contention in dialogue, as to the exact age when a man should die, to the
identical minute, that he may preserve the respect of his fellows,
followed by a systematic attempt to make an accurate measurement in
parallel lines, with a tough rope-yarn by one party, and a string of
yawns by the other, of the veteran's power of enduring life, and our
capacity for enduring HIM, with tremendous pulling on both sides.

Would not the Comic view of the discussion illumine it and the disputants
like very lightning? There are questions, as well as persons, that only
the Comic can fitly touch.

Aristophanes would probably have crowned the ancient tree, with the
consolatory observation to the haggard line of long-expectant heirs of
the Centenarian, that they live to see the blessedness of coming of a
strong stock. The shafts of his ridicule would mainly have been aimed at
the disputants. For the sole ground of the argument was the old man's
character, and sophists are not needed to demonstrate that we can very
soon have too much of a bad thing. A Centenarian does not necessarily
provoke the Comic idea, nor does the corpse of a duke. It is not provoked
in the order of nature, until we draw its penetrating attentiveness to
some circumstance with which we have been mixing our private interests,
or our speculative obfuscation. Dulness, insensible to the Comic, has the
privilege of arousing it; and the laying of a dull finger on matters of
human life is the surest method of establishing electrical communications
with a battery of laughter--where the Comic idea is prevalent.

But if the Comic idea prevailed with us, and we had an Aristophanes to
barb and wing it, we should be breathing air of Athens. Prosers now
pouring forth on us like public fountains would be cut short in the
street and left blinking, dumb as pillar-posts, with letters thrust into
their mouths. We should throw off incubus, our dreadful familiar--by some
called boredom--whom it is our present humiliation to be just alive
enough to loathe, never quick enough to foil. There would be a bright and
positive, clear Hellenic perception of facts. The vapours of Unreason and
Sentimentalism would be blown away before they were productive. Where
would Pessimist and Optimist be? They would in any case have a diminished
audience. Yet possibly the change of despots, from good-natured old
obtuseness to keen-edged intelligence, which is by nature merciless,
would be more than we could