Note 59 — Chapter IV · VARIETIES OF THE LAUGHABLE.
Reading edition
It may be well to add, by way of caution, that the feeble semblance of laughter which a modern theatre-goer is apt to produce when he sees something risqué is not a simple form of laughter at the indecent. It is the outcome of a highly artificial attitude of mind, in which there is an oscillation of feeling between the readiness of the natural man to indulge and the fear of the civilised man that he may be carried too far.