Morning Read:
Laughter
¶ If there’s one thing that Lord Chesterfield and I disagree about, it’s laughter.
Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh, since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore only seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.
¶ In Moby-Dick, a horrible chapter, “Stubb’s Supper.” Between complaining about his overcooked slice of whale meat and ordering the black cook to “preach” to the sharks feeding on the capture’s carcass, Stubb lurches with deranged, operatic swagger.
“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D’ye hear? away you sail, then — Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go. — Avast heaving, again! Whale-balls for breakfast — don’t forget!
¶ The second part of Don Quixote really is a second beginning. The priest and the barber visit Don Quixote in his chamber, where he is recovering from all the mishaps of the first part. The three men have an amiable and reasonable discussion, and all seems well until our hero firmly makes it quietly clear that he has not given up on being a knight errant or stopped believing in the historical existence of such figures of Felixmarte of Hyrcania. At no point, however, is he held up to ridicule. The barber’s tale of the mad canon of Seville is a far more engaging challenge to Don Quixote’s delusions than another tumble in the dust.
¶ In Squillions, Noël Coward is surprisingly disapproving of Margaret Rutherford’s highly popular performance as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit.
The great disappointment is Margaret Rutherford, whom the audience love, because the part is so good, but who is actually very, very bad indeed. She is indistinct, fussy and, beyond her personality, has no technical knowledge or resources at all. She merely fumbles and gasps and drops things and throws many of my best lines down the drain. She is despair to Fay, Cecil and Kay and mortification to me because I thought she would be marvellous. I need hardly say that she got a magnificent notice.
I doubt very much that I’ll be saying anything like this sort of thing of Angela Lansbury, when I see the revival in a few weeks.
The dear Lord C is constrained here by his station I’m afraid, the telling word being “fashion”. Much of what you’ve recounted from Chesterfield seems sensible but this, no not this. Nothing benefits man and mob alike more than a good deep, heartfelt and loud laugh on a daily basis. Rightly the burden might be placed differently for man and mob as to what deserves a laugh but not the strength of the laugh. This type of reserve, it’s not really stoicism, is not good though it may be from age to age and class to class the fashion of the day or the class. Lord and lackey alike deserve a good laugh.