of concealment, from æsthetic motives, and a corresponding abhorrence of flat, naïve exposure. The ironist has taken the veil of covertness to protect himself from the garish overt day.[1] Its reception, on the other hand, is an equally sure indicator of disposition. For it is beloved of its own kin, deep answering unto deep, and distrusted by the alien with a repulsion as strong as that of the subtle for the simple. To understand or not to understand the ironic is an acid test of the literal mind. An apposite reference to this fact is found in a comment on one of our novelists.[2]
"Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in literature,
by the ironical method; and tell the humourist, with an air of
moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest
or in earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Mr. Disraeli's
novels must be a standing offense, for it is his most characteristic
peculiarity that the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible."
Another reason for the prejudice against ironic language
may be that it is popularly supposed to emanate from a
- ↑ As advised by John Brown in his Essay on Satire:
"The Muse's charms resistless then assail,
When wrapt in irony's transparent veil;
Then be your lines with sharp encomiums grac'd;
Style Clodius honorable, Busa chaste."And not long before this, Dryden had been saying: "How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of these opprobrious terms! * * * Neither is it true that this fineness of raillery is offensive. A witty man is tickled while he is hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not." Essay on Satire, 98.
- ↑ Stephen: Hours in a Library, Second Series. 347. Another critic of another novelist makes the point by a vivid illustration: "A rabbit fondling its own harmless face affords no matter of amusement to another rabbit, and Miss Austen has had many readers who have perused her works without a smile." Raleigh: The English Novel, 253.
