Book lying open before us all. Between these two stand Shakespeare and

Cervantes, with the richer laugh of heart and mind in one; with much of

the Aristophanic robustness, something of Moliere’s delicacy.

The laughter heard in circles not pervaded by the Comic idea, will sound

harsh and soulless, like versified prose, if you step into them with

a sense of the distinction. You will fancy you have changed your

habitation to a planet remoter from the sun. You may be among

powerful brains too. You will not find poets--or but a stray one,

over-worshipped. You will find learned men undoubtedly, professors,

reputed philosophers, and illustrious dilettanti. They have in them,

perhaps, every element composing light, except the Comic. They read

verse, they discourse of art; but their eminent faculties are not under

that vigilant sense of a collective supervision, spiritual and present,

which we have taken note of. They build a temple of arrogance; they

speak much in the voice of oracles; their hilarity, if it does not dip

in grossness, is usually a form of pugnacity.

Insufficiency of sight in the eye looking outward has deprived them of

the eye that should look inward. They have never weighed themselves in

the delicate balance of the Comic idea so as to obtain a suspicion of

the rights and dues of the world; and they have, in consequence, an

irritable personality. A very learned English professor crushed an

argument in a political discussion, by asking his adversary angrily:

‘Are you aware, sir, that I am a philologer?’

The practice of polite society will help in training them, and the

professor on a sofa with beautiful ladies on each side of him, may

become their pupil and a scholar in manners without knowing it: he is at

least a fair and pleasing spectacle to the Comic Muse. But the society

named polite is volatile in its adorations, and to-morrow will be

petting a bronzed soldier, or a black African, or a prince, or a

spiritualist: ideas cannot take root in its ever-shifting soil. It is

besides addicted in self-defence to gabble exclusively of the affairs of

its rapidly revolving world, as children on a whirligoround bestow their

attention on the wooden horse or cradle ahead of them, to escape from

giddiness and preserve a notion of identity. The professor is better

out of a circle that often confounds by lionizing, sometimes annoys by

abandoning, and always confuses. The school that teaches gently what

peril there is lest a cultivated head should still be coxcomb’s, and the

collisions which may befall high-soaring minds, empty or full, is more

to be recommended than the sphere of incessant motion supplying it with

material.

Lands where the Comic spirit is obscure overhead are rank with raw crops

of matter. The traveller accustomed to smooth highways and people not

covered with burrs and prickles is amazed, amid so much that is fair and

cherishable, to come upon such curious barbarism. An Englishman paid

a visit of admiration to a professor in the Land of Culture, and was

introduced by him to another distinguished professor, to whom he took

so cordially as to walk out with him alone one afternoon. The first

professor, an erudite entirely worthy of the sentiment of scholarly

esteem prompting the visit, behaved (if we exclude the dagger) with the

vindictive jealousy of an injured Spanish beauty. After a short prelude

of gloom and obscure explosions, he discharged upon his faithless

admirer the bolts of passionate logic familiar to the ears of flighty

caballeros:--‘Either I am a fit object of your admiration, or I am not.

Of these things one--either you are competent to judge, in which case

I stand condemned by you; or you are incompetent, and therefore

impertinent, and you may betake yourself to your country again,

hypocrite!’ The admirer was for persuading the wounded scholar that it

is given to us to be able to admire two professors at a time. He was

driven forth.

Perhaps this might have occurred in any country, and a comedy of The

Pedant, discovering the greedy humanity within the dusty scholar, would

not bring it home to one in particular. I am mindful that it was in

Germany, when I observe that the Germans have gone through no comic

training to warn them of the sly, wise emanation eyeing them from aloft,

nor much of satirical. Heinrich Heine has not been enough to cause them

to smart and meditate. Nationally, as well as individually, when they

are excited they are in danger of the grotesque, as when, for instance,

they decline to listen to evidence, and raise a national outcry because

one of German blood has been convicted of crime in a foreign country.

They are acute critics, yet they still wield clubs in controversy.

Compare them in this respect with the people schooled in La Bruyere, La

Fontaine, Moliere; with the people who have the figures of a Trissotin

and a Vadius before them for a comic warning of the personal vanities

of the caressed professor. It is more than difference of race. It is the

difference of traditions, temper, and style, which comes of schooling.

The French controversialist is a polished swordsman, to be dreaded

in his graces and courtesies. The German is Orson, or the mob, or a

marching army, in defence of a good case or a bad--a big or a little.

His irony is a missile of terrific tonnage: sarcasm he emits like a

blast from a dragon’s mouth. He must and will be Titan. He stamps his

foe underfoot, and is astonished that the creature is not dead, but

stinging; for, in truth, the Titan is contending, by comparison, with a

god.

