Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1871-05-12
The Retort Varieties.
,m the New York World.

TioM lHS -NCN hoIh WIN.
That Shakesperian fool in the for
est who discoursed so wisely on the
seven stages of retort, replication,
quilp and rejoinder, would have
found it hard, we suspect, to ''place'
such speech as the following,
which we find credited or debited
(as the reader pleases) to Mrs. KEN
bic in Boston paper, and praised
by the Tribune as ga clever i'm
promptu." Some hapless youth, ap-
parently at his wits end for civil
observation, is the interlocutor:
81 hear you have very fine hotels
in America"
81 have no hotels in American
replied Mrs. Kemble in measured,
contemptuous voice, turning upon
the poor fellow and giving him a
look that made him beat speedy
retreat.
Now, certainly, this was not a
"rctort courteous" and it can hard
ly be set down either as pointed or
clever. Upon the facts as stated, it
was simply verbal slap in the face,
administered in the neutral terrific
ry Of a drawing-room, to a harmless
soul who seems to have given no
proyocation, by person whose sex
and station should have made her
as slow even under provocation, to
deal out a verbal as a manual slap
in the face. "Retorts'' of this kind
are really weapons, the use of which,
like the use of physical weapons,
can only be justified in extreme ca
ses and in self-dctcnse, if society is
not to be brought back to the con
dition SO picturesquely described in
the slightly improper ballad Of "Nic
of Lancashire" The 7}jbuue OBJ
serves that the 'Htaculty Of saying
these clever things impromptu is a
rare one" Happily it is so, and we
should be glad to believe that the
disposition to say them was equally
rare. Two of the persons who in
this century have been most famous
for the possession Of the faculty
John Randolph, of Roanoke, in
America, and Douglas Jerrold in
England-made themselves perfect
social nuisances by the use of it; al
though it is but justice to Jcrrold to
say that he was much less of mere
verbal bully than Randolph, although
for perhaps because) he was much
harder ''hitter" than the great Vir-
ginian. That was a comparatively
Legitimate use Of the faculty which
was made by the American lady
who punished Mr.. Thackeray for his
impertinence in saying to her that
he had heard she was every fast"
by replying, "One should be slow to
believe all one hears, Mr.. Thackc-
ray; | myself have heard that you
were a gentleman.' Mrs. Kcmble's
victim in Rome was not so sharply
hit, but non conSt0t that he deserv-
ed to be hit at all, unless the irasci-
bic queen of tragedy, indeed, con
ceived herself to be insultcd by the
implication that she was an Amcri-
can. Finer and still more fair, con
trasting indeed with both these re.
1oliqaes as rapier thrust contrasts
with q box of the ear, was the ia.
nous rejoinder of the English di.
plomatist in the last century at the
French court to the prince who re
marked on the ENJOYS personal re.
semblance to the French king, and
asked eff his mother had ever been
in France?" "No, your highncss,' >
he replied, ''but my father once
was" If society is to be mere
struggle for life" of course the
sharper are ones claws and the
more free in his use of them the bet
ter for him. But if we are to have
peace it is as we'll to be charitable
and courteous, perhaps, as to be
ssSWift and ScntentiOuS."