HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN.
In reviewing the _bon-mots_ of Stella, whom Swift pronounced the most
witty woman he had ever known, it seems that we are improving. I will
give but two of her sayings, which were so carefully preserved by her
friend.
When she was extremely ill her physician said, "Madam, you are near the
bottom of the hill, but we will endeavor to get you up again;" she
answered: "Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to
the top."
After she had been eating some sweet thing a little of it happened to
stick on her lips. A gentleman told her of it, and offered to lick it
off. She said: "No, sir, I thank you; I have a tongue of my own."
Compare these with the wit of George Eliot or the irony of Miss Phelps.
Some of Jane Taylor's stories and poems were formerly regarded as
humorous; for instance, the "Discontented Pendulum" and the
"Philosopher's Scales." They do not now raise the faintest smile.
Fanny Burney's novels were considered immensely humorous and diverting
in their day. Burke complimented her on "her natural vein of humor," and
another eminent critic speaks of "her sarcasm, drollery, and humor;" but
it would be almost impossible to find a passage for quotation that
would now satisfy on these points. Even Jane Austen's novels, which
strangely retain their hold on the public taste, are tedious to those
who dare to think for themselves and forget Macaulay's verdict.
Mrs. Barbauld, in her poem on "Washing Day," shows a capacity seldom
exercised for seeing the humorous side of every-day miseries.
"Woe to the friend
Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim
On such a day the hospitable rites!
Looks, blank at best, and stinted courtesy
Shall he receive. Vainly he feeds his hopes
With dinner of roast chicken, savory pie,
Or tart, or pudding; pudding he nor tart
That day shall eat; nor, though the husband try
Mending what can't be helped to kindle mirth
From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow
Cheer up propitious; the unlucky guest
In silence dines, and early slinks away."
But her style is too stiff and stately for every day.
There were many literary Englishwomen who had undoubted humor. Hannah
More did get unendurably poky, narrow, and solemn in her last days, and
not a little sanctimonious; and we naturally think of her as an aged
spinster with black mitts, corkscrew curls, and a mob cap, always
writing or presenting a tedious tract, forgetting her brilliant youth,
when she was quite good enough, and lively, too. She was a perennial
favorite in London, meeting all the notables; the special pet of Dr.
Johnson, Davy Garrick, and Horace Walpole, who called her his "holy
Hannah," but admired and honored her, corresponding with her through a
long life. She was then full of spirit and humor and versatile talent.
An extract from her sister's lively letter shows that Hannah could hold
her own with the Ursa Major of literature:
"Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir Joshua's with Dr. Johnson. Hannah
is certainly a great favorite. She was placed next him, and they had the
entire conversation to themselves. They were both in remarkably high
spirits. It was certainly her lucky night. I never heard her say so many
good things. The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one
very pleasant. You would have imagined we had been at some comedy had
you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried which could pepper
the highest, and it is not clear to me that the lexicographer was really
the highest seasoner."
And how deliciously does she set out the absurdity then prevailing, and
seen now in editions of Shakespeare and Chaucer, of writing books, the
bulk of which consists of notes, with only a line or two at the top of
each page of the original text.
It seems that a merry party at Dr. Kennicott's had each adopted the name
of some animal. Dr. K. was the elephant; Mrs. K., dromedary; Miss Adams,
antelope; and H. More, rhinoceros.
"HAMPTON, December 24, 1728.
"DEAR DROMY (a): Pray, send word if _Ante_
(b) is come, and also how _Ele_ (c) does, to your
very affectionate RHYNEY" (d).
The following notes on the above epistle are by a commentator of the
latter end of the nineteenth century. This epistle is all that is come
down to us of this voluminous author, and is probably the only thing she
ever wrote that was worth preserving, or which might reasonably expect
to reach posterity. Her name is only presented to us in some beautiful
hendecasyllables written by the best Latin poet of his time (Bishop
Lowth):
_Note_ (_a_).
