Books: Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor
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Thomas L. Masson (Editor) >> Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor
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Are destined never to go out! In its vitality lies the supreme
excellence of humor. Whatever has "wit enough to keep it sweet"
defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that
outward and visible order which needs no introduction or
demonstration at our hands. It is an old trick with dull novelists to
describe their characters as being exceptionally brilliant people,
and to trust that we will take their word for it and ask no further
proof. Every one remembers how Lord Beaconsfield would tell us that a
cardinal could "sparkle with anecdote and blaze with repartee"; and
how utterly destitute of sparkle or blaze were the specimens of His
Eminence's conversation with which we were subsequently favored.
Those "lively dinners" in "Endymion" and "Lothair" at which we were
assured the brightest minds in England loved to gather became mere
Barmecide feasts when reported to us without a single amusing remark,
such waifs and strays of conversation as reached our ears being of
the dreariest and most fatuous description. It is not so with the
real masters of their craft. Mr. Peacock does not stop to explain to
us that Doctor Folliott is witty. The reverend gentleman opens his
mouth and acquaints us with the fact himself. There is no need for
George Eliot to expatiate on Mrs. Poyser's humor. Five minutes of
that lady's society is amply sufficient for the revelation. We do not
even hear Mr. Poyser and the rest of the family enlarging delightedly
on the subject, as do all of Lawyer Putney's friends, in Mr.
Howells's story, "Annie Kilburn"; and yet even the united testimony
of Hatboro' fails to clear up our lingering doubts concerning Mr.
Putney's wit. The dull people of that soporific town are really and
truly and realistically dull. There is no mistaking them. The stamp
of veracity is upon every brow. They pay morning calls, and we listen
to their conversation with a dreamy impression that we have heard it
all many times before, and that the ghosts of our own morning calls
are revisiting us, not in the glimpses of the moon, but in Mr.
Howells's decorous and quiet pages. That curious conviction that we
have formerly passed through a precisely similar experience is strong
upon us as we read, and it is the most emphatic testimony to the
novelist's peculiar skill. But there is none of this instantaneous
acquiescence in Mr. Putney's wit; for although he does make one very
nice little joke, it is hardly enough to flavor all his conversation,
which is for the most part rather unwholesome than humorous. The only
way to elucidate him is to suppose that Mr. Howells, in sardonic
mood, wishes to show us that if a man be discreet enough to take to
hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is
ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining
qualities which, we are given to understand he balked and frustrated
by his one unfortunate weakness. How many of us know these
exceptionally brilliant lawyers, doctors, politicians and journalists
who bear a charmed reputation based exclusively upon their inebriety,
and who take good care not to imperil it by too long a relapse into
the mortifying self-revelations of soberness! And what wrong has been
done to the honored name of humor by these pretentious rascals! We do
not love Falstaff because he is drunk; we do not admire Becky Sharp
because she is wicked. Drunkenness and wickedness are things easy of
imitation; yet all the sack in Christendom could not beget us another
Falstaff--though Seithenyn ap Seithyn comes very near to the
incomparable model--and all the wickedness in the world could not
fashion us a second Becky Sharp. There are too many dull topers and
stupid sinners among mankind to admit of any uncertainty on these
points.
Bishop Burnet, in describing Lord Halifax, tells us, with thinly
veiled disapprobation, that he was "a man of fine and ready wit, full
of life, and very pleasant, but much turned to satire. His
imagination was too hard for his judgment, and a severe jest took
more with him than all arguments whatever." Yet this was the first
statesman of his age, and one whose clear and tranquil vision
penetrated so far beyond the turbulent, troubled times he lived in
that men looked askance upon a power they but dimly understood. The
sturdy "Trimmer," who would be bullied neither by king nor commons,
who would "speak his mind and not be hanged as long as there was law
in England," must have turned with infinite relief from the horrible
medley of plots and counterplots, from the ugly images of Oates and
Dangerfield, from the scaffolds of Stafford and Russell and Sidney,
from the Bloody Circuit and the massacre of Glencoe, from the false
smiles of princes and the howling arrogance of the mob, to any jest,
however "severe," which would restore to him his cold and fastidious
serenity and keep his judgment and his good temper unimpaired.
