpose of securing food. Small children display a disposition to chase animals. G. H. Schneider considers that this fact points directly to the inheritance of the habits of primitive man, but it is not necessary to call in the principle of inheritance of acquired characters, since simple succeeding to inborn instincts is sufficient to produce this result. “In the same way,” says Schneider, “the impulse for hunting, fishing, slaughtering animals and plundering birds’ nests in so cruel a manner is inherited, and is to-day quite common in young men accustomed to an outdoor life. The boy never eats the butterflies, beetles, flies, and other insects which he eagerly pursues and possibly dismembers, nor does he suck the eggs which he gets from nests in high trees, often at the risk of his life. But the sight of these creatures awakens in him a strong impulse to plunder, hunt, and kill, apparently because his savage ancestors obtained their food chiefly by such acts.”[483] Schneider goes too far, I think, in assuming that there is a special connection between the sight of a certain animal and the inherited impulse, yet it is quite probable that there is a general tendency to seek and pursue moving living creatures over and above what can be accounted for by fear. And perhaps the children of savages possess this tendency in a higher degree than do our own. Semon tells us of young Australians: “Any one who observes the children, and especially the boys, will see how in their play all the exercise is directed to the perfection of their skill in the chase. They are constantly occupied with throwing pieces of wood and little clubs at any possible target, killing squirrels and bringing down birds and small animals with these missiles. On the march, while the women and girls carry the baggage, the boys amuse themselves with various throwing plays.” The cylindrical nests of Australian birds are favourite hiding places of poisonous snakes, “and children who give promise of becoming zealous scientific investigators are often, as well as their elders, bitten in this way. My little friends in Coonambula were eager collectors of all sorts of insects and every creeping thing, and I have to thank them for many of my choicest specimens.”[484]

The chase as practised for sport by adults also argues for an instinctive basis of such play. Civilized man, who no longer makes hunting a direct means of replenishing his larder, still feels the force of this powerful impulse, and playfully reverts to the practices of his progenitors. The passion which this sport excites in its votaries is so strong as to leave little doubt that the impulse is an inherited one. “In our time,” says Johann von Salisbury in the twelfth century, “the chase is regarded by the nobility as the most honourable of employments, and its pursuit the highest virtue. They consider it the summit of earthly bliss to excel in this exercise, and consequently they ride to the chase with greater pomp and pageantry than to war. From pursuing habitually this manner of life they lose their humanity to a great degree, and become almost as savage as the beasts they hunt. Peasants peacefully tending their flocks are torn from their well-tilled fields, their meadows, and pastures, in order that wild beasts may take possession.”[485]

King Edward III had such a passion for hunting that he took a large pack of dogs with him when he was making war on France, and on French soil and every day he followed the chase in some form. The priestly Nimrods whose tastes belie their calling have been subjects of derision from the time of Chaucer to C. F. Meyer’s Shots from the Chancel, and the opposite extreme is found in Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, where he accuses his contemporaries of disturbing the worship of God by bringing their dogs and falcons into the churches. In modern times the passion for hunting is strongest in mountaineers, whose free outdoor life affords every opportunity to indulge the taste. No one who has seen the face of an old mountaineer as he catches sight of a likely goat has any further doubt that inherited instinct is at the bottom of the hunting impulse. Bismarck well described the charm of field sports at the time (1878) when, his health being threatened, he left the business of his office to younger diplomats, and refused to be consulted except on the most vital questions. Rudolf Lindau has given, too, in a parliamentary speech of Bismarck a half-humorous and yet striking picture of a tired hunter: “When a man starts off on a hunt in the morning he is quite willing to tramp over miles of heavy ground to get a shot at birds. But after he has wandered about all day, has his game bag full, and is about ready to go home, being tired, hungry, and covered with mud, he shakes his head if the game-keeper says that there are partridges in the next field. ‘I have enough,’ he says. But if a messenger comes with the news that there is a wild boar in the woods below, this tired man with hunter’s blood in his veins forgets his fatigue, and hastens to the woods, not satisfied until he has found the game and captured it.”

