People · 1819
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
— William Hazlitt · Lectures on the English Comic Writers
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
The passage proposes a shared explanation for laughter and tears: noticing the gap between reality and what ought to be. Its claim about human uniqueness frames both reactions as responses to comparison. Read this way, comedy and sorrow become closely related expressions of disappointment or recognition.
Context reviewed