It is true that, wherever the Celt has leavened the doughier
Anglo-Saxon lump, the expectation of a humorous sympathy is
greater; but there are subtile spirits of Teutonic origin whose
fineness we cannot deny, whose delicate gayety is of a sort which
may well leave ours impeaching itself of a heavier and grosser
fibre.
No doubt you must sometimes, and possibly oftenest, go more than
half-way for the response to your humorous intention. Those
subtile spirits are shy, and may not offer it an effusive
welcome. They are also of such an exquisite honesty that, if they
do not think your wit is funny, they will not smile at it, and
this may grieve some of our jokers. But, if you have something
fine and good in you, you need not be afraid they will fail of
it, and they will not be so long about finding it out as some
travellers say. When it comes to the grace of the imaginative in
your pleasantry, they will be even beforehand with you. But in
their extreme of impersonality they will leave the initiative to
you in the matter of humor as in others.
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