"Ridicule is the test of truth," said Hazlitt, and it is a test which
Halifax remorselessly applied, and which would not be without its
uses to the Trimmer of to-day, in whom this adjusting sense is
lamentably lacking. For humor distorts nothing, and only false gods
are laughed off their earthly pedestals. What monstrous absurdities
and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and
then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a
laugh! What healthy exultation, what genial mirth, what loyal
brotherhood of mirth attends the friendly sound! Yet in labeling our
life and literature, as the Danes labeled their Royal Theatre in
Copenhagen, "Not for amusement merely," we have pushed one step
further, and the legend too often stands, "Not for amusement at all."
Life is no laughing matter, we are told, which is true; and, what is
still more dismal to contemplate, books are no laughing matters,
either. Only now and then some gay, defiant rebel, like Mr.
Saintsbury, flaunts the old flag, hums a bar of "Blue Bonnets over
the Border," and ruffles the quiet waters of our souls by hinting
that this age of Apollinaris and of lectures is at fault, and that it
has produced nothing which can vie as literature with the products of
the ages of wine and song.
Marietta Holley
AN UNMARRIED FEMALE
I suppose we are about as happy as the most of folks, but as I was
sayin' a few days ago to Betsey Bobbet, a neighborin' female of
ours--"Every station-house in life has its various skeletons. But we
ort to try to be contented with that spear of life we are called on
to handle." Betsey hain't married, and she don't seem to be
contented. She is awful opposed to wimmin's rights--she thinks it is
wimmin's only spear to marry, but as yet she can't find any man
willin' to lay holt of that spear with her. But you can read in her
daily life, and on her eager, willin' countenance, that she fully
realizes the sweet words of the poet, "While there is life there is
hope."
Betsey hain't handsome. Her cheek-bones are high, and she bein' not
much more than skin and bone they show plainer than they would if she
was in good order. Her complexion (not that I blame her for it)
hain't good, and her eyes are little and sot way back in her head.
Time has seen fit to deprive her of her hair and teeth, but her large
nose he has kindly suffered her to keep, but she has got the best
white ivory teeth money will buy, and two long curls fastened behind
each ear, besides frizzles on the top of her head; and if she wasn't
naturally bald, and if the curls was the color of her hair, they
would look well. She is awful sentimental; I have seen a good many
that had it bad, but of all the sentimental creeters I ever did see,
Betsey Bobbet is the sentimentalest; you couldn't squeeze a laugh out
of her with a cheeze-press.
As I said, she is awful opposed to wimmin's havin' any right, only
the right to get married. She holds on to that right as tight as any
single woman I ever see, which makes it hard and wearyin' on the
single men round here.
For take the men that are the most opposed to wimmin's havin' a
right, and talk the most about its bein' her duty to cling to man
like a vine to a tree, they don't want Betsey to cling to them; they
won't let her cling to 'em. For when they would be a-goin' on about
how wicked it was for wimmin to vote--and it was her only spear to
marry, says I to 'em, "Which had you ruther do, let Betsey Bobbet
cling to you or let her vote?" and they would every one of 'em quail
before that question. They would drop their heads before my keen gray
eyes--and move off the subject.
But Betsey don't get discouraged. Every time I see her she says in a
hopeful, wishful tone, "That the deepest men of minds in the country
agree with her in thinkin' that it is wimmin's duty to marry and not
to vote." And then she talks a sight about the retirin' modesty and
dignity of the fair sect, and how shameful and revoltin' it would be
to see wimmin throwin' 'em away and boldly and unblushin'ly talkin'
about law and justice.
Why, to hear Betsey Bobbet talk about wimmin's throwin' their modesty
away, you would think if they ever went to the political pole they
would have to take their dignity and modesty and throw 'em against
the pole and go without any all the rest of their lives.
Now I don't believe in no such stuff as that. I think a woman can be
bold and unwomanly in other things besides goin' with a thick veil
over her face, and a brass-mounted parasol, once a year, and gently
and quietly dropping a vote for a Christian President, or a religious
and noble-minded pathmaster.
She thinks she talks dreadful polite and proper. She says "I was
cameing," instead of "I was coming"; and "I have saw," instead of "I
have seen"; and "papah" for paper, and "deah" for dear. I don't know
much about grammer, but common sense goes a good ways. She writes the
poetry for the _Jonesville Augur_, or "_Augah_," as she calls it. She
used to write for the opposition paper, the _Jonesville Gimlet_, but
the editor of the _Augur_, a longhaired chap, who moved into
Jonesville a few months ago, lost his wife soon after he come there,
and sense that she has turned Dimocrat, and writes for his paper
stidy. They say that he is a dreadful big feelin' man, and I have
heard--it came right straight to me--his cousin's wife's sister told
it to the mother-in-law of one of my neighbors' brother's wife, that
he didn't like Betsey's poetry at all, and all he printed it for was
to plague the editor of the _Gimlet_, because she used to write for
him. I myself wouldn't give a cent a bushel for all the poetry she can
write. And it seems to me, that if I was Betsey, I wouldn't try to
write so much. Howsumever, I don't know what turn I should take if I
was Betsey Bobbet; that is a solemn subject, and one I don't love to
think on.
I never shall forget the first piece of her poetry I ever see. Josiah
Allen and I had both on us been married goin' on a year, and I had
occasion to go to his trunk one day, where he kept a lot of old
papers, and the first thing I laid my hand on was these verses.
Josiah went with her a few times after his wife died, on Fourth of
July or so, and two or three camp-meetin's and the poetry seemed to
be wrote about the time _we_ was married. It was directed over
the top of it, "Owed to Josiah," just as if she were in debt to him.
This was the way it read:
"OWED TO JOSIAH
"Josiah, I the tale have hurn,
With rigid ear, and streaming eye,
I saw from me that you did turn,
I never knew the reason why.
Oh, Josiah,
It seemed as if I must expiah.
"Why did you--oh, why did you blow
Upon my life of snowy sleet,
The fiah of love to fiercest glow,
Then turn a damphar on the heat?
Oh, Josiah,
It seemed as if I must expiah.
"I saw thee coming down the street,
_She_ by your side in bonnet bloo,
The stuns that grated 'neath thy feet,
Seemed crunching on my vitals, too.
Oh, Josiah,
It seemed as if I must expiah.
"I saw thee washing sheep last night,
On the bridge I stood with marble brow.
The waters raged, thou clasped it tight,
I sighed, 'should both be drownded now'-
I thought, Josiah,
Oh, happy sheep to thus expiah."
I showed the poetry to Josiah that night after he came home, and told
him I had read it. He looked awful ashamed to think I had seen it,
and, says he, with a dreadful sheepish look: "The persecution I
underwent from that female can never be told; she fairly hunted me
down. I hadn't no rest for the soles of my feet. I thought one spell
she would marry me in spite of all I could do, without givin' me the
benefit of law or gospel." He see I looked stern, and he added, with
a sick-lookin' smile, "I thought one spell, to use Betsey's language,
'I was a gonah.'"
I didn't smile. Oh, no, for the deep principle of my sect was reared
up. I says to him in a tone cold enough to almost freeze his ears:
"Josiah Allen, shet up; of all the cowardly things a man ever done,
it is goin 'round braggin' about wimmin likin' 'em, and follern' 'em
up. Enny man that'll do that is little enough to crawl through a
knot-hole without rubbing his clothes." Says I: "I suppose you made
her think the moon rose in your head and set in your heels. I daresay
you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you
makes fun of her now to please me, I let you know you have got holt
of the wrong individual.
"Now," says I, "go to bed"; and I added, in still more freezing
accents, "for I want to mend your pantaloons." He gathered up his
shoes and stockin's and started off to bed, and we hain't never
passed a word on the subject sence. I believe when you disagree with
your pardner, in freein' your _mind_ in the first on't, and then
not to be a-twittin' about it afterward. And as for bein' jealous, I
should jest as soon think of bein' jealous of a meetin'-house as I
should of Josiah. He is a well-principled man. And I guess he wasn't
fur out o' the way about Betsey Bobbet, though I wouldn't encourage
him by lettin' him say a word on the subject, for I always make it a
rule to stand up for my own sect; but when I hear her go on about the
editor of the _Augur_, I can believe anything about Betsey Bobbet.
She came in here one day last week. It was about ten o'clock in the
morning. I had got my house slick as a pin, and my dinner under way
(I was goin' to have a b'iled dinner, and a cherry puddin' b'iled
with sweet sass to eat on it), and I sot down to finish sewin' up the
breadth of my new rag carpet. I thought I would get it done while I
hadn't so much to do, for it bein' the first of March I knew sugarin'
would be comin' on, and then cleanin'-house time, and I wanted it to
put down jest as soon as the stove was carried out in the summer
kitchen. The fire was sparklin' away, and the painted floor a-shinin'
and the dinner a-b'ilin', and I sot there sewin' jest as calm as a
clock, not dreamin' of no trouble, when in came Betsey Bobbet.
