Who shall account for that extraordinary and fragrant flower,
the flower of Greek culture, so perfect in curve and colour, in
proportion and scent, opening so suddenly, in such a strange
isolation, so long ago, upon the human stock? The Greeks had the
wonderful combination of childish zest side by side with mature
taste; charis, as they called it--a perfect charm, an instinctive
grace--was the mark of their spirit. And we should naturally expect
to find, in their literature, the same sublimation of humour that
we find in their other qualities. Unfortunately the greater number
of their comedies are lost. Of Menander we have but a few tiny
fragments, as it were, of a delectable vase; but in Aristophanes
there is a delicious levity, an incomparable prodigality of
laughter-moving absurdities, which has possibly never been
equalled. Side by side with that is the tender and charming irony
of Plato, who is even more humorous, if less witty, than
Aristophanes. But the Greeks seem to have been alone in their
application of humour to literature.
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