When the Germans lie on their arms, looking across the Alsatian frontier

at the crowds of Frenchmen rushing to applaud L’ami Fritz at the Theatre

Francais, looking and considering the meaning of that applause, which

is grimly comic in its political response to the domestic moral of the

play--when the Germans watch and are silent, their force of character

tells. They are kings in music, we may say princes in poetry, good

speculators in philosophy, and our leaders in scholarship. That so

gifted a race, possessed moreover of the stern good sense which collects

the waters of laughter to make the wells, should show at a disadvantage,

I hold for a proof, instructive to us, that the discipline of the comic

spirit is needful to their growth. We see what they can reach to in that

great figure of modern manhood, Goethe. They are a growing people;

they are conversable as well; and when their men, as in France, and

at intervals at Berlin tea-tables, consent to talk on equal terms with

their women, and to listen to them, their growth will be accelerated and

be shapelier. Comedy, or in any form the Comic spirit, will then come to

them to cut some figures out of the block, show them the mirror, enliven

and irradiate the social intelligence.

Modern French comedy is commendable for the directness of the study

of actual life, as far as that, which is but the early step in such a

scholarship, can be of service in composing and colouring the picture.

A consequence of this crude, though well-meant, realism is the collision

of the writers in their scenes and incidents, and in their characters.

The Muse of most of them is an Aventuriere. She is clever, and a certain

diversion exists in the united scheme for confounding her. The object of

this person is to reinstate herself in the decorous world; and either,

having accomplished this purpose through deceit, she has a nostalgie de

la boue, that eventually casts her back into it, or she is exposed in

her course of deception when she is about to gain her end. A very good,

innocent young man is her victim, or a very astute, goodish young man

obstructs her path. This latter is enabled to be the champion of the

decorous world by knowing the indecorous well. He has assisted in the

progress of Aventurieres downward; he will not help them to ascend. The

world is with him; and certainly it is not much of an ascension they

aspire to; but what sort of a figure is he? The triumph of a candid

realism is to show him no hero. You are to admire him (for it must be

supposed that realism pretends to waken some admiration) as a credibly

living young man; no better, only a little firmer and shrewder, than the

rest. If, however, you think at all, after the curtain has fallen, you

are likely to think that the Aventurieres have a case to plead against

him. True, and the author has not said anything to the contrary; he has

but painted from the life; he leaves his audience to the reflections of

unphilosophic minds upon life, from the specimen he has presented in the

bright and narrow circle of a spy-glass.

I do not know that the fly in amber is of any particular use, but the

Comic idea enclosed in a comedy makes it more generally perceptible and

portable, and that is an advantage. There is a benefit to men in taking

the lessons of Comedy in congregations, for it enlivens the wits; and to

writers it is beneficial, for they must have a clear scheme, and even

if they have no idea to present, they must prove that they have made the

public sit to them before the sitting to see the picture. And writing

for the stage would be a corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style,

into which some great ones fall at times. It keeps minor writers to a

definite plan, and to English. Many of them now swelling a plethoric

market, in the composition of novels, in pun-manufactories and in

journalism; attached to the machinery forcing perishable matter on a

public that swallows voraciously and groans; might, with encouragement,

be attending to the study of art in literature. Our critics appear to

be fascinated by the quaintness of our public, as the world is when

our beast-garden has a new importation of magnitude, and the creatures

appetite is reverently consulted. They stipulate for a writer’s

popularity before they will do much more than take the position of

umpires to record his failure or success. Now the pig supplies the most

popular of dishes, but it is not accounted the most honoured of animals,

unless it be by the cottager. Our public might surely be led to try

other, perhaps finer, meat. It has good taste in song. It might be

taught as justly, on the whole, and the sooner when the cottager’s view

of the feast shall cease to be the humble one of our literary critics,

to extend this capacity for delicate choosing in the direction of the

matter arousing laughter.

Footnotes:

{1} A lecture delivered at the London Institution, February 1st, 1877.

{2} Realism in the writing is carried to such a pitch in THE OLD

BACHELOR, that husband and wife use imbecile connubial epithets to one

another.

{3} Tallemant des Reaux, in his rough portrait of the Duke, shows the

foundation of the character of Alceste.

{4} See Tom Jones, book viii. chapter I, for Fielding’s opinion of

our Comedy. But he puts it simply; not as an exercise in the

quasi-philosophical bathetic.

{5} Femmes Savantes:

BELISE: Veux-tu toute la vie offenser la grammaire?

MARTINE: Qui parle d’offenser grand’mere ni grand-pere?’

The pun is delivered in all sincerity, from the mouth of a rustic.

{6} Maskwell seems to have been carved on the model of Iago, as by

the hand of an enterprising urchin. He apostrophizes his ‘invention’

repeatedly. ‘Thanks, my invention.’ He hits on an invention, to say:

‘Was it my brain or Providence? no matter which.’ It is no matter which,

but it was not his brain.

{7} Imaginary Conversations: Alfieri and the Jew Salomon.