The most rigidly conducted chase has something of the character of play, and there is a whole cycle of games in which flight and pursuit are the main features. To begin with the pursuit of our own kind: suppose one taking a two-year-old child in his arms and springing toward another person, who runs away in pretended fright. The child will manifest delight, which is much too strong to be attributed to mere pleasure in the movement, and must be connected with the hunting impulse. It is shown, too, quite as plainly by boys playing on the street. James is right when he says, “A boy can no more help running after another boy who runs provokingly near him than a kitten can help running after a rolling ball.”[486] In 1894 I had an opportunity to observe a scene which displayed the power of this instinct in a manner which was almost terrible; the boys irresistibly reminded me of dogs or wolves pursuing their prey in a hot chase. At that time a racer came to Giessen, and to attract attention ran through the streets at midday attired in rose-coloured tights, fantastically decorated, and carrying a large bell in his hand. He moved with incredible rapidity, now disappearing round some corner, and now emerging from a side street. When school was out a crowd of homeward-bound boys filled the streets, and, catching sight of the runner, chased after him, so that soon a mob of from fifty to one hundred children were on his heels, chasing him like a pack of hounds with the wildest excitement and loud cries. The man carried a whip which he laid about him well, otherwise the children would doubtless have tried to catch and beat him.

The number of plays which employ such chasing is extraordinarily great, and I will confine myself to a few examples which display the characteristic points of difference. One of the simplest forms of it is the “Zeck,” which is described in a seventeenth century collection. Another is the Greek ὀστρακίνδα, for which the boys used bits of pottery or a shell, one side of which was smeared with pitch and called night, while the other side was day. The children were divided into parties of the day and night, and the token thrown up in the air. The side lying uppermost on its fall determined which party should flee and which pursue. Whoever was caught was called a donkey[487] and must sit on the ground to await the end of the game. This may have been the origin of our coin tossing. In most chasing plays there are special pre-arranged conditions which avert danger from the fugitive and facilitate bringing the play to a close, and most of these conditions can be traced to some ancient superstition. In one game the pursued is safe while standing on or touching iron, and in another sudden stooping makes him immune, while others again appoint bases as cities of refuge. These were used by the Greeks, and a great variety of designation indicates how general they are among the Germans. In the Greek σχοινοφιλίνδα the participants formed in a circle, around which one went with a stick which he secretly hid behind one of the players, who has the privilege of chasing the depositor; or, in case he fails to discover in time what an honour has been conferred upon him, he must run around the circle exposed to the blows of all its numbers.[488] It is like our “Drop the Handkerchief,” and also the game where the boy, whose cap the ball falls in, must throw it after the others. Finally, I will mention two games in which this element has developed into complex imitation of genuine combat. “Fox chasing” furnishes a perfect picture of battle. Two hostile parties stand opposed and attempt to conquer one another and to free their imprisoned allies, and yet, since each capture is made by pursuit and not by fighting, the principle of the chase is the controlling one. “Hare and Hounds” is another imitation of the chase. Adults usually play it on horseback, though there is a notice in Ueber Land und Meer (1880, No. 27) of such a chase on foot, in America. Two specially good runners are given fifteen minutes’ start, and the rest of the company take the part of hounds.