"_Dromy._--From the termination of this address it
seems to have been written to a woman, though there is
no internal evidence to support this hypothesis. The
best critics are much puzzled about the orthography of
this abbreviation. Wartonius and other skilful
etymologists contend that it ought to be spelled
_drummy_, being addressed to a lady who was probably
fond of warlike instruments, and who had a singular
predilection for a _canon_. Drummy, say they, was a
tender diminutive of drum, as the best authors in their
more familiar writings now begin to use gunny for gun.
But _Hardius_, a contemporary critic, contends, with
more probability, that it ought to be written _Drome_,
from hippodrome; a learned leech and elegant bard of
Bath having left it on record that this lady spent much
of her time at the riding-school, being a very
exquisite judge of horsemanship. _Colmanus_ and
_Horatius Strawberryensis_ insist that it ought to be
written _Dromo_, in reference to the Dromo Sorasius of
the Latin dramatist."
_Note_ (_b_).
"_Ante._--Scaliger 2d says this name simply signifies
the appellation of uncle's wife, and ought to be
written _Aunty_. But here, again, are various readings.
Philologists of yet greater name affirm that it was
meant to designate _pre-eminence_, and therefore ought
to be written _ante_, before, from the Latin, a
language now pretty well forgotten, though the authors
who wrote in it are still preserved in French
translations. The younger Madame Dacier insists that
this lady was against all men, and that it ought to be
spelled _anti_; but this Kennicotus, a rabbi of the
most recondite learning, with much critical wrath,
vehemently contradicts, affirming it to have been
impossible she could have been against mankind whom all
mankind admired. He adds that ante is for _antelope_,
and is emblematically used to express an elegant and
slender animal, or that it is an elongation of _ant_,
the _emblem of virtuous citizenship_."
And so she continues her comments to close of notes.
Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford" is full of the most delicate but veritable
humor, as her allusion to the genteel and cheerful poverty of the lady
who, in giving a tea-party, "now sat in state, pretending not to know
what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that
we knew; and we knew that she knew that we knew she had been busy all
the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes."
The humor of Mary Russell Mitford, quiet and delectable, must not be
forgotten. We will sympathize with her woes as she describes a
visitation from
THE TALKING LADY.
"Ben Jonson has a play called _The Silent Woman_, who turns out, as
might be expected, to be no woman at all--nothing, as Master Slender
said, but 'a great lubberly boy,' thereby, as I apprehend,
discourteously presuming that a silent woman is a nonentity. If the
learned dramatist, thus happily prepared and predisposed, had happened
to fall in with such a specimen of female loquacity as I have just
parted with, he might, perhaps, have given us a pendant to his picture
in the talking lady. Pity but he had! He would have done her justice,
which I could not at any time, least of all now; I am too much stunned,
too much like one escaped from a belfry on a coronation day. I am just
resting from the fatigue of four days' hard listening--four snowy,
sleety, rainy days; days of every variety of falling weather, all of
them too bad to admit the possibility that any petticoated thing, were
she as hardy as a Scotch fir, should stir out; four days chained by 'sad
civility' to that fireside, once so quiet, and again--cheering
thought!--again I trust to be so when the echo of that visitor's
incessant tongue shall have died away....
"She took us in her way from London to the west of England, and being,
as she wrote, 'not quite well, not equal to much company, prayed that no
other guest might be admitted, so that she might have the pleasure of
our conversation all to herself (_ours!_ as if it were possible for any
of us to slide in a word edgewise!), and especially enjoy the
gratification of talking over old times with the master of the house,
her countryman.'
"Such was the promise of her letter, and to the letter it has been kept.
All the news and scandal of a large county forty years ago, and a
hundred years before, and ever since; all the marriages, deaths, births,
elopements, law-suits, and casualties of her own times, her father's,
grandfather's, great-grandfather's, nephews', and grandnephews', has she
detailed with a minuteness, an accuracy, a prodigality of learning, a
profuseness of proper names, a pedantry of locality, which would excite
the envy of a county historian, a king-at-arms, or even a Scotch
novelist.
