And there is no need of it all, for “mirth is medicine and laughter lengthens life.” That is what my good friend Colonel Robert Ingersoll wrote under his picture which adorns my wall. The Colonel was one of us entertainers, though not professionally. Our merry champion he! The spirit of his tender epigram seems to haunt the dim twilight ways of men, looking with cheery solicitude for those who are weary, to take them by the hand and tell them tales full of dawn and breaking day, and rush of rosy life in rising sun. It stands on the side of light and love along the paths where flowers bloom and birds are glad in song. And it is needed, for from the start, there has been a fight between merriment and misery and the latter has its stout advocates. The gloomster and the jester have ever been sparring for paints and sometimes the jester has gone down under swinging right-handers; then, something that its enemies call Puritanism, probably because it hates all purity not of its own peculiar brand, has clapped its hands, all smeared with brimstone, until you could see the blue flames of the place that Ingersoll said didn’t exist.
A Humorist of the Best Sort.—Not True to His Own Description of Himself.—Everybody’s Friend.—His Dog “Entomologist” and the Dog’s Companions.—A Man With the Right Word for Every Occasion.—His Pen-Name was His Own.—Often Mistaken for a Distinguished Clergyman.—Killed by a Published Falsehood.
In one respect entertainers closely resemble preachers;—they greatly enjoy listening to the greater members of their own profession. Consequently, I never lost a chance to listen to Bill Nye, and I worship the memory of him as he was—a gentle yet sturdy and persistent humorist of so good a sort, that he never could help being humorous, no matter how uncongenial the surroundings. Although he saw hundreds and thousands of chances of hitting other men so hard that the hurt would last forever, he dropped every one of them and trampled them so hard that they never dared show their faces again. He was an apostle of the Golden Rule, which he exemplified in himself, so there never was a sting in his jokes; gentle raillery was the sweetest thing he ever attempted, and even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word of his friendly chaffing was worth more than a cart-load of formal praise.