"This is not the right kind," said he, "I want that edition that's got the picter at the beginning of a gal walken out by starlight, called 'Contemplation.'" I handed my customer another copy,-he then went on, "Aye, this is it. That are picter there, is a very material p'int, Doctor. The young fellers down in Kentucky think it's a walloping kind of story, you know, about some gal that's in love. They look at that title-page, and see, 'Night Thoughts, by Alexander Young.' Well, that seems as if it meant something queer. So they look to the frontispiece, and see a female all wrapped up in a cloak, goen out very sly, with nothing under heaven but the stars to see what she's about. 'Hush, hush,' I say, and look round as if afeard that somebody would hear us. And then I shut up the book, and put it into my chist, and deliberately lock the lid. Then the feller becomes rampacious. He begs, and wheedles, and flatters, and at last he swears. I shake my head. Finally he takes out a five-dollar bill; I slip it into my pocket and tell him not to let anybody know who sold it to him, and not to take off the brown paper kiver till he gets shut up tight in his own room. I then say, 'Good-day, Mister,' and clear out like chain lightning, for the next county." "You seem to be pleased with your recollections, Fleecer." "Well, I can't help snickering when I think of them fellers. Why, Bleech, I sold more than tew hundred o' them Night Thoughts, for five dollars apiece, in Kentucky, last winter and all the fellers bought 'em under the idea that 'twas some queer story, too good to be altogether decent." "So you cheated 'em, ha?" "I cheated 'em? not I, indeed! If they were cheated at all, they cheated themselves, I guess. I didn't tell 'em a lie. Couldn't they see for themselves? Haven't they got eyes? Why, what should a feller du? They come smellin' about like rats arter cheese, and ax me if I haint got some rowdy books: I show 'em the 'Sky Lark' and 'Peregrine Pickle,' and so on, but they want something better. Well, now, as I told you afore, I'm a deacon's son, and I don't like to sell 'Tom Paine,' and 'Volney's Ruins,' and that sort o' thing. So thinks I to myself-I'll play them sparks a Yankee trick. They want some rowdy books, and I'll sell 'em something pious. In this way they get some good, and in course of providence, they may be converted. Well, the first one I tried, it worked like ginger. He bought the book at a tavern. Arter he'd got it he couldn't hardly wait, he was so fairse to read it. So he went into a room, and I peeped through the key hole. He began at the title-page, and then he looked at the figger of Miss Contemplation walking forth among the stars. I could see his mouth water. Then he turned to the first part, and begun to read. I heerd him as plain as Doctor Belcher's sarmon; it went pretty much like this, (Reads) 'The Complaint. Night I'— "Good-that's natural,' says he. (Reads) 'On Life, Death, and Immortality.'— ""Whew! I suppose it's some feller in love, and is going to cut his throat.' (Reads) "Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays, When fortune smiles,' ""That's all gammon !' (Reads) 'Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,' ""What in nater is the fellow at?' (Reads) "The bell strikes one; we take no note of time,'— "'Why, that's exactly what the parson said in his sarmon last Sunday!" " He turns over several pages. (Reads) "By Saint Peter, I'm gummed! That d-d Yankee peddler has sold me a psalm-book, or something of the kind, and made me believe it was a rowdy. The infernal hypocrite! And so I've paid five dollars for a psalm-book! Well, it's a good joke, and the fellow desarves his money for his ingenuity. He, he, he! ho, ho, ho! I must laugh, tho' I'm as mad as a snapping-turtle. Zachary! If I could get his nose betwixt my thumb and finger, I'd make him sing every line in the book to a tune of my own. To sell me a psalm-book!-the canting, whining, blue-light peddler! Fire and brimstone! It makes me sweat to think on't. And he did it so sly, too-the wooden-nutmeg rascal! I wish I could catch him!' "By this time, I thought it best to make myself scarce. I had paid my bill, and my horse and wagon were all ready, for I had calculated upon a bit of a breeze. I mounted my box, and having axed the landlord the way to Lexington, I took the opposite direction to throw my psalm-book friend off the scent, in case he was inclined for a chase; so I pursued my journey and got clear. I met the fellow about six months arter, at Nashville; I was going to ax him if he had a psalm-book to part with, but he looked so plaguey hard at me, that I cocked my beaver over my right eye, and squinted with my left and walked on. Sen then, I haint seen him." Bret Harte humorously pictures the rude life of the American West, the shrewdness of the Yankee, and the sharp way his countryman makes use of publicity, craving for sensationalism, advertisement, and shallow curiosity about worthless trifles and gossip. One cannot help viewing in a ludicrous light the pas sion that has seized so uncontrollably on the mind of the American, the passion for sensation, news, trifling newspaper gossip, insatiate love of notoriety, and unshakable faith in the great utility of advertisement. The advertising spirit is in the land and the people worship it with all their heart and with all their soul. One even reads "scientific" researches by American scientists on the subject of advertisement! More than half the value of American goods consists in the immense waste spent on the crying out their virtues. This holds true not only of commercial lines, but also of political, moral, and religious. The American public is like one vast howling mob in which every one tries to outdo and outbawl his neighbor. The nation is a vast multitude obsessed by the demoniacal spirit of advertisement, notoriety, curiosity, small gossip, and sensationalism, while really important news and live facts are omitted, ignored, and suppressed by the advertising spirit of money and large business interests. In his story, "An Apostle of the Tules," Bret Harte shows that under the cloak of religious revival there are only animality, brutality, and degradation. He shows in the revivalist, Brother Silas, the dull, emotional, hysterical, sickly, and inferior type of mind saturated by the spirit of mediocre self-contentment, vanity, and conceit. Where we should expect a spiritual expression we only find a "stolid face, heavy, animal, and unintelligent." Nero expounding the truths of Christianity, the gladiator punctuating the Sermon on the Mount with a sword in his hand, the prize-fighter holding revival meetings and illustrating Christian humility by boxing matches and prizefights, these are in accord with American revival meetings. In this story Bret Harte shows the inferior under the garb of the superior and hence the derisive laughter. CHAPTER XIV RIDICULE, MALICE, AND THE HUMANE In the hunting out of the mean, the vulgar, and the inferior under the dignified cloak of the great and the superior is there necessarily present an element of malice? Does ridicule disclose a mean, low, and malicious trait in human nature? Does ridicule consist not only in revealing the mean side of the object laughed at, but also of the persons who make merry over the defects and shortcomings of others? In other words, is ridicule necessarily the outcome of malice? Some writers claim that the comic and the ludicrous flow from the malicious in human character. There is no comic without malice. Thus Spiller gives the following definition of the comic: "The comic implies a humiliating situation where the sense of malice is aroused so far as it satisfies and mechanically occupies the attention." It is claimed that the comic writer displays his narrow-mindedness in his lack of sympathy, in his lack of realization of his common nature with the rest of humanity. While there is some truth in the assertion that a number of jokes and comic situations have a malicious element in them, still on the whole the statement is incorrect; it is specially false of the higher manifestations of the comic and the ridiculous. Children and men in the lower stages of development, such as we find in the |