4 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



better worth reading and writing, if only because the target is so much 

 newer and brighter coloured, so much less fly-blown and dinted by 

 previous archers. 



It occurred to me that this perhaps was a mere personal judgment, 

 born of my own twist towards the wicked Lady Charlotte and the 

 coinservatives, so I asked a young and clever graduate of the University 

 of Toronto; he told me that he on the contrary read with greater zest 

 the satire at the expense of Lady Charlotte, "because he hated and 

 abhorred her; while Miss Phoebe, tho' silly, was a good soul." 



I agree with him about the two ladies, of course; but not other- 

 wise. Lady Charlotte is just a fool, and a heartless fool, and does not 

 at this time of day repay study, but Miss Phoebe is an ass; and there 

 are so many asses of her kind about and they bray so loudly and are 

 so strong and willing, so patient and hard-working, that the world 

 must take them seriously or they will take it; I don't think on 

 mature reflection that I need be ashamed of enjoying the satire at 

 Miss Phoebe more than the satire at Lady Charlotte; satire is not 

 needed, is gratuitous, at the expense of moral deformity such as 

 Lady Charlotte's, but satire and humour are discharging their regular 

 task, their appointed work, their life long rôle and métier, when they 

 fall upon the incongruities of poor dear silly Miss Phoebe. 



It reminds me of the old anecdote about Lord Lytton: he took 

 into dinner an emancipated lady, some Miss Phoebe; "Lord Lytton," 

 said Miss Phoebe, "how can you be a Tory? all fools are Tories." 

 "True, Madam," said Lord Lytton, "but — ^all asses are Radicals." 

 Let Miss Phoebe then be written down an ass; and, oh, that she be 

 written down an ass pretty quickly, or no one knows what price the 

 world will not have to pay for the knowledge that Miss Phoebe is an 

 ass, and that the mares-nests and crazes and delusions of Faith and 

 Reform are as perversive and pervasive, as the instincts themselves 

 to Faith and Reform are essential to good life. 



Then what is the métier and rôle of humour and satire ? and how 

 does it cover both Plato, Lowell, Miss Austen, Dickens and Wells, 

 and also Aristophanes, Gibbon, Canning, Frere, the Saturday re- 

 viewers, and again the same Wells ("old Wells re-opened") 



I take it the distinction between the two schools of humour and 

 satire is pretty fine at first sight and slender; humour is mockery at 

 the incongruous; and the incongruous takes two forms broadly 

 which may be so defined — though in reality they are very different — 

 as to seem alike; there is the incongruity between our theories and 

 our practice, our ideals and our actions; and there is also the incon- 

 gruity between our ideals and theories on the one hand and the 