"Her knowledge is most astonishing; but the most astonishing part of all
is how she came by that knowledge. It should seem, to listen to her, as
if at some time of her life she must have listened herself; and yet her
countryman declares that in the forty years he has known her, no such
event has occurred; and she knows new news, too! It must be
intuition!...
"The very weather is not a safe subject. Her memory is a perpetual
register of hard frosts and long droughts, and high winds and terrible
storms, with all the evils that followed in their train, and all the
personal events connected with them; so that, if you happen to remark
that clouds are come up and you fear it may rain, she replies: 'Ay, it
is just such a morning as three-and-thirty years ago, when my poor
cousin was married--you remember my cousin Barbara; she married
so-and-so, the son of so-and-so;' and then comes the whole pedigree of
the bridegroom, the amount of the settlements, and the reading and
signing them overnight; a description of the wedding-dresses in the
style of Sir Charles Grandison, and how much the bride's gown cost per
yard; the names, residences, and a short subsequent history of the
bridesmaids and men, the gentleman who gave the bride away, and the
clergyman who performed the ceremony, with a learned antiquarian
digression relative to the church; then the setting out in procession;
the marriage, the kissing, the crying, the breakfasting, the drawing the
cake through the ring, and, finally, the bridal excursion, which brings
us back again, at an hour's end, to the starting-post, the weather, and
the whole story of the sopping, the drying, the clothes-spoiling, the
cold-catching, and all the small evils of a summer shower. By this time
it rains, and she sits down to a pathetic see-saw of conjectures on the
chance of Mrs. Smith's having set out for her daily walk, or the
possibility that Dr. Brown may have ventured to visit his patients in
his gig, and the certainty that Lady Green's new housemaid would come
from London on the outside of the coach....
"I wonder, if she had happened to be married, how many husbands she
would have talked to death. It is certain that none of her relatives are
long-lived, after she comes to reside with them. Father, mother, uncle,
sister, brother, two nephews, and one niece, all these have
successively passed away, though a healthy race, and with no visible
disorder--except--But we must not be uncharitable."
* * * * *
Mary Ferrier, the Scotch novelist, was gifted with genial wit and a
quick sense of the ludicrous. Walter Scott admired her greatly, and as a
lively guest at Abbotsford she did much to relieve the sadness of his
last days. He said of her:
"She is a gifted personage, having, besides her great talents,
conversation the least _exigeante_ of any author, female at
least, whom I have ever seen, among the long list I have
encountered. Simple and full of humor, and exceedingly ready at
repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the
blue-stocking. The general strain of her writing relates to the
foibles and oddities of mankind, and no one has drawn them with
greater breadth of comic humor or effect. Her scenes often
resemble the style of our best old comedies, and she may boast,
like Foote, of adding many new and original characters to the
stock of our comic literature."
Here is one of her admirably-drawn portraits:
THE SENSIBLE WOMAN.
"Miss Jacky, the senior of the trio, was what is reckoned a very
sensible woman--which generally means a very disagreeable, obstinate,
illiberal director of all men, women, and children--a sort of
superintendent of all actions, time, and place, with unquestioned
authority to arraign, judge, and condemn upon the statutes of her own
supposed sense. Most country parishes have their sensible woman, who
lays down the law on all affairs, spiritual and temporal. Miss Jacky
stood unrivalled as the sensible woman of Glenfern. She had attained
this eminence partly from having a little more understanding than her
sisters, but principally from her dictatorial manner, and the pompous,
decisive tone in which she delivered the most commonplace truths. At
home her supremacy in all matters of sense was perfectly established;
and thence the infection, like other superstitions, had spread over the
whole neighborhood. As a sensible woman she regulated the family,
which she took care to let everybody hear; she was a sort of
postmistress-general, a detector of all abuses and impositions, and
deemed it her prerogative to be consulted about all the useful and
useless things which everybody else could have done as well. She was
liberal of her advice to the poor, always enforcing upon them the
iniquity of idleness, but doing nothing for them in the way of
employment, strict economy being one of the many points in which she was
particularly sensible. The consequence was that, while she was lecturing
half the poor women in the parish for their idleness, the bread was kept
out of their mouths by the incessant carding of wool, and knitting of
stockings, and spinning, and reeling, and winding, and pirning, that
went on among the ladies themselves. And, by the by, Miss Jacky is not
the only sensible woman who thinks she is acting a meritorious part when
she converts what ought to be the portion of the poor into the
employment of the affluent.