I met her with outward calm, and asked her to set down and lay off
her things. She sot down but she said she couldn't lay off her
things. Says she: "I was comin' down past, and I thought I would call
and let you see the last numbah of the _Augah_. There is a piece
in it concernin' the tariff that stirs men's souls. I like it evah so
much."
She handed me the paper folded, so I couldn't see nothin' but a piece
of poetry by Betsey Bobbet. I see what she wanted of me, and so I
dropped my breadths of carpetin' and took hold of it, and began to
read it.
"Read it audible, if you please," says she. "Especially the precious
remahks ovah it; it is such a feast for me to be a-sittin' and heah
it rehearsed by a musical vorce."
Says I, "I s'pose I can rehearse it if it will do you any good," so I
began as follows:
"It is seldom that we present the readers of the _Augur_ (the best
paper for the fireside in Jonesville or the world) with a poem like
the following. It may be, by the assistance of the _Augur_ (only
twelve shillings a year in advance, wood and potatoes taken in
exchange), the name of Betsey Bobbet will yet be carved on the lofty
pinnacle of fame's towering pillow. We think, however, that she could
study such writers as Sylvanus Cobb and Tupper with profit both to
herself and to them.
"Editor of the Augur."
Here Betsey interrupted me. "The deah editah of the _Augah_ has no
need to advise me to read Tuppah, for he is indeed my most favorite
authar. You have devorhed him, haven't you, Josiah's Allen wife?"
"Devoured who?" says I, in a tone pretty near as cold as a cold
icicle.
"Mahten, Fahqueah, Tuppah, that sweet authar," says she.
"No, mom," says I shortly; "I hain't devoured Martin Farquhar Tupper,
nor no other man. I hain't a cannibal."
"Oh! you understand me not; I meant, devorhed his sweet, tender
lines."
"I hain't devoured his tenderlines, nor nothin' relatin' to him," and
I made a motion to lay the paper down, but Betsey urged me to go on,
and so I read:
"GUSHINGS OF A TENDAH SOUL
"Oh let who will,
Oh let who can,
Be tied onto
A horrid male man.
"Thus said I 'ere
My tendah heart was touched,
Thus said I 'ere
My tendah feelings gushed.
"But oh a change
Hath swept ore me,
As billows sweep
The 'deep blue sea.'
"A voice, a noble form
One day I saw;
An arrow flew,
My heart is nearly raw.
"His first pardner lies
Beneath the turf,
He is wandering now,
In sorrow's briny surf.
"Two twins, the little
Deah cherub creechahs
Now wipe the teahs
From off his classic feachahs.
"Oh sweet lot, worthy
Angel arisen,
To wipe teahs
From eyes like hisen.
"What think you of it?" says she, as I finished readin'.
I looked right at her 'most a minute with a majestic look. In spite
of her false curls and her new white ivory teeth, she is a humbly
critter. I looked at her silently while she sot and twisted her long
yellow bunnet-strings, and then I spoke out. "Hain't the editor of
the _Augur_ a widower with a pair of twins?"
"Yes," says she with a happy look.
Then says I, "If the man hain't a fool, he'll think you are one."
"Oh!" says she, and she dropped her bunnet-strings and clasped her
long bony hands together in her brown cotton gloves. "Oh, we ahdent
soles of genious have feelin's you cold, practical natures know
nuthing of, and if they did not gush out in poetry we should expiah.
You may as well try to tie up the gushing catarack of Niagarah with a
piece of welting-cord as to tie up the feelin's of an ahdent sole."
"Ardent sole!" says I coldly. "Which makes the most noise, Betsey
Bobbet, a three-inch brook or a ten-footer? which is the tearer?
which is the roarer? Deep waters run stillest. I have no faith in
feelin's that stalk round in public in mournin' weeds. I have no
faith in such mourners," says I.
"Oh, Josiah's wife, cold, practical female being, you know me not; we
are sundered as fah apart as if you was sitting on the North Pole and
I was sitting on the South Pole. Uncongenial being, you know me not."
