ece of light-headedness, to grow impatient and angry.
That is a sign of the absence, or at least of the dormancy, of the Comic
idea. For Folly is the natural prey of the Comic, known to it in all her
transformations, in every disguise; and it is with the springing delight
of hawk over heron, hound after fox, that it gives her chase, never
fretting, never tiring, sure of having her, allowing her no rest.

Contempt is a sentiment that cannot be entertained by comic intelligence.
What is it but an excuse to be idly minded, or personally lofty, or
comfortably narrow, not perfectly humane? If we do not feign when we say
that we despise Folly, we shut the brain. There is a disdainful attitude
in the presence of Folly, partaking of the foolishness to Comic
perception: and anger is not much less foolish than disdain. The struggle
we have to conduct is essence against essence. Let no one doubt of the
sequel when this emanation of what is firmest in us is launched to strike
down the daughter of Unreason and Sentimentalism: such being Folly's
parentage, when it is respectable.

Our modern system of combating her is too long defensive, and carried on
too ploddingly with concrete engines of war in the attack. She has time
to get behind entrenchments. She is ready to stand a siege, before the
heavily armed man of science and the writer of the leading article or
elaborate essay have primed their big guns. It should be remembered that
she has charms for the multitude; and an English multitude seeing her
make a gallant fight of it will be half in love with her, certainly
willing to lend her a cheer. Benevolent subscriptions assist her to hire
her own man of science, her own organ in the Press. If ultimately she is
cast out and overthrown, she can stretch a finger at gaps in our ranks.
She can say that she commanded an army and seduced men, whom we thought
sober men and safe, to act as her lieutenants. We learn rather gloomily,
after she has flashed her lantern, that we have in our midst able men and
men with minds for whom there is no pole-star in intellectual navigation.
Comedy, or the Comic element, is the specific for the poison of delusion
while Folly is passing from the state of vapour to substantial form.

O for a breath of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Voltaire, Cervantes, Fielding,
Moliere! These are spirits that, if you know them well, will come when
you do call. You will find the very invocation of them act on you like a
renovating