{8} Terence did not please the rough old conservative Romans; they liked

Plautus better, and the recurring mention of the vetus poeta in

his prologues, who plagued him with the crusty critical view of his

productions, has in the end a comic effect on the reader.

{9} The exclamation of Lady Booby, when Joseph defends himself: ‘YOUR

VIRTUE! I shall never survive it!’ etc., is another instance.--Joseph

Andrews. Also that of Miss Mathews in her narrative to Booth: ‘But such

are the friendships of women.’--Amelia.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS FOR THE PG SHORT WORKS OF MEREDITH:

A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it

A woman is hurt if you do not confide to her your plans

A generous enemy is a friend on the wrong side

A very doubtful benefit

A great oration may be a sedative

A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle

Above Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below

Adversary at once offensive and helpless provokes brutality

All are friends who sit at table

All flattery is at somebody’s expense

Americans forgivingly remember, without mentioning

As becomes them, they do not look ahead

As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos

Back from the altar to discover that she has chained herself

Be what you seem, my little one

Be philosophical, but accept your personal dues

Bed was a rock of refuge and fortified defence

But I leave it to you

Can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks are tinted

Causes him to be popularly weighed

Charges of cynicism are common against all satirists

Civil tongue and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine

Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite

Dangerous things are uttered after the third glass

Distinguished by his not allowing himself to be provoked

Distrust us, and it is a declaration of war

Eccentric behaviour in trifles

Everywhere the badge of subjection is a poor stomach

Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality

Excited, glad of catastrophe if it but killed monotony

Face betokening the perpetual smack of lemon

Fourth of the Georges

Generally he noticed nothing

Gentleman in a good state of preservation

Good jokes are not always good policy

Gratitude never was a woman’s gift

Happiness in love is a match between ecstasy and compliance

Here and there a plain good soul to whom he was affectionate

His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody

Holy images, and other miraculous objects are sold

I who respect the state of marriage by refusing

I make a point of never recommending my own house

I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe

I am a discordant instrument I do not readily vibrate

If I do not speak of payment

Imparting the usual chorus of yesses to his own mind

In every difficulty, patience is a life-belt

Indulged in their privilege of thinking what they liked

Infants are said to have their ideas, and why not young ladies?

Intellectual contempt of easy dupes

Invite indecision to exhaust their scruples

Is not one month of brightness as much as we can ask for?

It was harder to be near and not close

It is well to learn manners without having them imposed on us

Knew my friend to be one of the most absent-minded of men

Lend him your own generosity

Love and war have been compared--Both require strategy

Loving in this land: they all go mad, straight off

Men love to boast of things nobody else has seen

Men overweeningly in love with their creations

Modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity

Must be the moralist in the satirist if satire is to strike

Nature is not of necessity always roaring

Naughtily Australian and kangarooly

Never reckon on womankind for a wise act

No flattery for me at the expense of my sisters

Not a page of his books reveals malevolence or a sneer

Not in love--She was only not unwilling to be in love

Nothing desirable will you have which is not coveted

Only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers

Peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife

Period of his life a man becomes too voraciously constant

Petty concessions are signs of weakness to the unsatisfied

Pitiful conceit in men

Primitive appetite for noise

Rapture of obliviousness

Rejoicing they have in their common agreement

Respected the vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower

Rich and poor ‘s all right, if I’m rich and you’re poor

Self-incense

Self-worship, which is often self-distrust

She seems honest, and that is the most we can hope of girls

She sought, by looking hard, to understand it better

She might turn out good, if well guarded for a time

She began to feel that this was life in earnest

She dealt in the flashes which connect ideas

Sign that the evil had reached from pricks to pokes

So are great deeds judged when the danger’s past (as easy)

Soft slumber of a strength never yet called forth

Spare me that word “female” as long as you live

Statesman who stooped to conquer fact through fiction

Sunning itself in the glass of Envy

Suspects all young men and most young women

Suspicion was her best witness

Sweet treasure before which lies a dragon sleeping

Telling her anything, she makes half a face in anticipation

That which fine cookery does for the cementing of couples

The intricate, which she takes for the infinite

The social world he looked at did not show him heroes

The alternative is, a garter and the bedpost

The exhaustion ensuing we named tranquillity

The mildness of assured dictatorship

Their idol pitched before them on the floor

They miss their pleasure in pursuing it

This mania of young people for pleasure, eternal pleasure

Tossed him from repulsion to incredulity, and so back

Two principal roads by which poor sinners come to a conscience

Utterance of generous and patriotic cries is not sufficient

We grew accustomed to periods of Irish fever

We like well whatso we have done good work for

We trust them or we crush them

Weak reeds who are easily vanquished and never overcome

Weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full one

Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty

When we see our veterans tottering to their fall

When you have done laughing with her, you can laugh at her

Wins everywhere back a reflection of its own kindliness

Wits, which are ordinarily less productive than land

Woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man

Your devotion craves an enormous exchange