Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-01-09
Irish Bulls.

xFlSn Bulls
"What is an Irish bull ?" was asked
one day by an ignorant person de-
sirous for information. "Oh every
body knows that" was the rather con-
temptuous answer OF . mixed COM
pany. But. like Q great many of those
things that everybody knows, it proved
knotty point, which could not be
solved without q little trouble and
reflection.
Miss Edgeworth, in her essay on
Lish Bulls and Blundsrs, lays it down
as q principle that the essence of . bnll
must consist in laughable confusion
of ideas. But this hardly goes far
enough. A bull is this, undoubtedly.
but it is something more; for laugh.
able confusion of ideas does not al
ways result in bull. Not only must
there be Imaginable confusion of ideas,
but this confusion must result in q
contradiction Of meaning-one part of
the sentence must be such as to utterly
contradict the other part. The state
ment must not only bo absurd, it must
be impossible. If the thing alleged
we're as it is stated, it would have ceased
to be what it is alleged to be at all, but
would have become something else to-
tally different, and quite at variance
with the rest of the sentence. For in
stance, the man who, on tasting an
apple-pie with some ounces in it, burst
out with the exclamation, Chow de.
licious an apple pie would be if it were
made entirely of ounces !" gave a
good specimen of an Irish bull. So
also the sailoS who had taken a. dis
like to ship, when he was told that
he might safely trust himself to her,
and that she was finely copper.fastened,
answered, "Thankee, sir I would not
sail in her if she were coppered with
gold"
Poets Of every age have given us
figures of speech which, if not bulls
pur ct simple, trespass very closely to
the dangerous border-land which
divides the sublime from the ridicu.
lous. We often find the cart put be-
fore the horse, and statements made so
needlessly strong as to be absurd, in
some even of our best authors. Juvenal,
for instance, informs us that poor
Codrus had nothing, and yet withal he
was robbed of that nothing; and in the
Timon of Lucian the following dialogue
occurs: ~.
GUATHo. ct will summon you be-
fore the Areopagus for injuring me
thus"
TIMoN. "Stay but short time, and
you will have the opportunity of accus-
ing me of your murder too"
In Milton there are q great many
flights of expression which will hardly
bear to be pulled to pieces. For in
stance, his well-known line in "Sam-
son Agonistes :"
1.-The deeds themselves, though mute, speak
louder the doer."
We know quite we'll what is meant-we
do not care to pull the expression
apart-but there is certainly con-
tradiction in words. If the deeds were
really mute, how could they speak
loud? So also when Satan describes
his dreadful feelings, and says:
''And in the lo,oest deep, lo,cer still,
That threatens to devour me, opens wide.'
Here the poets daring imagination has
lifted him out of ordinary every day
he has snatched grace be-
You'd the realms of commop-sense. II
strictly III yzed, his words could not
mean literally what he says. OF course
we allow for this; We call it poeticaa
licanse, a figure of speech, fine bold
imagery; but if used in ordinary Ian
guage, it would sound so exaggerated
as to be absurd, and we might begin to
whisper of the Objectionable bull"
Irish people being specially smart in
their speech and metaphorical in their
language, are peculiarly liable to the
droll blunders. =
To trace the word from its earliest
origin is no easy matter. Some suppose
it to be derived from the old German
word 6ollen, to speak foolishly; hence
comes bole or bull. In support of this
derivation we find that Chaucer uses
the word bole for blunder or bull.
There is curious passage in the
works of Taylor, the Waterproof, which
shows that in 1880, though the word
bull had not become identified with the
Irish people, yet the power Of
making this special order of blunder
existed among them in full force.
"Nowe." he says, "that Ireland doth
give birth to strange sortes OF men,
whose too create quickness of thought
doth impede their Judgements. this
storie which have heard will shove.
A wealthie lord of the countie OF Corke
had goodlie faire house new built,
but the broken bricks, tiles, sande,
lime, stones, and such rubbish as are
commonlie the remnants of such build
ings lay confusedlie in heaps here and
there. The lord therefore demanded OF
his surveyor wherefore the rubbish was
not conveyed awsie. The surveyor
said that hee proposed to have q hun
bred cartes for that purpose. The
lord replied that the charge OF cartes
might be saved, for q pitt might be
digged in the grouade, and so burie it.
Then, my lord said the surveyor, l
pray you what will wee doe with the
earth which wee dig out of this said
pitt?' why, you soxcombe, said the
lorde, 'canst thou not Diego the pitt
.deepe enough to hold rubbish and
ALP" This would indeed have been
practical bull, only equalled by that
of the man who sat before looking
glass with his eyes shut. in order that
he might see how he looked when he
was asleep, reminding US of . charac-
AL T-s.l, So, Tsu,