"A year will soon go," said Wilford, as, some days later, he turned his back upon Grilling Abbots. "And she has promised to write very often. Then, a new name, a new life, and Violet mine, there will yet be chance of happiness in the future!"
And he journeyed towards London.
CHAPTER X. TIME FLIES.
There is a certain well-understood though unexpressed convention, by virtue of which the world is bound to laugh at specific subjects. Jokes upon these are constantly "kept standing" as the printers call it, conveniently for the immediate use of the jester never slow to avail himself of the advantage; for as necessary as air to ordinary and unjocose people, is laughter to the jester and he prefers to obtain it surely by an old and well-trod road, rather than risk missing it on a path but newly discovered, however pleasant and inviting otherwise. There is often a doubt about the bran new coin—a golden egg, if I may so say, fresh laid by the Mint—it is suspicious-looking, it may be bad, it is so much brighter than usual; the thin, well-thumbed, dull-shining sovereign, years in circulation, is infinitely preferred. And it is the same with jests: the old are honoured with the established laughter; the new are questioned, and their payment in grins frequently refused.
It seems to me (though of course it is too late in the day to say so now with a view to any alteration), that some of these subjects are rather ill-chosen; are not really so provocative of honest mirth as the jesters would have us believe; have a serious and sometimes painful side, which might fairly exempt them in a great measure from the incessant sallies and rallies of the facetious. Let me mention a few of the topics in respect to which the gentlemen with the caps and bells rely for the bringing down of the mirth and applause of their audience.
Widows—Bishops—Impecuniosity—Love-letters.
These four will do: though of course there are many more on behalf of which and in deprecation of cachinnation much might be urged; and even for all these I do not feel absolutely bound to enter the lists. I am not a Widow, nor am I a Bishop. Perhaps I should only damage the cause of either by defending it; perhaps they are both strong enough to take care of themselves. For the Widow I will only say that I have found, as a rule, her situation to be more forlorn than facetious; while for the Bishop, I could never for the life of me discover from a lay point of view any particular funniness about him—a comfortable and respectable dignitary, no doubt; but what does the community see to laugh at in that fact? I know not. Yet turn to the comic books: how many jokes have been cracked upon the venerable heads of the spiritual lords? It is past all counting. For Impecuniosity, let me confess that on occasions when I have found my banker's account to be at a very low figure, and perhaps the balance on the wrong side of the pass-book—for my credit is good, and I have been permitted to overdraw once or twice—when this has been so, let me hasten to state that I have derived distress and annoyance from the circumstance, and clearly not mirth and amusement. For Love-letters I may have something to urge. Perhaps in my time I may have written such things. Who hasn't? A long time ago.—Oh, yes, that of course!
Read over the last great love-case in the law reports, and you'll surely find that shrieks of laughter followed the putting in evidence of the letters of the poor wretches concerned. They were treated as quite new and exceptional matters, purely funny; it was as though nobody in court had ever heard before of such intensely comic things as love-letters; as though they were brilliant conundrums, or laughable verses from the last burlesque; as though the judge on the bench hadn't written such things himself in days gone by, or the counsel on either side, or the witnesses, or the jury, over and over again—everybody in court, down even to the lawyer's clerks leering in the gulf between the bar and the judgment seat, not very loving or loveable-looking: they are not handsome men, as a rule, are lawyer's clerks, any more than are low-church curates. Are those poor love-letters, then, really such fit subjects for jesting? Granted that they are faded and crumpled and shabby-looking now, the passion that gave them preciousness and vitality clean gone from them, that they are as graceless and unattractive as a balloon with the gas out of it, as illumination lamps blown out at daybreak, as a bottle of hock a week without its cork, "stale, flat, unprofitable," but may we not reverence things typically—not for what they are, but for what they represent—for their past value, not their present? The love may be gone, but at least it was good and true while it lasted; let us gather up its relics with respectful hands, and lock them up safely, not toss them about with a snigger, nor hand them to Betty for the dustbin or the fireplace, or to wrap her curls in at bedtime.
I know that it is the fashion to sneer at Love now-a-days, and the stress the fiction-writer has often laid upon it. For certainly he has been prone to think that often in a man's life there has been a time when such an event as a strong mastering passion has given to his career permanent warp and change and colour; an important fact to look back at and date from in after years, like the Deluge in the world's history. But this is not so, it seems, and the novelist was wrong. "There are no more grand passions, now," says old Fitznoddy, of the Narcissus Club, Pall Mall, "any more than there is good port wine—they went out together." And he represents a general opinion. You mustn't look to Fitznoddy for individuality. Henceforward, then, there should be a list of errata added to all books. You must now, for every time amour occurs read amourette. Cupid is no more the one plump, glorious, mottled, rosy god whom it was a joy to hug tight to one's heart; he is split up into a squad of miserable, tiny, pauper children, very skeleton-like, all sharp corners and hard edges, whom one holds comfortlessly in one's arms—and with difficulty too—like a bundle of firewood with the string cut. The heart is a mere musical instrument—woman turns the handle, and it plays its airs punctually, like a barrel-organ. And these are always the same: