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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No one, not even Mr. Middlerib himself, could doubt that he was, at
least for the time, most thoroughly cured of rheumatism. His own boy
could not have carried himself more lightly or with greater agility.
But the cure was not permanent, and Mr. Middlerib does not like to
talk about it.--_New York Weekly_.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
AN APHORISM AND A LECTURE
One of the boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a very
pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons table-
boarders, which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard
of. Young fellows being always hungry----Allow me to stop dead short,
in order to utter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of
the blank interior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the
cavity of a geode.
Aphorism by the Professor
In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food
of different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything
at any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods,
and you might as well attempt to regulate the time of high-water to
suit a fishing-party as to change these periods.
The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the
suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is
eagerly accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established. If
the subject of the question starts back and expresses surprise and
incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in earnest, the fact of
maturity is no less clear.
--Excuse me--I return to my story of the Commons table. Young fellows
being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meager fare of
the evening meal, it was a trick of some of the boys to impale a
slice of meat upon a fork at dinner time and stick the fork holding
it beneath the table, so that they could get it at tea time. The
dragons that guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick
at last and kept a sharp lookout for missing forks--they knew where
to find one if it was not in its place. Now the odd thing was that,
after waiting so many years to hear of this college trick, I should
hear it mentioned a _second time_ within the same twenty-four
hours by a college youth of the present generation. Strange, but
true. And so it has happened to me and to every person, often and
often, to be hit in rapid succession by these twinned facts or
thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot.
I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking it
as an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow
of subsoil in it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great many
thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest
our attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the
enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness,
until in some future life we see the photographic record of our
thoughts and the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more
pieces to make up a conscious life or a living body than you think
for. Why, some of you were surprised when a friend of mine told you
there were fifty-eight separate pieces in a fiddle. How many
"swimming glands"--solid, organized, regularly formed, rounded disks,
taking an active part in all your vital processes, part and parcel,
each one of them, of your corporal being--do you suppose are whirled
along like pebbles in a stream with the blood which warms your frame
and colors your cheeks? A noted German physiologist spread out a
minute drop of blood under the microscope, in narrow streaks, and
counted the globules, and then made a calculation. The counting by
the micrometer took him a _week_. You have, my full-grown friend, of
these little couriers in crimson or scarlet livery, running on your
vital errands day and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions
five hundred and seventy thousand millions, errors excepted. Did I
hear some gentleman say "Doubted"? I am the Professor; I sit in my
chair with a petard under it that will blow me through the skylight of
my lecture-room if I do not know what I am talking about and whom I am
quoting.
Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads
and saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you
had been waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is
it possible that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of
all that I have been saying and its bearing on what is now to come?
Listen, then. The number of these living elements in our body
illustrates the incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of
our thoughts accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of;
these coincidences in the world of thought illustrate those which we
constantly observe in the world of outward events, of which the
presence of the young girl now at our table, and proving to be the
daughter of an old acquaintance some of us may remember, is the
special example which led me through this labyrinth of reflections,
and finally lands me at the commencement of this young girl's story,
which, as I said, I have found the time and felt the interest to
learn something of, and which I think I can tell without wronging the
unconscious subject of my brief delineation.
A Short Lecture on Phrenology
_Read to the Boarders at Our Breakfast Table _
I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a _pseudoscience_. A
pseudoscience consists of a _nomenclature_, with a self-adjusting
arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors its
doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells
against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some
lucrative practical application. Its professors and practitioners are
usually shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink
and laugh a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude
consists of women of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical
optimists, people who always get cheated in buying horses,
philanthropists who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others
of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less frequently a
lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a
member of the detective police. I did not say that Phrenology was one
of the pseudosciences.
A pseudoscience does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may
contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank
starts with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay
on the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a
good one. The practitioners of the pseudosciences know that common
minds after they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump
at the merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have
one fact found us, we are very apt to supply the next out of our own
imagination. (How many persons can read Judges XV. 16 correctly the
first time?) The pseudosciences take advantage of this. I did not say
that it was so with Phrenology.
I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was
_something_ in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly
agreed, promises intellect; one that is "villainous low," and has a
huge hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as
rarely met an unbiased and sensible man who really believed in the
bumps. It is observed, however, that persons with what the
phrenologists call "good heads" are more prone than others
toward plenary belief in the doctrine.
It is so hard to prove a negative that, if a man should assert that
the moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable
substance of the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I
might be puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar
cheese, I call on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our
satellite before I purchase.
