"How low and unbecoming a thing laughter is, not to mention the disagreeable noise that it makes, and the shocking distortion of the face that it occasions. I am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing and apt to be pleased as anybody; but I am sure that, since I have the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.

Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn you against it; and I heartily wish that you may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh, while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners: it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things, and they call it being merry. In my mind there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred as audible laughter."

Lord Chesterfield, 1748

Expressing the consensus of opinion among

17th and 18th century physiognomists

in a letter to his son