But joy is a far more elusive and elvish matter, since it
is our reason for existing, and a very feminine reason; it mingles with
every breath we draw and every cup of tea we drink. The literature of
joy is infinitely more difficult, more rare and more triumphant than the
black and white literature of pain. And of all the varied forms of the
literature of joy, the form most truly worthy of moral reverence and
artistic ambition is the form called 'farce'--or its wilder shape in
pantomime. To the quietest human being, seated in the quietest house,
there will sometimes come a sudden and unmeaning hunger for the
possibilities or impossibilities of things; he will abruptly wonder
whether the teapot may not suddenly begin to pour out honey or
sea-water, the clock to point to all hours of the day at once, the
candle to burn green or crimson, the door to open upon a lake or a
potato-field instead of a London street. Upon anyone who feels this
nameless anarchism there rests for the time being the abiding spirit of
pantomime. Of the clown who cuts the policeman in two it may be said
(with no darker meaning) that he realizes one of our visions. And it may
be noted here that this internal quality in pantomime is perfectly
symbolized and preserved by that commonplace or cockney landscape and
architecture which characterizes pantomime and farce.
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