"I may not know you, Betsey Bobbet, but I do know decency, and I know
that no munny would tempt me to write such stuff as that poetry and
send it to a widower with twins."
"Oh!" says she, "what appeals to the tendah feelin' heart of a single
female woman more than to see a lonely man who has lost his relict?
And pity never seems so much like pity as when it is given to the
deah little children of widowehs. And," says she, "I think moah than
as likely as not, this soaring sole of genious did not wed his
affinity, but was united to a mere woman of clay."
"Mere woman of clay!" says I, fixin' my spektacles upon her in a most
searchin' manner. "Where will you find a woman, Betsey Bobbet, that
hain't more or less clay? And affinity, that is the meanest word I
ever heard; no married woman has any right to hear it. I'll excuse
you, bein' a female; but if a man had said it to me I'd holler to
Josiah. There is a time for everything, and the time to hunt affinity
is before you are married; married folks hain't no right to hunt it,"
says I sternly.
"We kindred soles soah above such petty feelin's--we soah far above
them."
"I hain't much of a soarer," says I, "and I don't pretend to be; and
to tell you the truth," says I, "I am glad I ain't."
"The editah of the _Augah_" says she, and she grasped the paper
offen the stand, and folded it up, and presented it at me like a
spear, "the editah of this paper is a kindred sole: he appreciates
me, he undahstands me, and will not our names in the pages of this
very papah go down to posterety togathah?"
"Then," says I, drove out of all patience with her, "I wish you was
there now, both of you. I wish," says I, lookin' fixedly on her, "I
wish you was both of you in posterity now."
Fitzhugh Ludlow
SELECTIONS FROM A BRACE OF BOYS
I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody;
but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially,
just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human
race; and if, through untoward circumstances--which heaven forbid--I
should lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw
me out in the _Herald_ under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks
to a marrying tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little
need to advertise, all the business being thrown into my way which a
single member of my profession can attend to.
I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am,
through the flowery mead of several nurseries, but I am detained
longest among the children of my sister Lu.
Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired with a fortune
amassed by the old-fashioned, slow processes of trade, and regards
the mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and
gambling Christianly baptized.... Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove
an unusually good article of brother-in-law; and I cannot say that
any of my nieces and nephews interest me more than their two
children, Daniel and Billy, who are more unlike than words can paint
them. They are far apart in point of years; Daniel is twenty-two,
Bill eleven. I was reminded of this fact the other day by Billy, as
he stood between my legs, scowling at his book of sums.
"'A boy has eighty-five turnips and gives his sister thirty'--pretty
present for a girl, isn't it?" said Billy, with an air of supreme
contempt, "Could _you_ stand such stuff--say?"
I put on my instructive face and answered:
"Well, my dear Billy, you know that arithmetic is necessary to you if
you mean to be an industrious man and succeed in business. Suppose
your parents were to lose all their property, what would become of
them without a little son who could make money and keep accounts?"
"Oh," said Billy, with surprise, "hasn't father got enough stamps to
see him through?"
"He has now, I hope; but people don't always keep them. Suppose they
should go by some accident, when your father was too old to make any
more stamps for himself?"
"You haven't thought of Brother Daniel--"
True; for nobody ever had in connection with the active employments
of life.
"No, Billy," I replied, "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is
more of a student than a business man, and--"
"Oh, Uncle Teddy! you don't think I mean he'd support them? I meant
I'd have to take care of father and mother and him, too, when they'd
all got to be old people together. Just think! I'm eleven, and he's
twenty-two; so he is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?"
"Forty, Billy, last August."
"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you,
Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than
that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed,
and wheels him round in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, I
bet! Well, I tell you how I'll keep my accounts: I'll have a stick
like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a
piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll
gouge a piece out of the other."
"Spend a _what?_" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister
Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room.
"A toadskin, ma," replied Billy, shutting up Oolburn with a farewell
glance of contempt.
"Dear, dear! Where does the boy learn such horrid words?"
"Why, ma, don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one," said Billy,
drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I
had lots of 'em!"
"Oh!" sighed his mother, "to think I should have a child so addicted
to slang! How I wish he were like Daniel!"
"Well, mother," replied Billy, "if you wanted two boys just alike
you'd oughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like
Daniel now, when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a
dog fight; hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog--I know his bark!"
With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the
table and bolted downstairs to see the fun.
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