conversation at table was being carried on in laboured monosyllables, I
would begin to laugh so unrestrainedly that every one stared at me in
anger or amazement. And it occasionally happened that when some sad
event, concerning people present, was being discussed, the recollection
of something comical I had seen or heard the same day would crop up in
my mind to the exclusion of all else, and I would be overtaken by fits
of laughter that were both incomprehensible and wounding to those round
me, but which it was impossible to me to repress. At funeral ceremonies,
I was in such dread of bursting out laughing that my attention would
involuntarily fix itself on everything it ought to avoid. This habit of
mine was particularly trying when my laughter had a ruffling effect on
others in a thing that I myself was anxious to carry through. Thus I
spoilt the first rehearsals of Sophocles' Greek play _Philoctetes_,
which a little group of students were preparing to act at the request of
Julius Lange. Some of them pronounced the Greek in an unusual manner,
others had forgotten their parts or acted badly--and that was quite
enough to set me off in a fit of laughter which I had difficulty in
stopping. Thus I often laughed, when I was tormented at being compelled
to laugh, in reality feeling melancholy, and mentally worried; I used to
think of Oechlenschlaeger's Oervarodd, who does not laugh when he is
happy, but breaks into a guffaw when he is deeply affected.

These fits of laughter were in reality the outcome of sheer
youthfulness; with all my musings and reflection, I was still in many
ways a child; I laughed as boys and girls laugh, without being able to
stop, and especially when they ought not. But this painful trait in
myself directed my thoughts to the nature proper of laughter; I tried to
sum up to myself why I laughed, and why people in general laughed,
pondered, as well as I was capable of doing the question of what the
comical consisted of, and then recorded the fruits of my reflections in