The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-03-28
Dickens's HumOr.

The humor of our good Genie seems,
when we begin to ai,diyze it, very sim
pie matter--lnerely the knack, as we
have before said, of seeing crooked-of
posing every figure into oddity. A tone,
a gesture, look, the merest trait, is suf-
fcient nay, so all-sufficient does the
trait become that it absorbs the entire
individuality SO that Mr. Toots becomes
q Chucklc, Mr.. Turveydrop incarnate
Department, Uriah Heep Cringe so
that Newman Noggs cracks his finger
knuckles, and Carker shows his teeth,
whenever they appear SO that Trad
dies is to our memory a Forelock forever
sticking bolt upright, and Regaud Gn
Little DOrriO an incarnate Hook-nose and
Moustache eternally meeting each other.
Enter Dr. Blimber. 1.-The Doctors
walk was stately, and calculated to i'm
press the juvenile mind with solemn
feelings. 1t was sort of march but
when the Doctor'put out his right foot,
he gravely turned upon his axis with a
semicircular sweep toward the left !;
and when he put out his left foot,
he turned i'll the same manner toward
the right. So that he seemed, at every
stride he took, to look about him as
though he were saying, Can anybody
have the goodness to indicate any sub
ject, in any direction, on which l am un-
informed :" Enter Mr.. Flintwinch /:
" His neck was so twisted that the knot
ted ends of his white cravat actually
dangled under one ear his natural acer-
bity and energy always contending with
a second nature of habitual repression,
gave his features Il swollen and suffused
look and altogether he had a weird ap-
pearancc of having hanged himself at
one time or other, and of having gone
about ever since, halter and all, exactly
as some timely hand had cut him down"
This first impression never fades or
changes us long as we see the figure in
question.
Akin to this perception of oddity, and
allied with it, is the perception of the
incongruous. Never did the brain of
human creature see stranger resem-
blances, funnier coincidepces, more side
splitting discrepancies. This man was
for all the world like what should he
say y a pump, the more so as his feel
ings ran to water. That man was
a spider, such a comical spider" horny
skinned, two-legged, money getting, who
spun webs to catch unwary flies, and re-
tired into holes until they were entrap-
ped" Yondei trips the immaculate Peck
sniff, d" caroling as he goes, SO sweetly
and with so much innocence, that he on
ly wanted feathers and wings to be a
bird"
Here, as elsewhere, the whole power
lies in the incongruity of the whole
comparison, i'll the readers perfect
knowledge that Pecksnitf is "a humbug
and an impostor, and that there is no.
thing bird-like or innocent in his ma
ture. The vein once struck, there was
nothing to hinder our good Genie from
working it for ever. His path swarmed
with oddities and incongruitics Wag-
ner-like he mixed these together, and
produced the Homunculus, Laughter
And just as the perception of oddity
and incongruity varies in men, varies
the enjoyment of Dickens. Quiddity
for quiddity-the reader must give as
well as receive; and if the facultyis not
on him, he will turn away coptemptu-
ously. A weasel looking out of hole
is enough to convulse some people with
laughter they see a dozen odd resem-
blances. Other people, again, walk
through all this topsyturvy land with
scarcely smile. Life in all its phases,
great and small, seems perfectly congru-
Gus and ship-shape much too serious q
matter for any levity.-.St. Pauls Mdga-
zine.