The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-10-13
Famous Rplgrammatists.
PEOPLE WHO Rad THE KNACK OF SAYING
SMART THINGS IN SHORT Way.
London News.

London News.1
George Eliot had indeed something
OF the knack, but her epigrams, even
IN her earlier works, were more cum
brous and less incisive than the phrases
which from the days of St. Evremond
to those of Lord Beaconsfeld, we're the
chief flowers in the crown of literary
men and women of the world. Even
Ihackeray, despite his extraordinary
genius, fell somewhat short of the form
OF the epigram proper; and not the
least noteworthy pointabout the famous
earicature in ''Endmion" is the way in
which writer, inferior on the whole
from the point of view OF strict litera-
ture, has succeeded in polishing and
sharpening the form of Thaekeray's
utterance, while retaining and some
times exaggerating its spirit. In litera-
ture and politics alike the actual gen
Grafton of to-day fails to attain this
peculiar gift. Lord Randolph Churchill
and Mr.. Mallock are on the whole
change for the worse from the Disraeli
and the Peacock whom our fathers
knew. We look in other directions
almost in vain for any sign of the true
epigrammatist or table-talker in politics
or literature, the man who can give to
a political or literary sentiment the
form which takes it out of the regions
of arguments and controversy, and
makes 1t a possession for the time, if
not forever.
The multiplication of political bust.
ness and the fertility demanded of
modern men of letters may perhaps be
blamed for something of this. All the
famous epigrammatists and maxim ma
kers have been persons who were COM
paratively idle. Joubert spent life
prolonged, despite his ill-health, to the
full stretch of ordinary man in working
up couple of small octave volumes.
Rochefoucauld has but his tiny bundle
of maxims and his memoirs to show.
St. Evremond spread a dozen small
volumes over nearly a century of life.
Chamfort and Rivarol, though they
were not long-lived men, and though
each has left a certain bulk of work,
obviously devoted little pains or trouble
to anything but the handful of sayings
which alone, with great wisdom, poster
ity has agreed to recognize. 1t is true
that Lord Beaconfeld's literary produc-
ton was considerable, and that his
occupations, in the last half of his life,
were manifold. But it is, We believe,
sufficiently notorious that he had Il
power of detachment which enabled
him. to ignore the mere details Of official
work, and the extreme inequality of his
published books practically makes him
an exception which does not invalidate
the rule. If sonnet, according to the
famous saying, is worth long poem,
an epigram is worth a plump octave,
not merely in value, but in actual
trouble of production. There is proba-
bly, at the present day a greater amount
Of epigram in the rough than there ever
was. But epigram in the rough is not
epigram. 1t is like the casual pebbles
Of the seashore, very pretty to look at,
but flying into shivers at the touch Of
the lapidary's wheel A true epigram
or aphorism is always hard to distin
guish from false one. Perhaps it is
| because there is so much of the false
variety about that those who can pro
duce the true are shy of doing So
More probably the explanation is to be
found, as already limited, in the altered
circumstances ofmodern life. Speakers
and writer's are too busy to fashion the
complete epigram, their audiences are
too busy or too little cultivated to dis
tinguish it. The benevolent and appre
ciative audiences for epigram and ap
horism of the old kind are cliques o
scholars all educated in the same way
and ready to respond to the same allu
sions select classes of society pridinG
themselves on their alertness to recog
nize certain forms of intellectual pro
fciency; assemblies, like the olde
House of Commons, governed by rigiC
rule of convention and etiquette; clubs
colleges, chapters, close societies o
every kind. ''No man, said the great
est of English whist-players, ''is a goo'
player among men whom he meets 70
the first time" The epigram is exactl.
like the sublimer and more esoteri
strokes of the whist table. 1t depend
on an intimate knowledge of the aud
ence and of their individual peculiari
I, ties.