tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post3568249647341018410..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `The Risible Faculties'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-13814194777907060532017-03-15T16:02:51.364-05:002017-03-15T16:02:51.364-05:00There's a lukewarm review of that book in The ...There's a lukewarm review of that book in The Living Age, available in Google Books, that contains this marvelous description of its subject, the 18th Century:<br /><br />Broadly speaking, the eighteenth century was a settled time, a period without violent disturbance, during which men were able to put their affairs in order and to cultivate their heritage. Like most people of leisure, they spent a good deal of time on trifles; but what better refuge can there be from a world of horrible reality than the trifles of people who could handle trifles, now with dignity, now with vivacity and charm? Much of their thinking, as we see it now, was shallow; but the lively and gracious expression of shallow thought is better entertainment than any groping after deeper things. With the eighteenth century people a reader feels himself in good company. They are a little formal, perhaps; but, even if their very formality were not grateful in a world of violence and brutal force, it is a setting for widely various wisdom, wit, and observation. They are very sensible people; they have social sense as well as common sense. They do not cry for the moon, nor despise the homely pleasures. In their grief and their joy there is manner and measure. There is no one more likely than they to provide us with relief from the frantic excesses of immeasurably bad manners. [...] They did not roam the moors or scale the mountains, restless, soul-hungry, vision-driven suffering from any of the uncomfortable, lost-dog, nobly ridiculous enthusiasms that have blessed and tortured poets of a later day. They were not moths, and they did not desire stars. <br />-- The Living Age, March 11, 1916, review of George Saintsbury, The Peace Of The AugustansThe Sanity Inspectorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04808433661634318393noreply@blogger.com