It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological
statement. It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved,
and cannot be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the
head are double, with a great air-chamber between them, over the
smallest and most closely crowded "organs." Can you tell how much
money there is in a safe, which also has thick double walls, by
kneading its knobs with your fingers? So when a man fumbles about my
forehead, and talks about the organs of _Individuality_, _Size_, etc.,
I trust him as much as I should if he felt of the outside of my
strongbox and told me that there was a five-dollar or a ten-dollar
bill under this or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; _only he
doesn't know anything about it_. But this is a point that I, the
Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to, certainly, better than
you do. The next argument you will all appreciate.
I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of
Phrenology, which is _very similar_ to that of the pseudosciences. An
example will show it most conveniently.
A-- is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and
find a good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for
Phrenology. Casts and drawings of A-- are multiplied, and the bump
_does not lose_ in the act of copying--I did not say it gained.
--What do you look for so? (to the boarders).
Presently B-- turns up, a bigger thief than A--. But B-- has no bump
at all over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.
Not a bit of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is?
_That's_ the reason B-- stole.
And then comes C--, ten times as much a thief as either A-- or B--;
used to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own
pockets and put its contents in another, if he could find no other
way of committing petty larceny. Unfortunately C-- has a _hollow_,
instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah! but just look and see
what a bump of Alimentiveness! Did not O-- buy nuts and gingerbread,
when a boy, with the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a
thief, and how his example confirms our noble science.
At last comes along a case which is apparently a _settler_, for
there is a little brain with vast and varied powers--a case like that
of Byron, for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve--reason
which covers everything and renders it simply impossible ever to
corner a phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the _quality_ of
an organ, which determines its degree of power."
Oh! oh! I see. The argument may be briefly stated thus by the
phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose." Well, that's convenient.
It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the
pseudosciences. I did not say it was a pseudoscience.
I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and
amazed at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of
Phrenology had read their characters written upon their skulls. Of
course, the Professor acquires his information solely through his
cranial inspections and manipulations. What are you laughing at? (to
the boarders). But let us just _suppose_, for a moment, that a
tolerably cunning fellow, who did not know or care anything about
Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake to read off people's
characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. Let us see how well he
could get along without the "organs."
I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one
hundred dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts,
and other matters that would make the most show for the money. That
would do to begin with. I would then advertise myself as the
celebrated Professor Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and
wait for my first customer--a middle-aged man. I look at him, ask him
a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang
of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull,
dictating as follows:
SCALE FROM 1 TO 10
LIST OF FACULTIES FOR CUSTOMER--PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL:
_Each to be accompanied with a wink._
Amativeness, 7 Most men love the conflicting sex, and all men
love to be told they do.
Alimentiveness, 8 Don't you see that he has burst off his
lowest waistcoat button with feeding--hey?
Acquisitiveness, 8 Of course. A middle-aged Yankee.
Approbativeness, 7+ Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the effect of
that plus sign.
Self-esteem, 6 His face shows that.
Benevolence, 9 That'll please him.
Conscientiousness, 8 1/2 That fraction looks first rate.
Mirthfulness, 7 Has laughed twice since he came in. That sounds
well.
Ideality, 9
Form, Size, Weight,
Color, Locality,
Eventuality, etc., Average everything that can't be guessed.
etc. (4 to 6)
And so of other faculties
Of course, you know, that isn't the way the phrenologists do. They go
only by the bumps. What do you keep laughing so for (to the
boarders)? I only said that is the way I should practise "Phrenology"
for a living.
Joshua S. Morris
THE HARP OF A THOUSAND STRINGS
A Hard-Shell Baptist Sermon
(This characteristic effusion first appeared in a New Orleans paper.
The locality is supposed to be a village on the bank of the
Mississippi River, whither the volunteer parson had brought his
flatboat for the purpose of trade.)
I may say to you, my brethring, that I am not an edicated man, an' I
am not one of them as believes that edication is necessary for a
Gospel minister, for I believe the Lord edicates his preachers jest
as he wants 'em to be edicated; an' although I say it that oughtn't
to say it, yet in the State of Indianny, whar I live, thar's no man
as gets bigger congregations nor what I gits.
Thar may be some here to-day, my brethring, as don't know what
persuasion I am uv. Well, I must say to you, my brethring, that I'm a
Hard-shell Baptist. Thar's some folks as don't like the Hard-shell
Baptists, but I'd rather have a hard shell as no shell at all. You
see me here to-day, my brethring, dressed up in fine clothes; you
mout think I was proud, but I am not proud, my brethring, and
although I've been a preacher of the Gospel for twenty years, an'
although I'm capting of the flatboat that lies at your landing, I'm
not proud, my brethring.
