AN ARMCHAIR ESSAY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 134, 2 March 1929, Page 26

AN ARMCHAIR ESSAY

BREVITY AND WIT

(Written for “The Dominion” by Charles Wilson.)

It has been far too hastily assumed that the English language does not lend itself as easily as do the Latin tongues to the making of aphorisms, and that for the aphorism par excellence we must go either to the classics, or to such more moderh sources as the “Maxlmes” of De Rochefoucald, the “Pensees” of Pascal, and the collected brief thoughts of other French writers. Dr. Logan Pearsall Smith, that admitted authority on English expression, has, however, recently put forth a ‘‘Treasury of English, . Aphorisms (Constable and Co.) which does much to correct the idea that our tongue is less rich in good examples of the aphorism, which, it is as well to quote the Oxford Dictionary’s definition, is “a short pithy statement containing a truth of general import.” Brevity it has been said is the soul of wit, yet not every short saying is witty mere stupidity can find as brief expression • as wisdom, and we must be sure that what we accept as an aphorism coni’’ tains a truth of general import." As in so many matters literary the Greeks were the first aphorism makers. *>■ .Hippocrates, the father of medicine, led off with one of the most famous of sayings: “Art is long, life is short. In what have been called the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament, in Ec- ’ cleslastes and in Proverbs you will find the art' of expressing an accepted truth, almost an axiom, for universal guidance, frequently set forth. The aphorism, at its best, is described by Dr. Pearsall Smith as the veritable “salt of literature,” and it is good to see, from his “Treasury,” that the classical writers do not possess a monopoly of them. If you can find the aphorism in the Bible, in “Plutarch’s Lives,” in Tacitus and Seneca; if, in later times, you can find so many in Montaigne, La Rochefoucald, Chamfort, Joubert and other Frenchmen, John Morley, while .quite right in saying that French literature is particularly strong in the art of aphorism that is in the pithy and pointed brevity with which a thought of value may.be expressed- L -did an injustice to his own country’s writers when saying that our own literature is particularly weak in examples of the aphorism. One has only to go through the list of English authors quoted by Dr. Pearsall Smith and to note the examples he quotes, to see that Morley was unfair to England. Sir Thomas Browne, Dr. Johnson, Chesterfield, Swift,. Samuel Butler (of “Hudibras” fame), Lord Halifax, Gibson, Dr. Fuller, Pope, Hazlett, among the men of the past, are of course quoted, but it is astonishing how many sentences may. be selected as illustrative of the aphorism, at its best, from writers of comparative latter-clays. Benjamin -. Jowett, Coventry Patmore, Walter » Bagehot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shelley, Thackeray—even > Oscar WildeGeorge Santayan, are all in his list. Dr. Pearsall Smith groups his selected aphorisms under many headings. “The Universe,’ 1 “Prejudice,” Memory,’ “Money,” “Self-Knowledge,” “Vulgarity,” "Criticism,” and others. lam not so sure that Lord Halifax was justified in his gibe at humanity when he wrote: “A person seldom falls sick, but, the bystanders are animated by a faint hope that he may die.” Halifax, too, is clearly of a sceptical mind as to the average man’s sincerity when it comes to religion, when we find him writing,’ “Most men’s Anger about Religion is as if two Men should quarrel for a Lady they neither of them cafe for.” But then Halifax lived in Restoration times, when too many—see Rochester’s satires, for instance—were apt to think evil of each other. Of course, Dr. Johnson is frequently quoted. The . doctor, as a High Tory, naturally believed in rank. “His scorn, of the. great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises,” said the Doctor, but he, if living, would have had “no time” for the “stuck up new rich” of to-day, for did he not say, “Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out,” and who does not recall his scorn of Chesterfield’s attempted patronage. To quote Bernard Shaw in this connection seems like linking two far-distant periods together. “Man,” says Shaw, “is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.” There are many quotable truths in the section on “Conversation.” Rare Ben Jonson would judge a man by his talk. “Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee.” The man who “cuts in” when another is speaking is reproved by Dr. Fuller. “When one is relating anything, interrupt him not, unless there be great reason for it. Don’t say, ‘No. it. was thus, but I’ll tell you. You leave out the best part of it.’” ' Which looks as if the worthy doctor had the Bore—he exists nowdays—in view. Lord Chesterfield is credited with giving bad advice to his nephew, but he was giving him wise counsel when he wrote: “This I will advise you to, which is, never to attack whole bodies of any kind. Individuals forgive sometimes, but bodies and societies never do.” Modesty in expressing one’s views is commended by Disraeli in “Iskander”: “I never offered an opinion till I was sixty” said the old Turk, “and then it was one which had been in our family for a century.” This waiting until advanced age to declare one’s opinion would not, I fear, commend itself to our age, when, at twenty, many men are pleased to imagine themselves as omniscient. It is a self-delusion one grows out of. People are apt to pride themselves upon what they call a “knowledge of the world,” but others, less self-satis-fied on that point, would do well to remember Dr. Johnson’s reminder that “the observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found more frequently to make men cunning than good.” After all, Emerson was not far wrong when he declared that “much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom.” It is a bad thing to repeat oneself. As Hazlett says, “We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear one more than once.” Under the heading, “Solitude,” we find arguments in favour of good company being superior to self-seclusion. “R.L.S.” says rightly that “a little society is needful to show a man his failings,” and that you should not keep good things all to yourself is shown by his “You could read Kant by yourself if you wanted, but you must share and joke with someone else.” On “Friendship” we find Emerson saying, "Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can,” and no man who has ever been n real boy and has known what staunch friendships have been founded as the result of a hard-fought “mill” at school will dispute Stevenson’s maxim that “the spice of life is battle, the friendwiatiaua are a, kind «£ pontest”

