Perhaps I will read it one of these days if you are patient with me when I am sentimental and reflective; not just now.

The ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare.
How curious it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties, and then call blessed.

There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look forward by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all joyousness from their countenances.

I meet one such in the street not infrequently--a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me (and all that he passes), such a rayless and chilling look of recognition--something as if he were one of Heaven's assessors, come down to 'doom' every acquaintance he met--that, I have sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold dating from that instant.

I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off if he caught her playing with it.