I am not gwine to tell edzactly whar my tex may be found; suffice to
say, it's in the leds of the Bible, and you'll find it somewhar
between the first chapter of the book of Generations and the last
chapter of the book of Revolutions, and ef you'll go and search the
Scriptures, you'll not only find my tex thar, but a great many other
texes as will do you good to read, and my tex, when you shall find
it, you shall find it to read thus:
"And he played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men
made perfeck."
My text, my brethring, leads me to speak of sperits. Now, thar's a
great many kinds of sperits in the world--in the fuss place, thar's
the sperits as some folks call ghosts, and thar's the sperits of
turpentine, and thar's the sperits as some folks call liquor, an'
I've got as good an artikel of them kind of sperits on my flatboat as
ever was fotch down the Mississippi River; but thar's a great many
other kinds of sperits, for the tex says, "He played on a harp uv a
_t-h-o-u-s-_and strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."
But I tell you the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex is FIRE.
That's the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex, my brethring. Now,
thar's a great many kinds of fire in the world. In the fuss place,
there's the common sort of fire you light your cigar or pipe with,
and then thar's foxfire and camphire, fire before you're ready, and
fire and fall back, and many other kinds uv fire, for the tex says,
"He played _on_ the harp uv a _thous_and strings, sperits of jest men
made perfeck."
But I'll tell you the kind of fire as is meant in the tex, my
brethring--it's HELL FIRE! an' that's the kind uv fire as a great
many uv you'll come to, ef you don't do better nor what you have been
doin'--for "He played on a harp uv a _thous_and strings, sperits
uv jest men made perfeck."
Now, the different sorts of fire in the world may be likened unto the
different persuasions of Christians in the world. In the first place,
we have the Piscapalions, an' they are a high-sailin' and highfalutin'
set, and they may be likened unto a turkey buzzard that flies up into
the air, and he goes up, and up, and up, till he looks no bigger than
your finger nail, and the fust thing you know, he cums down, and down,
and down, and is a-fillin' himself on the carkiss of a dead hoss by
the side of the road, and "He played on a harp uv a _thous_and
strings, sperits uv _jest_ men made perfeck."
And then thar's the Methodis, and they may be likened unto the
squirril runnin' up into a tree, for the Methodis beleeves in gwine
on from one degree of grace to another, and finally on to perfection,
and the squirril goes up and up, and up and up, and he jumps from
limb to limb, and branch to branch, and the fust thing you know he
falls, and down he cums kerflumix, and that's like the Methodis, for
they is allers fallen from grace, ah! and "He played on a harp uv a
_thous_and strings, sperits of jest men made perfeck."
And then, my brethring, that's the Baptist, ah! and they have been
likened unto a 'possum on a 'simmon tree, and thunders may roll and
the earth may quake, but that 'possum clings thar still, ah! and you
may shake one foot loose, an the other's thar, and you may shake all
feet loose, and he laps his tail around the limb, and clings, and he
clings furever, for "He played on the harp uv a _thous_and strings,
sperits uv jest men made perfeck."
Seba Smith
MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND
In the fall of the year 1829 I took it into my head I'd go to
Portland. I had heard a good deal about Portland, what a fine place
it was, and how the folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall
there was a couple of new papers come up to our place from there,
called the _Portland Courier_ and _Family Reader_, and they told a
good many queer kind of things about Portland, and one thing and
another; and all at once it popped into my head, and I up and told
father, and says:
"I'm going to Portland, whether or no; and I'll see what this world
is made of yet."
Father stared a little at first and said he was afraid I would get
lost; but when he see I was bent upon it, he give it up, and he
stepped to his chist, and opened the till, and took out a dollar and
gave it to me; and says he:
"Jack, this is all I can do for you; but go and lead an honest life,
and I believe I shall hear good of you yet."
He turned and walked across the room, but I could see the tears start
into his eyes. And mother sat down and had a hearty crying spell.
This made me feel rather bad for a minit or two, and I almost had a
mind to give it up; and then again father's dream came into my mind,
and I mustered up courage and declared I'd go. So I tackled up the
old horse, and packed in a load of ax-handles and a few notions; and
mother fried me some doughnuts and put 'em into a box, along with
some cheese and sausages and ropped me up another shirt, for I told
her I didn't know how long I should be gone. After I got rigged out,
I went round and bid all the neighbors good-by and jumped in and
drove off for Portland.
Aunt Sally had been married two or three years before and moved to
Portland; and I inquired round till I found out where she lived and
went there and put the old horse up, and ate some supper and went to
bed.