APHORISMS, EPIGRAMS, LIMERICKS

Hazlett, clever though he was, died almost friendless. I differ entirely from the great English essayist when he says, “Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.” Rather do I hug to my soul the truth that “old friends,” like "old books, old wines,” and so many things which have survived the test of time, are the’ best. I would falh quote much further from Dr. Pearsall Smith’s “Treasury ,of English Aphorisms,” but space forbids. It is an excellent “dipping book” which I warmly commend to my readers. The epigram is a sort of first cousin to the aphorism. The Oxford Dictionary defines the epigram as a “short poem ending in witty turn of thought: a second definition, more applicable to the epigram, as most readers know it, being a pointed saying or mode of expression. Dodd’s definition, an epigram on epigrams, is perhaps the best. What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, Its body brevity and wit its soul. As a pendant to my remarks upon Dr. Pearsall Smith’s “Treasury of English Aphorisms,” I would append a short notice of “The Hundred Best Epigrams,’.’ chosen and introduced by Mr. E. B. Osborn, the literary editor of London “Morning Post,” and issued in a tiny and daintily produced edition by Mr. Basil Blackwell, of Oxford. One of the editor’s own performances in this genre was, he confesses, a jest at Augustine Birrell: 'I : To jeat at history is Birrell’s whim, And history shall make a jest of him. Perhaps, as Mr. Osborn says,’ the* French epigram is, as the late John Morley said of the French aphorism, wittier than ours, and he quotes an English translation of a seventeenth century Gallic example, as follows: Eve with Adam wagered kisses three, That God would never miss an apple from the tree. She lost, but would not pay, and made a great to do. Adam stole the first. She gave the other ' two. , Among the thirty or forty “old timers” of the epigrams quoted by Mr. Osborn, two of the best belong to Stuartian days. James Shirley’s "On the Duke of Buckingham” ran: - Here lies the best and worst of fate, Two kings’I delight, the people’s hate. The courtier’s star, the kingdom s eye, A man to draw an angel by. . Fear’s despiser, Vllller’s glory, The great man’s volume, all times story. , ' . Rochester’s witty lines on “The Merry Monarch” are well known: Here lies our mutton-eating King, r , Whose word no man relies on, Who never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a,wise one. Dryden was not given as a rule to brevity. His fine political poems , are too long-winded for modern taste, but one short poem, the lines on John Milton’s picture, savour of the true epigram: Three poets, in three distant ages born. Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. _ The first, in loftiness of thought surpass d; The next in majesty: in both the last. The force of Nature could no farther go; To make a third, she joined the other two. Passing along, leaving perforce the age of Swift and Pope, I come to Gray’s famous epitaph on himself: “Life is a jest, and all things show it. I thought so once, but now I know it.” I had speculated as to the origin of the Dr. Fell epigram:

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know and know full well, I do ont love thee, Dr. Fell.

As Mr. Osborn tells the story, the Doctor Fell of the oft-quoted rhyme was Dean of Christ Church, and was about to rusticate an offender, one Thomas Brown, but assured him of his forgiveness if he could give an adequate extempore translation of Martial’s distich :

Non amo te, Zabidi, nec possum dicere quart, Hoe tantum possere dicere, non amo te.

The Dean, adds Mr. Osborn, must have had a fine sense of humour, since Brown’s version did not lead to a withdrawal of his offer.

“Anon”—some irreverent undergraduate maybe—was equally severe on the Master of Balliol:

Here I am, Benjamin Jowett! All there is to know, I know it. I am the Master of BallioP College. What I know is not knowledge.

< Another university joker, whose wit, they say, cost him a Fellowship, was Francis Wrangham, who thus poked fun at quite another Jowett (Regius Professor of Law at Cambridge), who had fenced in a small angle of the cottage grounds: I

A little garden little Jowett made, And fenced it with a little palisade. A little taste hath little Doctor Jowett, His little garden doth a little show it.

.—_ . - ing it gravelled plot, Wrangham added two'lines to his epigram thuswise:

Because this garden made a little talk, He changed it to a little gravel walk.

I will conclude with an example of Mr. Osborn’s own'epigram on “a famous politician, who, as man of action, became successively Baron of Sidney Stre’et, Viscount of Antwerp, Earl of Gallipoli, and (during the general strike) Duke of Wellington Street, and who, as a man of transaction will deprive me of an ungenerous proportion of the profits of this little work.” It was written at a moment when he had just crossed his First Rubicon, i.e., the floor of the House of Commons:

He turn'd his coat for power; and to keep in , . «... Would even turn his shirt or change his skin.

Mr. Osborn’s little book of epigrams can be reckoned on as-providing a pleasant hour or two’s reading.

This caused many jokes to be passed upon the garden, whose owner turn-