Don’t laugh too loud — this theatre of the world is unsafe

We smile, naturally, sometimes on our first day of life. But we have to learn to laugh — that is, we imitate the mouth motions, facial contortions and, above all, the laugh noises of our elders. This is why the way we laugh is part of our breeding. I notice every year at the Christmas season a lot of loud, infuriating and ill-bred laughter in restaurants, from people who have had a few, chiefly from shaven-headed men but also from a growing number of women. Jane Austen deplored loud laughter, believing that a fine-tuned control of the vocal cords was a sure sign of a gentleman. Her Emma was convinced that the young farmer Robert Martin, whom she considered a demeaning suitor for Harriet Smith, would laugh in an unseemly manner. Jane would not have approved of the modern Santa Claus, with his ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ like a rum-soaked buccaneer. Sad that Santa, who ought to be courtly, indeed regal, has been allowed to stray over the boundary line.

Not many would now have the nerve to teach people how to laugh with propriety. Before the Great War, a famous colonel of the Prussian Death’s Head Hussars used to call his subalterns together and say, ‘You young officers are laughing in an unsoldierly way. I don’t want my officers sniggering, giggling and guffawing, like tradesmen and Jews and Poles. You are Hussars! Ja! And there is only one way for a Hussar to laugh — short and sharp. Thus: “Ha!” Now — we practice. All together: one, two, three, Ha! One, two, three, Ha! Ja, that is goot!’ I believe Lord Cardigan, who would not allow beer bottles on the mess table, ordered his Hussar officers to laugh thus, only he insisted on ‘Haw!’ and, in moments of great glee, ‘Haw-haw!’ Hence the chain of events which led the public, during the last war, to christen the traitor Joyce, with his put-on posh voice, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’.