But it is not essential that the thing pursued shall be a living creature. Just as kittens and puppies chase lifeless objects, such as rolling balls, sticks, etc., so do human beings also find substitutes for the proper objects of their sportiveness. Catching a swiftly moving ball is sometimes of this nature; there is attending it a feeling of triumphant mastery much the same as that which excites the boy who seizes and holds a fleeing comrade or the clown who obstructs the course of a scorching wheelman. This is especially the case with professional ball players, who allow the ball to pass their hands and then seize it by a quick movement as it is about to touch the ground. There are other games in which the ball is not caught in the air, but is allowed to fall to the ground and roll away while the players must pursue and catch it. Football and cricket are examples of this, and consequently can be classed either with chase or fighting plays, though they have more of the characteristics of the latter. Another form of hunting play which should not be overlooked is the seeking for hidden persons or things. H. Lemming refers to a process belonging to the child’s first quarter as a kind of hiding play. “The child’s aunt had him on her lap, his little head resting on her right shoulder, while she played hide with him. ‘Where is he?’ she would cry while she hid his head between her arm and breast; then, as she suddenly drew the arm away, ‘There he is.’ She had not done it many times before the little fellow understood perfectly. As soon as his aunt made the motion he turned his head in the right direction and laughed softly. Several days passed, and the game had been repeated two or three times, when one morning early, as he was lying on my bed, I smiled at him and he laughed back; then his face took on a roguish expression, and he buried his head in the pillow for an instant and suddenly raised it with the same mischievous look. He repeated this several times.”[489] Becq de Fouquières restores a beautiful antique picture of a Greek hiding play. One little fellow presses his eyes shut while two others hurry to hide themselves. In Siam “Hide-and-Seek” is called “Looking for the Axe,” and is oftenest played in the twilight because dark, impenetrable corners are more abundant then.[490] There is added weirdness, too, in the half light, and the shock of surprise on suddenly coming upon the hidden object is stronger, bringing the players more in touch with the emotional life. The objects to be hidden are of various kinds. This is a use to which children love to put Easter eggs, and much interest is added to the search by the cries of “Cold,” “Freezing,” “Getting warm,” “Hot, hot, burning,” etc. Very common, too, are games like “Button, button, who’s got the button?” where a small object is passed from hand to hand and kept concealed. A curious forfeit game like this was very popular in former years, and is thus described by Amaranthes: “The whole company sit close together in a circle on the ground while a shoe belonging to one of them is slipped along and hidden beneath their legs, while one person tries to find it.”[491] Fleeing and hiding occur in all hunting plays, but are specially prominent in some forms—in games like “Going to Jerusalem,” for instance, where many attempt to make use of the same chair, “Stagecoach,” “Change Kitchen Furniture,” “Cats and Mice,” etc. In many the pursuers are restricted by certain conditions and prohibitions which are in favour of the fleeing ones, and furnish occasion for evasions and all sorts of byplay. For one thing the “catcher” may be hooded or blindfold. Bastian saw a game played in Siam in which the bandage over his eyes was so arranged that it hung down like an elephant’s trunk.[492] Another handicap is to require the pursuer to hop on one foot and hit those whom he overtakes with his knotted handkerchief. When in his excitement he changes to the other foot they all cry out and beat him with theirs. The Greek ἀσκωλιασμός was apparently much like this.

9. _Witnessing Fights and Fighting Plays. The Tragic_

Æsthetic observation belongs more properly to imitative play, but we have been compelled to notice it already in several connections and must not overlook its influence on fighting play. Thanks to inner imitation we can take part in fights without objective participation, and actually enjoy attacks and defence, strategy and risk, victory and defeat as if they were our veritable experience. As we found in games of rivalry, this internal sympathetic fighting has a great advantage over objective fighting in the more varied and lasting excitement which it effects (for example, the tension of expectation which in one’s own quarrels soon vanishes); yet, on the other hand, it lacks the element of pleasure peculiarly associated with one’s own achievements.

In considering the observation of actual fighting we must distinguish between combat with an enemy and the conquest of difficulty. Inner imitation is prominent in both. When we see a company of labourers trying to lift a heavy stone or beam with pulleys, or driving piles in the water, or a man pulling his boat up on the beach, or a smith beating the hot iron with heavy blows of his hammer, or a hunter scaling mountain crags to reach an eagle’s nest, we take part in the struggle with difficulty and enjoy success as if it were our own. The sympathetic interest is even greater in witnessing a fight between two combatants; indeed, it can be playful only when the onlooker can restrain his emotions and regard the struggle going on before him as a theatrical representation, as is often enough the case. When two boys are tussling, when adults quarrel with high words, when a rider attempts to control his vicious horse, when a man defends himself with a stick against a brutal dog, when the champions of opposing parties fight in the presence of their backers, the spectators may take such impersonal interest in the combat.

Much more to our purpose, however, is the witnessing of playful fights where the contestants engage merely for amusement or to test their prowess, whether or not they are in playful mood. In this case, overcoming difficulties is the leading feature. Then, too, there are myriad forms of juggling, contortionism, prestidigitating, etc., in which the spectator, at least in part, inwardly joins; and the wild excitement of animal and ring fights, bull baiting, fencing matches, racing on foot, wheel, and horse. Even for the fighting plays which are not intended as an exhibition, such as football and cricket games, there is usually collected a crowd of intensely sympathetic spectators, and the players themselves, when not in action, are entirely out of the game, yet they still take part through inner imitation which has frequent outward manifestations. Moreover, whoever sees a difficult piece of work accomplished feels a desire to test his own skill with a like task. The merest onlooker at a prize fight will assume belligerent postures, as Defregger says, and savages are often so wrought upon by witnessing a war dance that serious brawls ensue.