"In short, Min Jacky was all over sense. A skilful physiognomist would
at a single glance have detected the sensible woman in the erect head,
the compressed lips, square elbows, and firm, judicious step. Even her
very garments seemed to partake of the prevailing character of their
mistress. Her ruff always looked more sensible than any other body's;
her shawl sat most sensibly on her shoulders; her walking-shoes were
acknowledged to be very sensible, and she drew on her gloves with an air
of sense, as if the one arm had been Seneca, the other Socrates. From
what has been said it may easily be inferred that Miss Jacky was, in
fact, anything but a sensible woman, as, indeed, no woman can be who
bears such visible outward marks of what is in reality the most quiet
and unostentatious of all good qualities."
* * * * *
Frederika Bremer, the Swedish novelist, whose novels have been
translated into English, German, French, and Dutch, had a style
peculiarly her own. Her humor reminds me of a bed of mignonette, with
its delicate yet permeating fragrance. One paragraph, like one spray of
that shy flower, scarcely reveals the dainty flavor.
From the "Neighbors," her best story, and one that still has a moderate
sale, I take her description of Franziska's first little lover-like
quarrel with her adoring husband, the "Bear." (Let us remember Miss
Bremer with appreciation and gratitude, as one of the very few visitors
we have entertained who have written kindly of our country and our
"Homes.")
THE FIRST QUARREL.
"Here I am again sitting with a pen in my hand, impelled by a desire for
writing, yet with nothing particular to write about. Everything in the
house and in the whole household arrangement is in order. Little patties
are baking in the kitchen, the weather is oppressively hot, and every
leaf and bird seem as if deprived of motion. The hens lie outside in the
sand before the window, the cock stands solitarily on one leg, and looks
upon his harem with the countenance of a sleepy sultan. Bear sits in his
room writing letters. I hear him yawn; that infects me. Oh! oh! I must
go and have a little quarrel with him on purpose to awaken us both.
"I want at this moment a quire of writing-paper on which to drop
sugar-cakes. He is terribly miserly of his writing-paper, and on that
very account I must have some now.
"_Later._--All is done! A complete quarrel, and how completely lively we
are after it! You, Maria, must hear all, that you may thus see how it
goes on among married people.
"I went to my husband and said quite meekly, 'My Angel Bear, you must be
so very good as to give me a quire of your writing-paper to drop
sugar-cakes upon.'
"_He_ (_in consternation_). 'A quire of writing-paper?'
"_She._ 'Yes, my dear friend, of your very best writing-paper.'
"_He._ 'Finest writing-paper? Are you mad?'
"_She._ 'Certainly not; but I believe you are a little out of your
senses.'
"_He._ 'You covetous sea-cat, leave off raging among my papers! You
shall not have my paper!'
"_She._ 'Miserly beast! I shall and will have the paper.'
"_He._ '"I shall"! Listen a moment. Let's see, now, how you will
accomplish your will.' And the rough Bear held both my small hands fast
in his great paws.
"_She._ 'You ugly Bear! You are worse than any of those that walk on
four legs. Let me loose! Let me loose, else I shall bite you!' And as he
would not let me loose I bit him. Yes, Maria, I bit him really on the
hand, at which he only laughed scornfully and said: 'Yes, yes, my little
wife, that is always the way of those who are forward without the power
to do. Take the paper. Now, take it!'
"_She._ 'Ah! Let me loose! let me loose!'
"_He._ 'Ask me prettily.'
"_She._ 'Dear Bear!'
"_He._ 'Acknowledge your fault.'
"_She._ 'I do.'
"_He._ 'Pray for forgiveness.'
"_She._ 'Ah, forgiveness!'
"_He._ 'Promise amendment.'
"_She._ 'Oh, yes, amendment!'
