of pathos, like that of wit, is brevity. . .

Humor is

cumulative and diffusive, as Shakespeare, Rabelais, and Dickens well knew; but how many a good piece of pathos has been spoiled . . . by an attempt to make too much of it!" In this admirable essay on pathos Patmore shows his inability to remain long away from contemplation of the heavenly Lover and His dealings with His spouse, the human soul. "Pleasure and beauty -which may be said to be pleasure visible—are without their highest perfection if they are without a touch of pathos. This touch, indeed, accrues naturally to profound pleasure and to great beauty by the mere fact of the incongruity of their earthly surroundings and the sense of isolation, peril, and impermanence caused thereby. It is a doctrine of that inexhaustible and (except by Dante) almost unworked mine of poetry, Catholic theology, that the felicity of the angels and glorified saints and of God himself would not be perfect without the edge of pathos, which it receives from the fall and reconciliation of man. Hence, on Holy Saturday the Church exclaims, 'O felix culpa!' and hence there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine righteous who need no repentance.' Sin, says St. Augustine, is the necessary shadow of heaven; and pardon, says some other, is the highest light of its beatitude." Patmore, like Thompson, saw in sorrow the "shade of God's hand outstretched caressingly." Patmore was, indeed, wise according to God, wise in a simplicity of intention that aimed at God, wise in a purity of heart that could pene

trate the necessity and the meaning of heaven and hell, wise in a love that tended upwards and was not to be detained by things of earth.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries, by Walsh; The Cambridge History of English Literature; Historic English, by Fernald; Lectures on the English Language, by Marsh; Modern English, by Krapp; English Literature, by Allen Rogers Benham; History of English Literature, by Schofield; and Early English Literature, by B. Ten Brink, all will aid to an understanding of the social and linguistic background of the aphoristic essay. There can be no more wholesome reading than the great Biblical aphorisms in the books of Wisdom and Proverbs, Poor Richard's Almanac, and that fine little book Aphorisms and Reflections, by Spalding. We must say a word also for the aphoristic writings of the modern Samuel Butler.

CHAPTER III

THE CHARACTER ESSAY

The proper study of mankind is man.-POPE

BACKGROUND

The more old-fashioned a thing is, nowadays, the more is it ultramodern. First copies of books, antique furniture, colonial corsages, all command fabulous prices from the nouveaux riches. One likes to consider this turning backward an evidence that really fine things are never lost in humanity's onward march. Especially does one like to witness the revival of old literature, which is the soul's one earthly immortality. An old literary form which, beyond peradventure, deserves modern devotees is the character essay of the seventeenth century. To turn from the busy and forgetful world to these most human of all essays is as sweetly refreshing as to wander in an old-fashioned garden or to drink from a spring of living waters. Quaint in diction and spelling, quaint in thought, quaint yet up-to-date in perennial humanness, are these old essays of an earlier day. The sweet, whimsical fancies, the stilted ways of thinking, the vivifying spirit and the rejuvenating comments of their comradely authors who so loved humanity, furnish solace and refreshment to the

reader, especially to the reader who perchance has grown sad and weary on his journey through life.

The character essay became very popular in England in the early part of the seventeenth century, when the great Elizabethan period was drawing to its close and Puritan ascendancy was beginning to exercise an influence on English life and thought. The Euphues of John Lyly had planted among the flowers in the field of English prose the weedy growth that bears his name, only to make those flowers seem more richly natural by contrast to the ornate foliage, the tiresome blossoming into odd conceits, the general artificiality, of euphuism. The drama, in rising to the height of its power, had not only taught people how important a thing in literature is the making of lifelike characters, but by its constant demands on their poverty-stricken literary resources had compelled them to go back to the Greeks and Romans and to study that master of charactery, Seneca. The morality play, which featured virtues and vices by personification, though it had been changed by the master dramatist, carrying out the new conception of virtues and vices as embodied compositely in single men, into magnificent portrayals of life itself, still lingered with colorful effect in the minds of the play-loving English people. In those days, when printing was novel, literature was considered a pleasant recreational luxury rather than a profession; hence writers were willing to try the interesting experiment of creating and analyzing human beings of their own making. Interest in charactery had been given a new impetus when, in 1592, Casaubon published a translation of Theophrastus's

Characters, and Bacon furnished the means to the end -a concise, sententious style of prose writing in which studies of human qualities could be set forth.

DEFINITION

The character essay is a short prose composition, usually in a lively, satiric vein, yet with a touch of human sympathy, which creates and then analyzes concrete persons embodying the virtues and vices most prevalent among men. It may contain matter of historical moment, or it may be pure fiction. The author may tickle with the straw of humor or sting with the stiletto of wit. Very often the essay pretends to be a letter from some neighboring place and to bring "news," or (as we should say) gossip, about some of the foibles and follies of the persons who live there. Sometimes it asks the reader the embarrassing question "Is this not you?" which question is the sure guaranty of literary immortality. The character essay being a bit of human nature made concrete has themes that are many but not exhaustless.

THOMAS DEKKER (c. 1570-1641)

It is always difficult to label and pigeonhole a writer whose work illustrates a transition from one literary form to another. Thomas Dekker is one of these sui generis authors who are the nightmare of the historian of literature; yet he is such a dear and beguiling essayist, such a Santa Claus among writers, with his essays tucked full of queer and whimsical whatnots, that we