Hunting the Snark
" THE purpose of this essay," Mr. Nicolson writes, "is to enquire whether, in the wide landscape of the English temperament, there exists a special corner which can correctly be defined as 'the English sense of humour." He conducts this enquiry with the urbanity and percipience which might be expected ; he is scholarly, he is intuitive, he is methodical. Yet there steals upon the reader, as he follows this patient and resourceful hunter down the trail, the suspicion that the quarry ahead is, in fact, a kind of ignis fatuus or Snark, a creature as the French would say insaisissable, that will never suffer itself to be bayed, let alone captured, dissected and stuffed.
Mr. Nicolson, if at any stage in the chase he shared this suspicion, does not allow it to impair his diligence or to diminish the discreet enthusiasm with which he follows an elusive scent. Over "the wide landscape of the English temperament" the dutiful safari of his prose streams out, bearing in its train all the modem tackle of the analyst— the quotations from eminent authorities, the observations of the anthropologists, the paragraphs and sub-paragraphs of the tabular summary. Of all this gear, of course, his well-knit striding sentences make light, and the hunt moves swiftly as well as gracefully. But if you expect a kill—if you hope to find, at the end of the book, Mr. Nicolson portrayed with one foot set in deprecating triumph on the carcass of his fabulous quarry, you will be disappointed.
If, on the other hand, you prefer suggestions to conclusions, side- lights to a set-piece, you will find this chase well worth while. Apart from the enduring and, to me, irresistible charm of Mr. Nicolson's prose, this essay abounds in wisdom and in wit. For example: "One of the main distinctions between American and English humour is that, whereas the former is ironical in tendency and therefore seeks to make the fantas:ic seem humiliatingly real, the latter finds it more comfortable, to make the real appear charm- ingly fantastic." And it is pleasant to note that Mr. Nicolson is an Irma-fan.
This is the first publication of the Dropmore Press. It has, we are told, "been printed on a hand-press on paper hand made by J. Barcham Green of Maidstone ": after which it was paged, " adjusted " and " completed " at the Dropmore Press. This com- plex accouchement has gone off well ; the volume is perfectly legible and reasonably handsome. But for 70 pages, even when Mr. Nicolson fills them, I think two guineas is a stiff price. PETER FLEMING.
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