"_He._ 'Nay, I'll pardon you. But now, no sour faces, dear wife, but
throw your arms round my neck and kiss me.'
"I gave him a little box on the ear, stole a quire of paper, and ran off
with loud exultation. Bear followed into the kitchen growling horribly;
but then I turned upon him armed with two delicious little patties,
which I aimed at his mouth, and there they vanished. Bear, all at once,
was quite still, the paper was forgotten, and reconciliation concluded.
"There is, Maria, no better way of stopping the mouths of these lords of
the creation than by putting into them something good to eat."
* * * * *
I wish I had room for my favorite Irishwoman, Lady Morgan, and her
description of her first rout at the house of the eccentric Lady Cork.
The off-hand songs of her sister, Lady Clarke, are fine illustrations of
rollicking Irish wit and badinage.
At one of Lady Morgan's receptions, given in honor of fifty philosophers
from England, Lady Clarke sang the following song with "great effect:"
FUN AND PHILOSOPHY.
Heigh for ould Ireland! Oh, would you require a land
Where men by nature are all quite the thing,
Where pure inspiration has taught the whole nation
To fight, love, and reason, talk politics, sing;
'Tis Pat's mathematical, chemical, tactical,
Knowing and practical, fanciful, gay,
Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,
There's nothing in life that is out of his way.
He makes light of optics, and sees through dioptrics,
He's a dab at projectiles--ne'er misses his man;
He's complete in attraction, and quick at reaction,
By the doctrine of chances he squares every plan;
In hydraulics so frisky, the whole Bay of Biscay,
If it flowed but with _whiskey_, he'd store it away.
Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,
There's nothing in life that is out of his way.
So to him cross over savant and philosopher,
Thinking, God help them! to bother us all;
But they'll find that for knowledge 'tis at our own college
Themselves must inquire for--beds, dinner, or ball.
There are lectures to tire, and good lodgings to hire,
To all who require and have money to pay;
While fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,
Ladies and lecturing fill up the day.
So at the Rotunda we all sorts of fun do,
Hard hearts and pig-iron we melt in one flame;
For if Love blows the bellows, our tough college fellows
Will thaw into rapture at each lovely dame.
There, too, sans apology, tea, tarts, tautology,
Are given with zoology, to grave and gay;
Thus fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry
Send all to England home, happy and gay.
* * * * *
From George Eliot, whose humor is seen at its best in "Adam Bede" and
"Silas Marner," how much we could quote! How some of her searching
comments cling to the memory!
"I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but I know very well I
shouldn't like her to cook my victuals. When a man comes in hungry and
tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'ull lie heavy on
his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin'
up Mr. Tryan's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes was as watery as
watery. It's right enough to be speritial, I'm no enemy to that, but I
like my potatoes mealy."
"You're right there, Tookey; there's allays two 'pinions: there's the
'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on
him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear
itself."
"You're mighty fond o' Craig; but for my part, I think he's welly like a
cock as thinks the sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow."
"When Mr. Brooke had something painful to tell it was usually his way to
introduce it among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a
medicine that would get a milder flavor by mixing."
"Heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited
people we speak ill of; we should live like Egyptian hermits, in crowded
solitude."
"No, I ain't one to see the cat walking into the dairy and wonder what
she's come after."
"I have nothing to say again' Craig, on'y it is a pity he couldna be
hatched o'er again, and hatched different."
"I'm not denyin' the women are foolish; God Almighty made 'em to match
the men."
"It's a waste of time to praise people dead whom you maligned while
living; for it's but a poor harvest you'll get by watering last year's
crop."
"I suppose Dinah's like all the rest of the women, and thinks two and
two will come to make five, if she only cries and makes bother enough
about it."
"Put a good face on it and don't seem to be looking out for crows, else
you'll set other people to watchin' for 'em, too."
"I took pretty good care, before I said 'sniff,' to be sure she would
say 'snaff,' and pretty quick, too. I warn't a-goin' to open my mouth
like a dog at a fly, and snap it to again wi' nothin' to swaller."