e's, but a hound's, collar, in Saturday
journals; or dirtily living on the public money in government
non-offices:--but that they shall be held less than gentlemen for doing
a man's work honestly with a man's right hand--you will of course find
that intellect and feeling cannot be had when you want them. But if you
like to train some of your best youth into scholarly artists,--men of
the temper of Leonardo, of Holbein, of Duerer, or of Velasquez, instead
of decomposing them into the early efflorescences and putrescences of
idle clerks, sharp lawyers, soft curates, and rotten journalists,--you
will find that you can always get a good line drawn when you need it,
without paying large subscriptions to schools of Art.

112. III. This relation of social character to the possible supply
of good Art is still more direct when we include in our survey the
mass of illustration coming under the general head of dramatic
caricature--caricature, that is to say, involving right understanding of
the true grotesque in human life; caricature of which the worth or
harmfulness cannot be estimated, unless we can first somewhat answer the
wide question, What is the meaning and worth of English laughter? I say,
"of English laughter," because if you can well determine the value of
that, you determine the value of the true laughter of all men--the
English laugh being the purest and truest in the metal that can be
minted. And indeed only Heaven can know what the country owes to it, on
the lips of such men as Sydney Smith and Thomas Hood. For indeed the
true wit of all countries, but especially English wit (because the
openest), must always be essentially on the side of truth--for the
nature of wit is one with truth. Sentiment may be false--reasoning
false--reverence false---love false,--everything false except wit; that
_must_ be true--and even if it is ever harmful, it is as divided against
itself--a small truth undermining a mightier.

On the other hand, the spirit of levity, and habit of mockery, are among
the chief instruments of final ruin both to individual and nations. I
believe no business will ever be rightly done by a laughing Parliament:
and that the public perception of vice or of folly which only finds
expression in caricature, neither reforms the one, nor instructs the
other. No man is fit for much, we know, "who has not a good laugh in
him"--but a sad wise valor is the only complexion for a leader; and if
there was ever a time fo