'...a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend or be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.'
Herman Melleville, Moby Dick, p.33.
