内容导读
幽默是人类所能具有的最高贵的品性之一，因为它展示了一种对人生的深刻洞察之后的积极态度：人生总也避免不了忧郁和痛苦，我们能做的便是接受这一事实，以喜剧的形式把悲剧的人生转化成阵阵笑声。从这个意义上来说，幽默的确比悲伤、怨恨、愤怒等否定情感要更贴近名为“真理”的那团火。
英文正文
Analysts have had their go at humor,and Ihave read some of this interpretative literature,but without being greatly instructed.Humor can be dissected,as afrog can,but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
In anewsreel theatre the other day Isaw apicture of aman who had developed the soap bubble to ahigher point than it had ever before reached.He had become the first-class soap bubble blower of America,had perfected the business of blowing bubbles,refined it,doubled it,squared it,and had even worked himself up into aconvenient lather.The effect was not pretty.Some of the bubbles were too big to be beautiful,and the blower was always jumping into them or out of them,or playing some sort of unattractive trick with them.It was,if anything,a rather repulsive sight.Humor is alittle like that:it won't stand much blowing up,and it won't stand much poking.It has acertain fragility,an evasiveness,which one had best respect.Essentially,it is acomplete mystery.A human frame convulsed with laughter,and the laughter becoming hysterical and uncontrollable,is as far out of balance as one shaken with the hiccoughs or in the throes of asneezing fit.
One of the things commonly said about humorists is that they are really very sad people—clowns with abreaking heart.Three is some truth in it,but it is badly stated.It would be more accurate,I think,to say that there is adeep vein of melancholy running through everyone's life and that the humorist,perhaps more sensible of it than some others,compensates for it actively and positively.Humorist fatten on trouble.They have always made trouble pay.They struggle along with agood will and endure pain cheerfully,knowing how willingly it will serve them in the sweet by and by.You find them wrestling with foreign languages,fighting folding ironing boards and swollen drainpipes,suffering the terrible discomfort of tight boots…They pour out their sorrows profitably,in aform that is not quite fiction nor quite fact either.Beneath the sparkling surface of these dilemma flows the strong tide of human woe.
Practically everyone is amanic depressive of sorts,with his up moments and his down moments,and you certainly don't have to be ahumorist to taste the sadness of situation and mood.But there is often arather fine line between laughing and crying,and if ahumorous piece of writing brings aperson to the point where his emotional responses are untrustworthy and seem likely to break over into the opposite realm,it is because humor,like poetry,has an extra content.It plays close to the big hot fire which is Truth,and sometimes the reader feels the heat.
中文译文
谈幽默
E.B.怀特
分析家们都曾在幽默上试过身手，我自己就读过一些这类阐释性的文献，但是获教不大。幽默可以解剖，正如青蛙可以解剖那样，但这东西在解剖的过程中是会死掉的，而其内里的种种只会令人失望，只有那些纯粹的科学头脑才会让人感兴趣。
前不久我在一家新闻片影院中观看了一个吹肥皂泡的片子，片中一个人将这东西的吹法发展到了前所未有的高度。他成了美国的头号吹肥皂泡大王，他使这个技术达到了完美地步，把它搞得精而又精，不仅会吹一个，而是两个四个地成倍增长，甚至把他自己套进肥皂泡里。但那效果却并不很美。一些皂泡由于过大，已不好看，而那吹的人一会儿跳进那皂泡里去，一会儿又跳了出来，或者用肥皂泡耍点没什么意思的把戏。看后只觉得令人生厌。其实幽默就正有些类似这肥皂泡：它经不住一吹再吹，也经不住一捅再捅。它带有某种脆弱性，某种飘忽味，这点我们只能予以尊重。幽默在本质上完全就是个神秘之物。当一个人笑得全身抽筋，笑到几乎歇斯底里，不可控制时，与打嗝打得发抖或打喷嚏打不出来别无二样。
关于幽默家，人们常说的一句话就是，这种人实际是些悲惨的人——被伤透了心的小丑。这话不无道理，只是表述欠佳。我认为更确切的说法应当是，每个人的生活里都有一股深沉的忧郁流贯其中，而幽默家，或许在这点上比其他人感受更深，往往以一种更为活跃与积极的态度去向那里寻求补偿。幽默家是靠烦恼发财的。他们总是要让烦恼赔点损失。他们满腔热情地向前挺进，积极乐观地忍受痛苦，深知这麻烦痛苦终将给他们带来点甜蜜报偿。你将发现他们会为弄懂那外国语费尽心，为撬开折叠的钢板出尽力，为疏通淤塞的排水道吃尽苦，为脚下那副窄靴受尽罪……他们把自己的痛苦以有利可图的方式倾倒出来，所凭借的形式则既非纯属虚构，也非仅是事实。就在这些心虽痛苦却有着欢快搞笑的光鲜外表之下流淌着人类痛苦的强劲暗流。
实际上我们每个人都有着几分忧郁症的迹象，有时激情高昂，有时抑郁低落。而你也无须非得是一名幽默家才能体味到情景或情绪上的凄惨成分。但是笑与哭的界线却往往是很微妙的，因此当一件幽默作品竟使得一个人的感情反应失去控制，而有可能进入到一个相反境地时，这主要是因为幽默像诗歌那样，另有其一项额外内容。幽默的发挥场所往往贴近一团熊熊烈火，那即是真理，因而读者有时也能感受到那温煦。
词汇速记
dissect v. 解剖，仔细分析
innards n. 内脏
lather n. 肥皂泡
convulse v. 抽搐
hysterical adj. 歇斯底里的，神经质的
throe n. 剧痛，挣扎
wrestle v. 搏斗，斟酌
美句欣赏
There is adeep vein of melancholy running through everyone's life and that the humorist,perhaps more sensible of it than some others,compensates for it actively and positively.这是全文的点睛之语，阐释了幽默何以是一种高贵的品性：它是人生黑暗时的一丝光亮，给生活的苦涩添上一丝甘甜，用积极的心态让生活不至于太令人难以忍受。