And the next morning I got up and straightened right off to see the
editor of the _Portland Courier_, for I knew by what I had seen
in his paper that he was just the man to tell me which way to steer.
And when I come to see him, I knew I was right; for soon as I told
him my name and what I wanted, he took me by the hand as kind as if
he had been a brother, and says he:
"Mister," says he, "I'll do anything I can to assist you. You have
come to a good town. Portland is a healthy, thriving place, and any
man with a proper degree of enterprise may do well here. But," says
he, "stranger," and he looked mighty kind of knowing, says he, "if
you want to make out to your mind, you must do as the steamboats do."
"Well," says I, "how do they do?" for I didn't know what a steamboat
was any more than the man in the moon.
"Why," says he, "they go ahead. And you must drive about among the
folks here just as tho' you were at home on the farm among the
cattle. Don't be afraid of any of them, but figure away, and I dare
say you'll get into good business in a very little while. But," says
he, "there's one thing you must be careful of, and that is, not to
get into the hands of those are folks that trades up round Hucklers'
Row, for there's some sharpers up there, if they get hold of you,
would twist your eye-teeth out in five minits."
Well, arter he had giv me all the good advice he could, I went back
to Aunt Sally's agin and got some breakfast; and then I walked all
over the town, to see what chance I could find to sell my ax-handles
and things and to git into business.
After I had walked about three or four hours, I come along toward the
upper end of the town, where I found there were stores and shops of
all sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I:
"What place is this?"
"Why, this," says he, "is Hucklers' Row."
"What," says I, "are these the stores where the traders in Hucklers'
Row keep?"
And says he, "Yes."
Well, then, says I to myself, I have a pesky good mind to go in and
have a try with one of these chaps and see if they can twist my eye-
teeth out. If they can get the best end of the bargain out of me they
can do what there ain't a man in our place can do; and I should just
like to know what sort of stuff these ere Portland chaps are made of.
So in I goes into the best-looking store among 'em. And I see some
biscuit lying on the shelf, and says I:
"Mister, how much do you ax apiece for them ere biscuits?"
"A cent apiece," says he.
"Well," says I, "I shan't give you that, but if you've a mind to,
I'll give you two cents for three of them, for I begin to feel a
little as tho' I would like to take a bite."
"Well," says he, "I wouldn't sell 'em to anybody else so, but seeing
it's you I don't care if you take 'em."
I knew he lied, for he never seen me before in his life. Well, he
handed down the biscuits, and I took 'em, and walked round the store
awhile, to see what else he had to sell. At last says I:
"Mister, have you got any good cider?"
Says he, "Yes, as good as ever you see."
"Well," says I, "what do you ax a glass for it?"
"Two cents," says he.
"Well," says I, "seems to me I feel more dry than I do hungry now.
Ain't you a mind to take these ere biscuits again and give me a glass
of cider?" and says he:
"I don't care if I do."
So he took and laid 'em on the shelf again and poured out a glass of
cider. I took the glass of cider and drinkt it down, and, to tell you
the truth about it, it was capital good cider. Then says I:
"I guess it's about time for me to be a-going," and so I stept along
toward the door; but he ups and says, says he:
"Stop, mister, I believe you haven't paid me for the cider."
"Not paid you for the cider!" says I; "what do you mean by that?
Didn't the biscuits that I give you just come to the cider?"
"Oh, ah, right!" says he.
So I started to go again, but before I had reached the door he says,
says he:
"But stop, mister, you didn't pay me for the biscuits."
"What!" says I, "do you mean to impose upon me? Do you think I am
going to pay you for the biscuits, and let you keep them, too? Ain't
they there now on your shelf? What more do you want? I guess, sir,
you don't whittle me in that way."
So I turned about and marched off and left the feller staring and
scratching his head as tho' he was struck with a dunderment.
Howsomever, I didn't want to cheat him, only jest to show 'em it
wasn't so easy a matter to pull my eye-teeth out; so I called in next
day and paid him two cents.
William Cullen Bryant
THE MOSQUITO
Fair insect! that with threadlike legs spread out
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,
Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about,
In pitiless ears, full many a plaintive thing,
And tell how little our large veins should bleed,
Would we but yield them to thy bitter need?
Unwillingly I own, and, what is worse,
Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint;
Thou gettest many a brush and many a curse,
For saying thou art gaunt and starved and faint.
Even the old beggar, while he asks for food,
Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could.
I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,
Has not the honor of so proud a birth-
Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green,
The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;
For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,
The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy.
Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung,
And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong,
Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung,
Rose in the sky, and bore thee soft along;
The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way,
And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay.
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