events of the past. Men can endure hatred better than laughter. When a government or an institution is only odious it may be safe, but when it becomes ridiculous, then the hour of its fall is near. Nowhere is the truth of this so strikingly shown as in France. The government of Louis XV. was called a despotism tempered by epigrams; the mockers and sneerers of the salon were set against the soldiers and courtiers of the palace; and the wits and satirists proved to be the forerunners, if not the framers, of the Revolution. Louis XVI., derided through life, could only atone for living feebly by dying bravely. Napoleon dreaded the terrors of wit more than those of war; and strove to supplement his victories abroad by silencing the press at home, and stilling the voice of society. But such subtle enemies were not so easily overcome; they were active under the Empire, and still more so under the Restoration, when they made the name of Bourbon a byword for incurable stupidity. Louis Philippe, who began to reign amid the acclamations of all, quickly gained the sobriquet of the "Bourgeois King," and his very face was laughed at in the innumerable caricatures of the "pear." Louis Napoleon's triumphant ambition was assailed by the scornful epithets of Victor Hugo, and he was finally goaded to ruin by the fierce sarcasms of Rochefort and the irreconcilables.

§ 461. THE LEGITIMATE USE OF THE RIDICULOUS.

The legitimate use of the ridiculous may be seen when it is directed against acknowledged evils. Of this we have examples in all ages. The keen wit of Horace was levelled at the weaknesses of one period, while the vices of another were assailed by the fiery satire of Juvenal. Carlyle and Thackeray in our own days have made war upon the follies and hypocrisies of modern social life. In every age there have been those who with this weapon have successfully attacked abuses in philosophy, literature, religion, and politics which would have been impregnable to any other assailants.

§ 462. ABUSE OF THE RIDICULOUS.

The abuse of the ridiculous may be seen where it is directed against that which is good. It then becomes the greatest of evils, since it perverts the judgment and confuses distinctions

of right and wrong. Ridicule is so powerful, and at the same time so insinuating, that it carries the hearer away in spite of himself; and a sneer may sometimes destroy the effect of the soundest reasoning. There is nothing so good, so pure, or so holy as to be beyond the reach of its attack. The sneer may be directed against virtue, honor, chivalry, chastity, religion, and all that is most precious to man. It may be aimed at the loftiest of truths, the most sublime of scenes, the most beautiful works of art, or the noblest writings. In such cases the sneer will ultimately recoil upon the one who uses it, yet, nevertheless, its immediate effect may be powerful.

In order to avoid the disastrous influence that may be exerted in this way, it is important for every one to distinguish between the use and the abuse of the ridiculous, and above all to learn to put a proper estimate upon the sneer. With this we must learn to deal as with an argument, not indeed to answer it at length, but at least to see whether it be just or not. A saying is current to the effect that a sneer is an argument that cannot be answered, but this is not true. A sneer can be answered, but it takes time and labor, and these cannot always be available.

To one who wishes to be fully equipped for every form of hostile attack, nothing is more important than a knowledge of the history of the ridiculous. In such a history not the least important part would be that which would be devoted to the sneerers of all ages. We should find that nearly everything which we now most revere has at one time been an object of these malignant assaults. We should see Socrates caricatured by Aristophanes; St. Paul mocked at by the Athenians; Columbus ridiculed by navigators; Galileo by philosophers; Milton by courtiers; Harvey and Jenner by physicians; George Peabody by brokers. We should find the steamboat, the railroad, and the electric telegraph assailed in their infancy by the same class of enemies. But Time comes forward at length to vindicate the great teacher or the great inventor; and the shafts thus misdirected recoil with fearful effect upon those who sent them forth.

The language used by Byron with reference to Tasso and the Duke of Ferrara may be applied to the great man and his detractors:

T

"Glory without end

Scattered the clouds away-and on that name attend

The tears and praises of all time; while thine

Would rot in its oblivion-in the sink

Of worthless dust."

In view of the abuse of the ridiculous, we perceive the truth of the saying, "A sneer is a fool's argument."

CHAPTER IV.

THE FANTASTIC.

§ 463. THE FANTASTIC.

