A JESTER DEAD.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 July 1927, Page 25

A JESTER DEAD.

[Written for The Sun.J 1 FORGET who it was that said “Give me a nation’s ballads, and their laws can look after themselves” —or words to that effect. Whoever it was, his adage might be adapted to the microcosm of the family; and in lieu of the ballad we might place the family joke and the family anecdote. The joke and the anecdote may outlive the disintegration of the family, so long as two members survive to traffic in them. 4 I have been reminded of a book that so united many families in its day by the news of the death of Mr Jerome K. Jerome. “Three Men in a Boat,” was, and is, pre-eminently a book to be read aloud. I associate the adventures of George and Harris and Montmorency, and the obiter dicta of Uncle Podger with many a happy family truce. “Three Men in a Boat” is excellent fooling; but to me it is something more. It belongs to the age of the “Yellow Book.” It belongs to an age when every taxi was a hansom, and overy goose a swan, when the silk hat denoted “the masher,” when the Strand really resembled the sketch on the blue cover of the magazine wherein one read of the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. Jerome K. Jerome belonged perforce to that age. It was an age that waited about most of us, or immediately ahead of us. Oscar Wilde was being played at the St. James’s; Gilbert and Sullivan still reigned at the Savoy. The other day they revived “The Importance of Being Ernest” at the Haymarket, and the effect was as odd as of Hamlet in modern dress. The audience sat back, and waited for the epigrams to be rolled forth with due solemnity. One had time to be amused in Wilde’s day. One had time to be amused at Harris and George, and one did not pause to wonder what manner of man was Jerome K. Jerome. I have been impressed with our lack of discernment by my inability to lay hands on a copy of “Paul Kelver,” which is one of the great novels of its day. Jerome K. Jerome ha s been set down a jester, and as a jester he will be appraised; but if I were in a position to quote from “Paul Kelver” I could point to a passage in which Jerome gives voice to his Credo through the mouth of his hero. Paul Kelver set before himself the ideal of influencing the world for good through the power of his pen. He would be a preacher, like Dickens, but after a period of failure he accepted the position the world assigned him, as one of its jesters.

There is a memorable passage in which Paul Kelver encountered Dickens on a seat in Kensington Gardens. It was a short while before closing time, and the discourse of the man with the goatee was interrupted by the melancholy cry of “All out,” which you may still hear shouted across that green demesne at closing time. It is one of the London cries that have survived the telephone and electric gong. I have never heard it without a thought of that duologue between Paul Kelver and Dickens. With the exception of William De Morgan no novelist has caught the spirit of Dickens more truly than has Jerome K. Jerome, though he wrote only one great novel.

To see Dickens’s London you must needs go on pilgrimage. To see Jerome’s London you must needs have been part of it, even for ever so short a time. You must have been aware of that great northward thrust that within our memories has changed green acres into acres of bricks and mortar. Jerome K. Jerome went to school at the Marylebone High School. He

did not start life in picturesque penury as did his great exemplar. There is nothing picturesque in the phrase “reduced circumstances.” In "On the Stage and Off” we may read of his experiences in a profession which he adopted for a short while. He learned enough of the stage to write “The Passing of the Third Floor Back,” which has more of the essential Jerome in it than any of his humorous writings. Still, it is as a humorist that he will be known. Perhaps the elderly man on the seat in Kensington Gardens was right—lt is better to make the folk laugh, if you can. C. R. ALLEN, Wellington.

Overworked. — I can assure you, madame,” said the doctor, “there is nothing wrong with you; all you need is a rest.” “But just look at the state of my tongue.” “Quite, madarn; it needs a rest, too.” Nothing New. —Young Thing: And what do you think of trial marriages? Veteran: I must be frank; all marriages are trial marriages. Tracing the Shadow.—“ Prithee, Alcestes, why lookest thou in the mirror so long?” “Foorsooth, knave, I am counting my mustache.” r .