44 many a story of grouse in the gun-room," many an old joke between them which time cannot wither nor custom stale, is a better preparation for life, by your leave, than many other things higher and better-sounding in the world's ears. You could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted, but you must share a joke with some one else. You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition, but to find your wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you were in a fit of laughter, would go some way toward a dissolution of the marriage. I know a woman who from some distaste or disability could never so much as understand the meaning of the word politics, and has given up trying to distinguish Whigs from Tories; but take her on her own politics, ask her about other men or women, and the chicanery of everyday existence the rubs, the tricks, the vanities on which life turns-and you will not find many more shrewd, trenchant, and humorous. Nay, to make plainer what I have in mind, this same woman has a share of the higher and more poetical understanding, frank interest in things for their own sake, and enduring astonishment at the most common. She is not to be deceived by custom, or made to think a mystery solved when it is repeated. I have heard her say that she could wonder herself crazy over the human eyebrow. Now in a world where most of us walk very contentedly in the little-lit circle of their own reason, and have to be reminded of what lies without by specious and clamant exceptions-earthquakes, eruptions of Vesuvius, banjos floating in mid air at a séance, and the like-a mind so fresh and unsophisticated is no despicable gift. I will own I think it a better sort of mind than goes necessarily with the clearest views on public business. It will wash. It will find something to say at an odd moment. It has in it the spring of pleasant and quaint fancies. Whereas I can imagine myself yawning all night long until my jaws ached and the tears came into my eyes, although my companion on the other side of the hearth held the most enlightened opinions on the franchise or the ballot.-Cornhill Magazine. THINGS NEW AND OLD.-It is frequently remarked that the literature of Punch in the present day is far inferior to the past. The truth is the art of humorous writing is rapidly becoming lost in the practical and moneymaking habits of the day. Moreover, the littérateur, the journalist, and the author have been bitten with the ostentation and false glitter of the times. A Punch writer nowa days does five times the work that a Punch writer found necessary five-and-twenty years ago. He pays double his former rent, his wife gives receptions, he belongs to several clubs, he drinks champagne regularly-in short, he is dragged at the chariot-wheels of Mammon. He imitates his rich neighbor, who makes money in the City; he must dress up to my lord whom he meets at a West-end salon. Therefore he must do all kinds of work; any body can engage his pen at a price; he writes for the newspapers; magazine editors may always rely upon him for copy; he writes books; and he is continually cudgelling his brains to know how he may make money. In the old times his chief anxiety was his copy for Punch. The Arcadian days of leap-frop on Jerrold's lawn are over. Solemn dinner par ties at Lavender Sweep, the residence of Tom Taylor, Esq., are more in keeping with the dignity of journalism. Nobody is to blame for the change. Times alter. We have entered a new phase of the world's history. But one has no right to expect the broad genial humor of free and natural manners to accompany the feverish desire to be rich and ostentatious which afflicts modern society. Cynicism has taken the place of humor. Men are all too much alike now. To be different from your neighbor is to be odd; to be eccentric is to be sneered at; and nobody can afford to be treated with indifference, much less with contempt. In the most prosperous days of Punch, Mark Lemon, Leech, Jerrold, Stanfield, and even Thackeray found time to play; they romped in a hayfield; they indulged in picnics; and a friend of mine saw Dickens in a difficulty with Mark Lemon's back as an incident in a game of " tuckin-your-twopenny." Fancy Mr. Tom Taylor encouraging this kind of thing. There are two or three young men on Punch who could easily be tempted into a revival of the old days; but the fun would be forced, the jocularity would not be genuine. No; the good old days are over and it's no use lamenting them.-From" The True History of Punch" in London Society. AT THE PLAY. DORA seated at the play Fit for china nymphs to cherish; When the flaring lights are out His heroic deeds are over, EDMUND W. Gosse. |