the Province. lamely. I think that Mr. Emerson might have
answered promptly, The general aspect of the Province, then, is that of a wall of and with truth, that our institutions were not established for the chalk running parallel to the sea, and enclosing a space which purpose of producing any purely American result, and that therefore is divided again into compartments by two natural fences, the they could not, in any sense, be justly regarded as having failed Forest Ridge and the South Downs, running diagonally across the because they had not attained what they were not contrived to southern part from north-west to south-east. We know that reach ; and, moreover, that race, and not political institutions, in British and Roman times the whole of the district to the north produced such outcomes as Mr. Carlyle seemed to be inquiring of the South Downs of Sussex, as far probably as the outskirts of for, political institutions themselves being one of the fruits of the North Downs of Surrey, with the Weald of Kent and the national character, or rather one of its forms of growth, and east-central part of Hampshire, were covered with one great neither its root nor its nourishment ; and yet, again, that two forest, to which was given the name of ANDERID. We also know generations, the limit of our political independence of the mother that the sea has receded at each extremity and at several points of country when Mr. Carlyle interpellated his visitor, were hardly the Sussex coast, leaving marshes and lowlands which it once enough to produce any remarkable peculiarity in the intellectual covered, and stranding some once important seaport towns, while or moral traits of a people, particularly in these days of free inter- elsewhere, as at Brighton, it has encroached on the land. We course and exchange of thought, when the tendency of all peoples, may therefore look upon the Province as originally one.vast forest of the same race at least, is rather toward assimilation than district, extending between two great walls of chalk, and with only a divergence. A somewhat thorough examination and comparison narrow strip of land as a pathway between its southern parapet and of the writings of the humouriste of the Old England and the the sea. On this strip of land, in the combes of the southern plat- New has led me to the conclusion that there is no notable differ- form, now renowned for its sheep walks along the rivers, and in the ence between them, and none at all which is not the result of recesses of the great forest, the inhabitants of this Province in slight differences in dialect—for instance, the rustic Yankee and the days of Keltic ascendancy must have led a very primitive life. the Cockney, the Negro and the Irish—and in the circumstances Hunters, shepherds, and fishermen they probably were, but of of the writers. The difference is not in spirit, but in mere form agriculture there can have been little. The great primeval woods, and subject-matter. The discovery of a peculiarly American wit whose aspect they exchanged only for that of the bare wild hills or humour I cannot but regard as attributable to that rather and the wide open sea, must have impreissed, insensibly, a certain fidgety craving, on both sides of the water, for that wonderful distinctive character on the population of this singular district. A new "American" coming man or thing, of which vain longing feeling they must also have had of almost entire isolation, forbetween Mr. Carlyle's question and Mr. Emerson's silence are almost them and the people of East Kent and North Surrey and Central equal manifestations. I have seen, and have marvelled as I have and Western Hampshire lay the "pathless woods," while the seen, Mr. Longfellow's Hiawatha hailed in Europe as "at last a access to Southern Hampshire was confined to a narrow doorway really American poem." But what are American Indians to us or at the south-western extremity of the Province, where the chalk we to American Indians? No more, not so much, as the Celts Downs receding, left one small space of level ground unencumbered whom our common forefathers supplanted in England are to you by timber and fit for agriculture. Here would be the inlet for civil- and to us. Not so much, because the blood of the Indians does zation, and the sole link of communication with the outer world, not mingle with ours ; they vanish before us, and leave no trace Here accordingly the most advanced part of the population would behind. When an " American " trait of humour mast needs be congregate, and here we find, naturally enough, that the first found in the use of the numeral 4 instead of the preposition for, "capital" of the Province was situated. It was long before because such disrespectful treatment of an august numeral is a the great Forest was sufficiently pierced to allow of direct commu- manifestation of the " Americhn " lack of reverence (which criti- nication between London and this primitive district. Even the en- cism I have seen in one of the London articles upon Artemus terprise of the Romans seems to have (for some time, if not always) Ward), I am confirmed in my opinion that the " Americanism " quailed before this task. The principal road from the capital of the of our humour is found only because it is sought with such Province made a circuit round the western and northern skirts of sensitive expectation. For the truth is that this use of 4 is the Anderil Wood, and the existence of a second and more direct merely the result of an attempt to make fun by painfully sought-out blunders in spelling. If it is humorous and "Ameri- can " to write 4 instead of for, how much more humorous and how intensely " American " it would be to write about the 42de of our soldiers, and the lied bread of the Hebrews Much of our Yankee humour is based upon exaggeration. So is much of Shakespeare's. When Falstaff says that he is a man "of continual dissolution and thaw," when Benedick says of Beatrice that "if her breath were as terrible as her terminations she would infect to the North Star," what did they do but exaggerate, like a pair of Yankees as they were ? English humour, particularly that in which you and we have a common heritage, is full of such exaggeration.