These facts lead us insensibly to the realm of art, of which I merely remark in passing that certain echoes of the fray may be detected in architecture and music, and that the representative arts and especially painting devote a wide field to combat, but that the real domain of internal fighting play is found in poetry. Fighting and love plays[493] contribute most largely to the enjoyable element in poetry, and the latter is less effective when divorced from combat. Even in lyrics, which would seem to afford the least opportunity for exploiting such themes, the tourney is a fruitful inspiration, and the triumphant note of victory is conspicuous. A verse of Heyse’s illustrates in mocking wise, and perhaps more forcibly than any other, how great is the importance to the poetic art of its connection with the fighting instinct. In dilating upon the literary status of the abode of bliss he says:

“Für Drame, Lustspiel und Novelle
Ist leider hier Kein günst’ner Boden;
Die kultivirt man in der Hölle.
Hir giebt es Hymnen nur und Oden.”

“For drama, stage play, and novel
There is, alas! no public here;
These things are practised down in hell.
Here hymns and odes are _de rigueur_.”

In studying epic poetry we are struck by the frequency with which the excitement of fighting furnishes the motive. This is the case with almost the whole cycle of primitive epics and folk stories, down to our modern romance; and when an epic is produced, like the Messias, for example, without such stimulus to interest, it falls irretrievably under the reproach of dulness. In the drama war is all-important. A short time ago an unnamed author published an article on dramatic conflict to which I fully subscribe.[494] Since the time of Aristotle the idea of acting has been prominent[495] in any conception of the drama, though there have been some writers like Lenz, Otto Ludwig, and lately Gartelmann, who have stressed the delineation of character. Both theories easily lead to a one-sided view. “Not character as such, but character in conflict it is which lays claim to our interest in the drama, and only such acting is dramatic as reveals the conflict.... The essence of the dramatic consists in the presence of an overwhelming catastrophe which forms the central point of the poem, and its culmination is the writer’s chief task.” It strikes me that this is incontestable, though it may be urged that the conflict is only a means of bringing out the essential features of the character. Thus Wetz strikingly says: “If a poet wishes to portray his hero realistically, then must his environment contrast with his character. He must be put in trying circumstances, and thus be brought out of himself and reveal his utmost depths. Comedy as well as tragedy furnishes such situations; where the amusing complications or fatal passion have once been intimated they must be pursued to their final consequences.”[496] For refined connoisseurs it may be true that in perfect drama[497] conflict is but a means of unveiling character, yet even their interest is deepened by psychological considerations. With naïve spectators, who are to me the more important, it is quite otherwise. The conflict itself is the important thing to them, and the fact that it may afford insight into character is only noteworthy as making the fight more interesting. In any case we are safe in averring that the pleasure afforded by the drama has one very essential feature in common with ring contests, animal fights, races, etc.—namely, that of observing a struggle in which we may inwardly participate.

Tragedy is the highest poetic representation of a contest which is pursued to the bitter end, usually violent defeat.[498] Here we again encounter the question of enjoyment in relation to what is tragic. Volkelt explains it as a result of (1) the exalted character of the excitement; (2) sympathy; (3) strong stimuli; and (4) appreciation of artistic form. The third point, which is also one of ours, he considers subordinate. His first point, however, is not universally applicable, and his second is limited to those cases in which the sufferer is regarded as worthy, and even then pain predominates and only serves to weigh the balance further down on that side. Thus only the last two points remain for universal application. While we grant that appreciation of artistic form is an element in the explanation, the third point, pleasure in intense stimuli, seems to me more important. Volkelt’s view is not a little influenced by Vischu’s contention that “a general disturbance of the emotions constitutes a satisfaction for barbaric crudeness and _ennui_.” We have already had occasion to show that the enjoyment of strong stimuli is of great significance in all departments of play, but I fail to see anything barbaric about it, and consider this word unworthy to be applied to æsthetic pleasure. Is it not a noble pleasure to stand on a mountain summit or a ship’s prow and watch an approaching storm? And how much more elevated still is the storm of effects which tragedy awakens in us!