Something that has always intrigued me about Abraham Lincoln is, not surprisingly, his sense of humor. As far as I can tell, he's the first American President to have one.
That's because the term “sense of humor” really wasn't in common usage until the eighteen-sixties and seventies. In the eighteen-forties and fifties, it was called “the sense of the ridiculous,” and didn't have the positive connotations that “sense of humor” has today. Back then, what was ridiculous was what invited ridicule. Funniness and cruelty went hand in hand. Of course, they still do a lot of arm-in-arm strolling in our day as well.
Lincoln's humor was very different because, for one thing, it was actually “humor” as the word was defined in his time. We don't make the distinction between “wit” and “humor” anymore, but in the nineteenth century people did. Wit was sarcastic and antipathetic while humor was congenial and empathetic. It's the differ—ence we note now when we distinguish between “l(fā)aughing with” and “l(fā)aughing at.” Lincoln was much more about “l(fā)aughing with” than “l(fā)aughing at.” And when “l(fā)aughing at,” it was often himself he was mocking.
In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, when Douglas accused Lincoln of being two-faced, Lincoln replied, referencing his homeliness, “Honestly, if I were two-faced, would I be showing you this one?” And, in a way, Lincoln's face itself tells us much about his sense of humor.
You can comb through thousands of photographs of politicians, soldiers, and the like from Lincoln's time and not find a single smile. Here's his sourpussed cabinet.
True, the extended exposures required for photographs of that era made smiling difficult. Yet Lincoln alone, as far as I can tell, overcame that difficulty. And though there is only a hint of smile in his photographs, it hints at what Lincoln knew too well: that, as Mark Twain pointed out, “the secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.”
Interestingly, while having a sense of humor, or at least the appearance of one provided by comedy writers, has become a necessary characteristic for an American President in our time, in the nineteenth century, too much humor was considered a liability. And that was the case for Lincoln. A journalist covering the Lincoln-Douglas debates commented that “I could not take a real personal liking to the man, owing to an inborn weakness for which he was even then notorious and so remained during his great public career, he was inordinately fond of jokes, anecdotes, and stories.”
There's hoping that our age might have a more favorable feeling towards him.?
參考譯文：
一些一直讓我對(duì)亞伯拉罕·林肯，毫不奇怪，他的幽默感。據(jù)我所知，他是美國第一任總統(tǒng)有一個(gè)。
這是因?yàn)樾g(shù)語“幽默感”真的不是在常見的用法，直到十八歲六十年代和年代。在說，五十多歲時(shí)，它被稱為“荒謬的感覺”，并沒有積極的內(nèi)涵，“幽默感”今天。當(dāng)時(shí)，什么是荒謬是什么邀請(qǐng)嘲笑。幽默和殘忍是齊頭并進(jìn)的。當(dāng)然，他們?nèi)匀蛔龊芏嗍滞熘致皆谖覀兊囊惶臁?/p>
林肯的幽默是非常不同的，因?yàn)椋紫龋鼘?shí)際上是“幽默”這個(gè)詞被定義為在他的時(shí)間。我們不區(qū)分“智慧”和“幽默”了，但在19世紀(jì)的人做。智慧是諷刺和反感而幽默是一致的、善解人意的。這是我們現(xiàn)在的生活不同注意當(dāng)我們區(qū)分“笑”和“笑。”林肯是更多關(guān)于“笑”，而不是“與嘲笑。”，當(dāng)“笑”，它常常被自己他被嘲笑。
在著名的林肯-道格拉斯大辯論，當(dāng)?shù)栏窭怪肛?zé)林肯被虛偽的，林肯回答說，引用他的樸素，“老實(shí)說，如果我是雙面的，我表現(xiàn)的你嗎？”，在某種程度上，林肯的臉本身告訴我們太多關(guān)于他的幽默感。
你可以梳理成千上萬的照片的政客、軍人等從林肯的時(shí)間，而不是找到一個(gè)微笑。這是他的sourpussed內(nèi)閣。
真的，延長曝光照片那個(gè)時(shí)代的要求使微笑困難。然而林肯孤單，據(jù)我所知，克服了這個(gè)困難。雖然只有一絲的微笑在他的照片，但它暗示了什么林肯知道太好：馬克·吐溫那指出，“幽默的秘密來源不是喜悅而是憂愁。”
有趣的是，雖然有幽默感，或者至少出現(xiàn)一個(gè)喜劇作家提供的，已經(jīng)成為一個(gè)必要的特性對(duì)一位美國總統(tǒng)在我們的時(shí)代，在19世紀(jì)，太多的幽默被認(rèn)為是一種責(zé)任。那是如此的林肯。林肯與道格拉斯的辯論一名記者報(bào)道評(píng)論說，“我不能把一個(gè)真正的個(gè)人喜歡這個(gè)人，由于一個(gè)天生的弱點(diǎn)，他甚至被然后臭名昭著的，所以依然在他的偉大的公共事業(yè)，他是非常地喜歡笑話，軼事，和故事。”
有希望，我們的年齡可能更有利對(duì)他感覺。？
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