THE fantastic in literature came into being during the Middle Ages. The conversion of the northern nations of Europe destroyed the supremacy of their gods, but did not remove them from the thoughts, fears, and affections of the people. These mythological beings lived anew in the common life of men; driven out from religion, they took up their abode in superstition; and inspired legends, traditions, and the great body of that humble literature known as Folk lore. The richest and most varied store of such productions of the fancy have been derived from the Teutonic nations. The Celts have contributed largely to the common stock, and much is also due to the Arabians. From the first of these sources we have received sylphs, gnomes, salamanders, sprites, elves, trolls, fairies, witches, goblins, and many others of a similar kind. From the Celts have been drawn all those wonderful beings which form the machinery of the Arthurian legends. From the Arabians we have obtained enchanters, djinns, afrits, peris, and the like. All these, combined and fused together, blended with Christian legends, and out of the union there arose new beings, such as the medieval devil, with characteristics of horns, tail, and cloven hoof; the mediaval ghost, appearing at midnight and vanishing at cockcrow; the saint, with his power over demons; and all the world of the supernatural.

The result was a new element, which entered into modern

literature, and inspired it from the very first. We see its influence in the metrical romance, in Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, in Tasso and Ariosto; but its full presence and power can best be seen in works that are based altogether upon this element, such as the Thousand and One Nights, and all those fairy tales which have been for ages the delight of young and old, and have exerted no small influence upon literature. This influence shows itself in the effort made by some imaginative writers to form for themselves new scenes and characters which shall rival these time-honored creations of the past. Some of their works do not rise above the level of the common ghost-story; but others are of a far higher order, and may be illustrated in prose by Schiller's Ghost Seer and Bulwer's Strange Story, and in poetry by Goethe's Faust and Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.

The fantastic in literature may be defined as the unrestrained exercise of fancy, where the writer ventures into regions of wild and unbridled speculation, and creates new scenes and new characters, which present a strange compound of the natural and supernatural. Here the beautiful and the sublime are intermingled with the ridiculous, and there result two distinct elements, the first of which may be called the grotesque, and the second the horrible.

1. The grotesque.

The grotesque may be defined as the caricature of the beautiful, or, in other words, as the union of the beautiful with the ridiculous. Thus, in art, a carved face may have well-formed features, but if these are distorted by an exaggerated grimace it becomes grotesque. This is not to be confounded with the ugly, which is simply repulsive; whereas in this case there is no repulsiveness. In literature it is found wherever sentiments and language, pleasing in themselves, are distorted and perverted in a ridiculous fashion. Examples may be found in the Ingoldsby Legends, and in many of the German stories of Zschokke and E. T. A. Hoffmann.

2. The horrible.

While the grotesque represents one side of the fantastic, the other may be found in the horrible. This may be considered as the caricature of the sublime, or the association of the sublime with the ridiculous. The horrible is never far removed

from the grotesque; and even where the ridiculous is not at all visible, there is often an undercurrent of grim and ghastly humor. Examples may be found in many of the tales of Edgar A. Poe, especially the "Murder in the Rue Morgue" and "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar;" in De Quincey's "Avenger" and "Murder one of the Fine Arts;" in Lewis's "Monk," Mrs. Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho;" and Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein."

CHAPTER V.

THE DESIRES.

§ 464. THE DESIRES.

DESIRES are twofold, animal and mental. The animal desires are called appetites, and include hunger, thirst, sleepiness, etc. The mental desires belong to the emotions, and include chiefly the following, from which again many subordinate desires arise: 1. Self-preservation; 2. self-esteem; 3. ambition; 4. avarice; 5. the desire for knowledge.

$465. SELF-PRESERVATION.

1. The love of life is a necessity of our nature, and inseparable from our constitution. It forms the motive for actions that may be either good or evil, noble or base. As it is common to all mankind, it is illustrated in all literature. Its results are twofold: first, good, when it leads to strenuous endeavor; and, secondly, evil, when it tends to cowardice or baseness. History and fiction are full of examples of each. The Odyssey presents the long struggle for life carried on by Ulysses against many perils. The Anabasis describes the struggle of the ten thousand Greeks, who pursue their march amid innumerable dangers, and toil on with unsurpassed heroism. Still more striking is the result when this feeling, which is the strongest in man, is cast aside, and deeds of valor are done in contempt of death. This has been felt by poets of every age and nation to be the highest and most ennobling theme.