Many of those authors, who have largely contributed to the amusement and
instruction of readers, have considered episodes of digressions, a very
essential part of their labours. These writers seem apprehensive lest
the greedy reader should be surfeited with a repletion of highly
seasoned wit; and therefore occasionally serve up a course of more
homely fare. This practice, when the main subject of the work is
interesting and the writer sprightly, I always disapprove; but, if the
subject and writer are dull, I am constantly impatient for digressions.
The true style of digressing however has not frequently been attained.
Sterne attempted it with some success; but his marble page, his crooked
lines, and his seven castles are dull system, are dry method, compared
with the narrative of our modern peasantry. Having some skill in
stenography, I have been able to preserve one of those diverting
stories, which was not long since related in my hearing, and which, for
the improvement of speakers, as well as writers, I now carefully
transcribe.
“On the seventh day of last October, I will not however be positive it
was the seventh; it might possibly, for aught I know, be the eighth. It
could not be later than the eight nor earlier than the seventh. The
month if I mistake not, came in of a Saturday, and it must have been
very near the close of the first week; but the particular day is not
material. So, be that as it may, it is of no consequence; but, I am
pretty certain it was the seventh. I would not undertake for to go for
to swear to it; because I may possibly be mistaken; and, as I said
before, it is not material. If it was necessary, I should not be much
afraid to swear it was either the seventh or eighth. Indeed, the more I
think on it, the more I am convinced, in my own mind, that it was the
seventh. But, though I should not wish to swear to it, unless it was
necessary, I am as well persuaded of it, in my own mind, as I am of any
thing, that I do not know for certain. Well, as I was saying, on the
seventh of October last, for I am very sure it must be the seventh, one
of my neighbours; I call him a neighbour, though, it is true, he does
not live very near to me; perhaps seventy-five or eighty rods distance.
I do not know but it may be more. I very often travel it, and possibly
it appears to me shorter than it really is. Indeed, I have not been used
to have _near_ neighbours. Before he came, the nearest was at least half
a mile from me; and, when this one came, I told my wife, it seemed but a
step to his house. But that is neither here nor there. We are but new
yet, and cannot expect to have very near neighbours; but I had rather be
as I be than have a hundred such people for neighbours as I have
sometimes been acquainted with. But that is neither here nor there. But
as I was saying, one of my neighbours came to my house. I had as lief
tell who it was as not. The matter I am certain will be known. It was
Noah Douglass. I was sitting before the fire. Before it? I can’t say I
was _exactly_ before it. Perhaps I was a little nearer one side than the
other. But that is neither here nor there. When he came in, I asked him
to sit down, not thinking nor mistrusting the least thing in the world.
I had no more suspicion of any difficulty with him than the farthest
person upon earth. There had always been a good correspond between us.
He had always been sociable with me, and I with him. We never had any
quarrelling pro nor con. We had had a good deal of deal together; but we
were always very authentic, and settled peaceably and quietly. But he
had not been in the house long, before I could see there was something
that laboured. Well, it was not longer than I have been telling the
story, before he began. Says Douglass, says he, don’t you think, says
he, you have used me like a rascal, says he. Why, Mr. Douglass, says I,
if I was as stout a man as you--And what if you _was_, says he.”
From this last reply of Douglass, I am persuaded he must be a lineal
descendant of the celebrated GAWIN DOUGLASS, a very ancient English
author, frequently quoted by some of our modern grammarians, and
considered as the true standard of the colloquial and familiar style.