No doubt the story-telling habit owes much to the fact that ordinary people, quite unconsciously, rate humour very low: I mean, they underestimate the difficulty of “making humour.” Because the result is gay and light, they think the process must be. Few people would realise that it is much harder to write one of [4]Owen Seaman's “funny” poems in Punch than to write one of the [5]Archbishop of Canterbury's sermons. Mark Twain's[6]Huckleberry Finn is a greater work than [7]Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and [8]Charles Dickens's creation of )[9]Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race—I say it 32)in all seriousness—than [10]Cardinal Newman's Lead, Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.
毫无疑问，爱讲故事的习惯主要是由于人们潜意识就不把幽默当一回事——我指的是，他们低估了“制造幽默”的难度。由于其结果是轻松快乐的，因此他们误以为其过程必定也是如此。很少有人意识到，欧 文·西曼在《笨拙》上发表的一首“滑稽诗”要比坎特伯雷大主教的一篇布道文难写得多。马克·吐温的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》要比康德的《纯粹理性批判》伟大得多。查尔斯·狄更斯所塑造的匹克威克先生在提高人类的情操方面——我是非常郑重地说的——要比纽曼主教的颂诗《慈光引领》贡献大得多。纽曼只是在黑暗的悲惨世界里呼求光明，而狄更斯却给予了这种光明。
But the deep background that lies behind and beyond what we call humour is revealed only to the few who, by instinct or by effort, have given thought to it. The world's humour, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilisation. One thinks here not of the mere 33)spasmodic effects of the comic artist or the 34)blackface expert of the 35)vaudeville show, but of the really great humour which, once or twice in a generation at best, illuminates and elevates our literature. It is no longer dependent upon the mere trick and 36)quibble of words, or the odd and meaningless incongruities in things that strike us as “funny.” Its basis lies in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager and 37)fretful anxieties of today that fade into nothingness tomorrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle 38)retrospect of time, till as we look back upon the course that has been traversed we pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood. And here, in its larger aspect, humour is blended with 39)pathos till the two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our 40)lot on earth.
不过，在我们所说的幽默的背后以及超乎其上还存在更深远的意义，唯有极少数有心人，凭其本能或通过苦苦求索，曾对其作一番思考。以世界上最优秀、最伟大的幽默作品而言，幽默也许是我们人类文明的最高成就。在此，我们想到的不是喜剧演员那种仅仅把人逗得狂笑的喜剧效果，也不是杂耍剧中黑脸笑匠的精彩表演，而是由一代人中仅能产生一两位大师所创造的、能照亮能拔高我们文学境界的那种真正的伟大的幽默。这种幽默不再依赖纯粹插科打浑耍嘴皮，也不再疯言疯语以无厘头伎俩来使我们感到“滑稽”。它深深地植根于生活本身的深层反差之中：我们的期望是一回事，而实际结果却完全是另一回事。今天的渴望和焦虑令我们寝食难安，而明日它们却已化为乌有。无论火烧火燎的痛苦，还是如切如割的悲伤，在温柔的岁月回想中总会被轻描淡写。回首往日历程，悲欢离合历历在目，而我们已安然度过，于是我们会热泪涟涟地露出微笑，有如年迈的老人悲欢交集地回忆起儿时那怒气冲冲的争吵。由此可见，从更广的意义上来说，幽默与感伤是交织相融的，直至两者浑然一体。历代的幽默都体现了泪水与欢笑交融这一传统，而这正是我们人类的命运。
