[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
that this subject could not very well be treated in any other way. It is too delicate for anything but delicate
humor, for humor can handle subjects which would be impossible for any other kind of language. Besides, the
sentiment would be likely to nauseate us by its excess or its morbidity, except for the healthy salt of humor.
Humor makes this essay instructive and interesting.
Next we present two letters from Stevenson. Here we see that humor makes commonplace things interesting.
How deadly dull would be the details Stevenson gives in these letters but for the enlivenment of humor! By
what other method could anything worth reading have been gotten out of the facts?
The selection from Charles Lamb is an illustration of how humor may save the utterly absurd from being
unreadable. Lamb had absolutely nothing to say when he sat down to write this letter; and yet he contrived to
be amusing, if not actually interesting.
The master of humor can draw upon the riches of his own mind, and thereby embellish and enliven any
subject he may desire to write upon.
Of these three selections, the easiest to imitate is Addison. First, we should note the old-fashioned phrasing
and choice of words, and perhaps translate Addison into simple, idiomatic, modern English, altering as little
as possible. We note that the letter offered by Addison is purposely filled with all the faults of rhetoric which
we never find in his own writing. Addison's humorous imitation of these faults gives us twice as good a lesson
as any possible example of real faults made by some writer unconsciously.
In Stevenson's letters we see the value of what has been called "the magic word." Nearly the whole of his
humor consists in selecting a word which suggests ten times as much as it expresses on its face. There is a
whole world of fun in this suggestion. Sometimes it is merely commonplace punning, as when he speaks of
the "menial" of "high Dutch extraction" as yet "only partially extracted;" and again it is the delicate
insinuation contained in spelling "Parc" with a c, for that one letter gives us an entire foreign atmosphere, and
the disproportion between the smallness of the letter and the extent of the suggestiveness touches our sense of
the ridiculous.
The form of study of these passages may be slightly altered. Instead of making notes and rewriting exactly as
the original authors wrote, we should keep the original open before us and try to produce something slightly
different in the same vein. We may suppose the letter on love written by a man instead of by a woman. Of
course its character will be quite different, though exactly the same characteristics will be illustrated. This
change will require an alteration in almost every sentence of the essay. Our effort should be to see how little
change in the wording will be required by this one change in subject; though of course we should always
modernize the phrasing. In the case of Stevenson, we may suppose that we are writing a similar letter to
friends, but from some other city than San Francisco. We may imitate Lamb by describing our feelings when
afflicted by some other ailment than a cold.
ADVICE IN LOVE.
By Joseph Addison.
It is an old observation, which has been made of politicians who would rather ingratiate, themselves with their
sovereign, than promote his real service, that they accommodate their counsels to his inclinations, and advise
him to such actions only as his heart is naturally set upon. The privy-counsellor of one in love must observe
the same conduct, unless he would forfeit the friendship of the person who desires his advice. I have known
several odd cases of this nature. Hipparchus was going to marry a common woman, but being resolved to do
nothing without the advice of his friend Philander, he consulted him upon the occasion. Philander told him his
mind freely, and represented his mistress to him in such strong colors, that the next morning he received a
CHAPTER IV. 87
challenge for his pains, and before twelve o'clock was run through the body by the man who had asked his
advice. Celia was more prudent on the like occasion; she desired Leonilla to give her opinion freely upon a
young fellow who made his addresses to her. Leonilla, to oblige her, told her with great frankness, that she
looked upon him as one of the most worthless--- Celia, foreseeing what a character she was to expect, begged
her not to go on, for that she had been privately married to him above a fortnight.
The truth of it is a woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes. When she has made
her own choice, for form's sake she sends a congé d'élire to her friends.
If we look into the secret springs and motives that set people at work on these occasions, and put them upon
asking advice, which they never intend to take; I look upon it to be none of the least, that they are incapable of
keeping a secret which is so very pleasing to them. A girl longs to tell her confidant that she hopes to be
married in a little time, and, in order to talk of the pretty fellow that dwells so much in her thoughts, asks her
gravely, what she would advise her to in a case of so much difficulty. Why else should Melissa, who had not a
thousand pounds in the world, go into every quarter of the town to ask her acquaintance whether they would
advise her to take Tom Townly, that made his addresses to her with an estate of five thousand a year? 'Tis
very pleasant on this occasion to hear the lady propose her doubts, and to see the pains she is at to get over
them.
I must not here omit a practice that is in use among the vainer part of our own sex, who will often ask a
friend's advice, in relation to a fortune whom they are never likely to come at. Will Honeycomb, who is now
on the verge of threescore, took me aside not long since, and ask me in his most serious look, whether I would
advise him to marry my Lady Betty Single, who, by the way, is one of the greatest fortunes about town. I
stared him full in the face upon so strange a question; upon which he immediately gave me an inventory of her
jewels and estate, adding, that he was resolved to do nothing in a matter of such consequence without my
approbation. Finding he would have an answer, I told him, if he could get the lady's consent, he had mine.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]