Topical Guide 964
Mark Dorset
Allusion, Quotation
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 30:
To take one of the most commonplace examples in life, what is there so delightful in the sight of a man falling on the ice or in the street, or stumbling at the end of a pavement, that the countenance of his brother . . . should contract in such an intemperate manner, and the muscles of his face should suddenly leap into life like a timepiece at midday or a clockwork toy? . . . The man who trips would be the last to laugh at his own fall, unless he happened to be a philosopher, one who had acquired by habit a power of rapid self-division and thus of assisting as a disinterested spectator at the phenomena of his own ego. But such cases are rare.
Charles Baudelaire, “On the Essence of Laughter”
The complete essay appears in Baudelaire: Selected Writings on Art and Literature. Follow the link to shop for that (or anything else) at Amazon.com. (EK will earn affiliate fees when you do. —MD)
See also:
Allusion; Quotation TG 140, TG 455, TG 462, TG 502, TG 506, TG 532, TG 559, TG 583, TG 592, TG 626, TG 654, TG 657, TG 714, TG 735, TG 736, TG 738, TG 780, TG 781, TG 802, TG 829, TG 832, TG 935, TG 951, TG 957
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