MALADY OF CLEVERNESS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 211, 30 May 1908, Page 12

MALADY OF CLEVERNESS.

John Ruskin perceived a sign of national 'decadence in the fact;'that the British people were no longer able' to enjoy a bad joke. Now, to anyonb who knew nothing of Ruskih, this inference would seem to have been arrived at by the followinig refreshingly simple process of argumontThe Elizabethans were most dccidedly not decadent, but they enjoyed bad jokes; the Victorians ivould not laugh at a joke unless it-was-'a rood one: therofore the Victorians - were de-. jadent. But this syllogistic process, was, in Ruskin's case, subordinate to an argument by anology. _Artistic decadence had resulted in a straining at anatomical accuracy in the rendering of the human figure j therefore an over-great insistence upon a clear, symmetrical,' and logically self-com-plete manifestation of thought was an indication of literary decadenco. To our mind, Rii-skin's literary anology is stronger than his artistic contention. Tho Venetian school, of'which Ruskin himself was a fervent admirer, is a standing proof that anatomical - fidelity is'not inconsistent with, bnt is absolutely essential to, the highest artistic exigence: to insist 'upon the photographic

presentment of n lily or a dockcn, and tolerata spruvlinoss ; and misproportion in tho delineation of human'limbs, was sheer wronfiheadedness. Indeed; tho very qualities w.iicn Paiskin inculcate;! as' artistic virtues were those ho exeeratal as literary crimes. Tlio realistic novelist elaborates' inanimate accessories at the ex'pe-n-so of tho human interest ; the epigraramist . and parndoxist whittle 'chips of thought into fantastic or symmetrical shapes which, though .striking in themselves and of general intellectual significance, aro devoid.of that individual taiggestivonoss which is the .highest aim /of library art., I ' V - ; 'For tile wholo question really hinges upon tho old, ilUundorstAod . distinction between wit and humour. Wit .is .sunmscr • ligntmng, playing in the upper firmament of tho brain, and arousing only admiration or surprise; lnimour is a thunderbolt, striking down into the human heart, and followed by tho ■thunder of laughter and, when the storm is overhead, by 'tho warm ram ot tears. This risible quality of wit depends upon an admixture of humour, which may bo typical, as in Mercutio, •or highly individual, as in Falstaff; but humour can do without wit, or there would bo nothing to laugh at in ,iUalvolio /or Shallow. Mr. Bernard Shaw Jias produced not' "n few Malvolios ind Mallows,* whoso only fault is that t-noy cccaBionally wittieise, so to speak, beyond .their rpoan3; but if wo except Pinero's mimitablo Dick Phenyl, modern literature,contains no character who arouses at onco our laughter, affection, pity, and admiration; and Dick Phenyl's tragedy is not heightened by the priggish ingratitude of a boon companion turned princcly snob. It may be admitted, once and fov ■ all, that oven the intellectual quality.of. Elizabethan wit., depended "Itorce•th'er;imbn of humour. bnafeo-summer'-lightning is.often tho most inferior.; fireworks'/. The quibbling of his lords and ladiM;scts our teeth on edge, it is las bad, a3 pickeiis's-heroics in high lno., Dickens 'did not know how- lord 3 and ladies ; spoke, so he made them lr.outn Adclphics. Shakespeare knew, how courtiers spoke, but lie did not care;:'-or dare, 1 to .lndividuahso them on the humorous side. That, however,'is. not tho point; ' The point is that ho ofteu filled up withlfoolish and inano word-play the blanks of impersonal frivolity which Mr. Bernard. Shaw or Mr. 'Chesterton would have adoriiid with brilliant and amusing arabesques of wit. ' Would it: noftbe a pood., idea,- then, to] liavo a new edition of Shakespeare's plays, with ■. .Chestertonian paradoxes and Shavian boutades in place of Elizabethan -quibblesi Bv no means. Better Shakespearo twiddling his 1 thumbs than Shakespeare doing conjuring • tricks. These lapses and dawd-ling*-'of .-genius, whose verj; awkwardness is that of a' wrestler lounging , between the rounds, liavo a dofi;iito artistio ( value. T.iey are tho cool conduits along .which tho spirio of ono moral fermontatidn, is condensed before 'being'/subjected to anew and. fiercer distillation. in this function' would -bo'-utterly 'destroyed by the ap"plication 'of■ Jiigh'..intellectual temperature. In the .como"dies ; ..tliey aro often indofonsible, 'forjherolthey.: compete on unequal terms with genuine' fun;v/ But;no true, artist. can over-. loolr!tboir..*freqiven.6.deliberate iise, as in tho 'C-ito scene ;in," Ma'cboth'" or , the 'Rrave-dig--1 ging -scehe^,in;:/' Hamlet," to , relieve and heighten tho'tonsion of porpotrat-ed crime or approaching calamity; or, as in tho play scene in " A Midsummer Night's Dream," to accentuate a contrast between artificiality and naiveness. If modern writers ' cannot make us enjoy a bad ioke, it is simply bccauso they cannot., write ;.a ."Hamletor .'".Macbeth to'siip it: in'to.jj- And-'.it is' useful I .to observe "that the only writer who ever used'had. jokes with effect'wa? also tho creator of Sir John Falstaff'.—" Glasgow Herald."