Serious as we seem, and as we are, we are very fond of making fun, and often relieve our feelings under adverse circumstances in that way when other people would grumble. There has been recently much discomfort and very great inconvenience on account of the inadequate provision made by the ferry companies to meet the severity of the winter. Frequently a thousand people would be crowded around the ferries, without shelter, for an hour or two, kept from their business or their dinners, and the testimony of all the reporters has been that these freezing, hungry crowds gave themselves up, not to grumbling and swearing, but to chaff- ing and making jokes at the expense of the directors, cherish ing, however, the while a fixed determination to be even with their oppressors, and they have already through the Legisla- ture begun to put their intentions in force. I have seen nego- tiations of some importance opened and carried on far toward a conclusion, in a series of repartees—not very brilliant, I must con- fess—but when the clinch came, with it came sobriety. Much of our oratorical bombast is uttered by men who are in earnest, and who think that bombast is eloquence but not a little is mere humorous or whimsical exaggeration, which is so understood by the hearers, and which yet is spoken and listened to with unmoved countenance on both sides. Mr. Lincoln's remark in one of his State papers— a Massage, I believe—that certain gunboats were of such light draught that they could float "wherever the ground was a little damp," caused remark in England ; and indeed it was not dignified, but it attracted very little attention here, because we are accus- tomed to such a way of speaking, even when we are in earnest ; and also because the joke was none of Mr. Lincoln's, but a mere adoption by him of an exaggeration current here for twenty years and more. I can remember its use for at least as long a time as that. It was first applied, not to gunboats, but to the huge Hudson River steamers, which, although between two and three hundred feet long, and having paddle wheels thirty feet in diameter, were built of such light draught that every stroke of their paddles seemed to lift them over the water, instead of pushing them through it. I heard a story many years ago, of one of these boats, which could go "most anywhere where it was a leetle miste ;" that she avoided an obstacle in the river by passing in the early morning over a river-side meadow while a heavy dew was on the grass ; but that the sun rising before she was well over, she came near being left high and dry by her captain's presumption. One of the most characteristic manifestations of this exaggeration, carried to the utmost of whimsical extravagance, is the story told by a Yankee of a very powerful machine invented by a friend of his to draw teeth. It was tried upon one man, and the tooth wouldn't come ; "cause ye see his teeth was sot drefful tight inter his systim. So they tied him inter the cheer, en drawd, en drawd ; en suthin had to come ; so they drawd his hull inatomy right out uv him, en left his flesh in a heap in the cheer."
But more peculiar to us than this extravagant exaggeration, which, as I have said, is in fact not peculiarly ours, is a certain dry, logical humour, which is usually put into the mouths of rogues. I was told of a cashier of a "red dog bank" in Indiana that being called upon in specie-paying days to cash a few hun- dred dollars of his own notes, he replied, "I should be very glad to pay you the cash, but it's against the law." The note presenter looked in wonder. "Thy, don't you see, the Banking Law pre- scribes that every bank shall keep on hand in coin at least fifteen per cent, of its issues. Now, I've got the fifteen per cent. 'cording to law ; but if I pay it away to you I shall be short. So you see you'r askin' me to do what's not 'cording to law." We sometimes act out a humour that is somewhat peculiar. A Mrs. L. H— (the story is true), mistaking the meaning of the maxim that taxa- tion without representation is tyranny, and declaring that she is unrepresented because she has no vote, refuses to pay taxes. She is ordered by the county authorities to appear on the high- way in person or by proxy, and work out the tax. Obedient to the summons, she appears on the highway in person, bearing a fire-shovel, to the great disgust of the road-master. Consequently, much -disturbance between Mrs. H— and the county authorities, in which, it being of a verbal nature, she has the better. But the tax will be collected by process of law if necessaiy, and Mrs. H— will be allowed the free use of her tongue and her fire-shovel in their proper places ; for this is a land both of law and of liberty. There is a kind of humour not uncommon here which prepares a trap into which a victim is sud- denly precipitated. It is merely variety of what you and we, in slang, both call "a sell." One of our stump speakers some years ago, at a meeting where it was a great point to conciliate the Irish vote, was led by his love of a good thing to peril his party and himself. He had been handling the Native American party very roughly (in earnest), and then went on. "Who dig all our canals? Irishmen. (Applause.) Who build our railroads? Irishmen. (Great applause.) Who build all our jails ? Irishmen. (Tumultuous applause.) Who f/1 all our jails? Irishmen." The descent into the trap was so sudden that the speaker escaped by precipitate flight before the rush at the staging. There is another kind of humour, so called, which is hardly humour, and which consists in strange comparisons, not really witty, but laugh- able for their mingled oddity and aptness. A short time since, two young ladies well known to me were holding high converse over the virtues of a certain new dress. "And does it fit well ?" asked one. " Fit ? As if I'd been melted and poured in." I was not present, but I know as well as if I were that the girl of seventeen said this with no particular intention of being funny, but merely because it occurred to her as a good way in which to express the admirable set of her gown. And thus, without intending or knowing it, she took her place among " American " hurnourista. Of all the kinds of humour in vogue here, this, if it be humour, is the only one that
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