March 18, 2014
The trick is . . .
1.
In
yesterday’s post, I included a letter from my cousin Jack. The letter was
written in 1992. Jack was then, as I said, a “minister of the word and
sacrament” in a Presbyterian Church not far from where I grew up. He complains
about this and that − or he wails; complain may be too mild a term. He gnashes
his teeth; he weeps. He ends, though, with a quotation from Smollett’s The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. (You
can read the entire letter here.)
I’m aware, when I read Jack’s letter twenty-two
years later − I’m aware of how young we were twenty-two years ago. But
twenty-two years older, I haven’t forgotten what kind of Presbyterians Jack was
dealing with then. Scotsmen. The faithful servants of a serious-minded God that
never cracked a smile or a fart, a perfect
God that, expecting perfection, exhausted those who served him, worried them to
tears, because he never weakened, weakens, will weaken, he never erred, errs,
will err. So to be perfect as This God is perfect: Show no weakness, admit no
wrong, hold others strictly to account. Two things to keep: immaculate books;
and score.
2.
Here
again is Jack’s quotation from Humphry Clinker.
It occurs in a letter from Jeremy Melford to his friend Sir Watkin Phillips (of Jesus College,
Oxon.), describing the scene at Bath, where Melford’s uncle, Matthew Bramble,
has gone for a cure. But it isn’t frailty of body that ails Bramble so much as
thinness of skin. Jack wrote that he had “the greatest sympathies” with the
subject.
Those
follies, that move my uncle’s spleen, excite my laughter. He is as tender as a
man without skin; who cannot bear the slightest touch without flinching. What
tickles another would give him torment; and yet he has what we may call lucid
intervals, when he is remarkably facetious — Indeed, I never knew a
hypochondriac so apt to be infected with good-humor. He is the most risible
misanthrope I ever met with. A lucky joke, or any ludicrous incident, will set
him a laughing, even in one of his most gloomy paroxysms; and, when the laugh
is over, he will curse his own imbecility.
Matthew
Bramble is aware − his own letters confirm − that his misanthropy is risible,
his tetchy spleen laughable. But he has
great difficulty laughing at others’ misfortunes, even though he knows they are
as ridiculous as he is. So, when he can’t help it and yelps out an unchokedback
chortle, he feels sorry for having done so. This is a serious matter for
someone − what strikes him as funny − so it is a serious matter (period).
But funny.
3.
Uncle
Albert has always been fond of saying, “The trick is . . . ” On saying r
in French: “The trick is sticking your fingers down your throat and
pretending you’re not going to choke.” On making meat loaf: “The trick is using
more ketchup than you think you need but not as much as you want.” On hitting
long irons: “The trick is forgetting everything anyone ever told you.” These
were things he was good at, incidentally. He taught French; he was an excellent
cook; he played a good game of golf back when there still were long irons. But “The
trick is . . . ” doesn’t carry only technological wisdom. There is a trick to everything, that is the
basic premise: a trick not only to French pronunciation but to living anywhere
people spoke French . . . or Italian; a trick not only to making meat loaf but tricks
to meeting and to loafing; a trick not only to golf but to religion. Uncle
Albert: “If you have to have religion, the trick is not to be religious.” Of course, knowing the trick doesn’t mean you
can pull it off. But at least you know it.
o
(bicbw)
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