The Collected Works Of William Hazlitt, Volume 8...

Excerpt from The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 8: Lectures on the English Comic Writers; A View of the English Stage; Dramatic Essays From 'the London Magazine'

Tears may be considered as the natural and involuntary resource of the mind overcome by some sudden and violent emotion, before it has had time to reconcile its feelings to the change of circumstances while laughter may be defined to be the same sort of convulsive and involuntar movement, occasioned by mere surprise or contrast (in the absence of any more serious emotion), before it has time to reconcile its belief to contradictory appearances. If we hold a mask before our face, and approach a child with this disguise on, it will at first, from the oddity and incongruity of the appearance, be inclined to laugh; if we go nearer to it, steadily, and without saying a word, it will begin to be alarmed, and be half inclined to cry: if we suddenly take off the mask, it will recover from its fears, and burst out a-laughing; but if, instead of presenting the old well-known countenance, we have concealed a satyr's head or some frightful caricature behind the first mask, the suddenness of the change will not in this case be a source of merriment to it, but will convert its surprise into an agony of con sternation, and will make it scream out for help, even though it may be convinced that the whole is a trick at bottom.

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