The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1873-01-30
PLEASANTLY IN LITERATURE.
BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM MATHEWS, OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

acter of English literature at this time, com.
Plains that periodical writing, which -four.
shed 80 vigorously at the beginning of this
century, is nearly lost art This kind OF
writing, he remarks, is to literature what
conversation is to speech; 1t shonld not be
too personal nor too scientific, nor too earn
est, but mixture of all these, the plav OF
fancy over all subjects, lighting up here and
therethair depths, but not graphing with
them, itself abroad, but not con-
tracing itself to any too determinare aim.
A fatal defect of English periodical litera.
ture to-day is it's excessive gravity the i'm.
pulse of.the English mind being almost en-
tirely toward. concentration and earnestness.
and dehniteness Of thought. The effect OF
this is to quench all life and spirit, as GER
talnly as. does carbonic acid gas. s'Does
laughter or light SATIRE" asks the critic
" ever ring through the solemn precincts Of
Macmillan? Do the apostles of the Fortniohtla,
ever introduce joke into their evangelical
discourses? Mr.. Frederick Harrison. if we
remember right, attempted it some little
time ago; but he did it with so preternatur-
ally solemn tone, and with such earnest
ness of asseveration that he did not really
mean to joke at all, that all fear of the risk
that the attempt might be repeated was at
once removed"
The justice of this criticism will be admit
TED, we think, by all who are familiar with
the periodicals of the Id country. NOTHING
can be more solemn than Extraordinary tone
1t Is rarely that even the ghost of a Joke
haunts their pages; and when bit ofpleas.
antry does stray in, IL seems accidental, and
as much out of place as on a gravestone or
in ledger. The periodical writer's of to-day
have plenty of intensity and fiery earnest-
ness, much aeuteness of observation and
large stores of knowledge; but they are
heavy and elephantine; they lack fiexibili.
W, Htheness, versatility; and in the power
SO strikingly exemplifed by Shakespeare
fools of saying wise things in a sportive way,
the power so often seen IN Lamb and
Hood, of conveying deep philosophical
verify in jest. uniting the widest merri-
ment with the truest pathos and the deepest
wisdom, in short, in that genial, lambert
humor, of which Shakespeare was the Pope
and Sydney Smith the Chief Cardinal. hui
NOR like summer sheet-lightning, that hurts
nobody, and Eliminates everything with
soft, bright fl ashes-they seem almost. wholly
wanting. We must go back halfa century
10 the days Of Horace Smith, Maginn, and
Leigh Hunt, if we would enjoy in English
periodicals that agreeable trihing whieh, as
Goldsmith says, often deceives us into in
struction. The solemnity of their success
sors, which is certainly not the mask Of dull.
ness, tempts one to cry out with Cicero,
" Civen n1eher cule non puto esse az; his teyaDor
S6us rEdere posSH; on my conscience believe
we have all forgotten to laugh in these days"
History is always repeating itself, and VIC
lind in Goldsmith's Essay on the Present
State of Polite Learning" that the same
fault characterized the literature.of England
hundred years ago. He complains bitterly
of "a disgusting solemnity of manner" as
the besetting sin of the prose writer's and DO
cts of his day. The finest sentiment and the
weightiest truth, he urges, may put on a
pleasant face; but, instead oflthis, the
most trifing performance among us new as.
sumes all the didactic stiffness of wisdom,
The most diminutive son of fame or of fam.
Inc has his ace and his us, his Jirstlgs and his
secondys, as methodical as if bound in COW.
hide and closed in clasps 'of brass. Were
these monthly reviews and magazines frothy
pert, or absurd, they might find some par.
h11t ho du1I III t.
croaehment on the prerogative of a folio"
American literature is not amenable to the
charge of excessive gravity our newspaper
and magazines have plenty Of comic matter
only 1t is apt to be of broad and extrava
CANT kind. We have professional wits and
lhumorists who furnish funny PARTICLES By the
column, mechanics jokers, who turn out
jokes as the patent bread manufacturer turns
out loavss; but what we used is, not NOR,
4 wits, who can spin out jests as a juggle
spins endless ribbons from his mouth, writ
ers who can make US laugh, and nothin,
more, but those who can treat the graves
themes in playful manner, intermingle, a.
did Pascal and Sydney Smith, pleasantr.
with logic, bind the rod of the moralist witt
the roses of the muse, and hide with the iv,
|. wreath the point of the Thyrsus. Can an
| man doubt the ineStimable value of sue
writer's to community? Even the coarsea
wit has It's uses. There arc men whose risi
} bles can be tickled by no other. To laugh
they must hear or read something " dread
fully fanny,"-something as irresistibl
) mirth-provoking as Sir Toby's catch tina
} could s'draw three souls out Of one weaver.
: Oh aries Lamb tells of such man,-of sue