A clergyman's hat (to my own private
and certain knowledge) can be punched and thumped into the exact
shape of a policeman's helmet; it all depends on the clergyman.
I mean it depends on his permission; his imprimatur; his nihil obstat.
Clergymen can be policemen; rugs can rage like wild animals;
tea-cosies can smell of the sea; if only there is at the back
of them all one bright and amusing idea. What is really funny
about Christmas charades in any average home is that there is
a contrast between commonplace resources and one comic idea.
What is deadly dull about the millionaire-banquets is that there
is a contrast between colossal resources and no idea.
That is the abyss of inanity in such feasts--it may be literally
called a yawning abyss. The abyss is the vast chasm between
the money power employed and the thing it is employed on.
To make a big joke out of a broomstick, a barrow and an old hat--
that is great. But to make a small joke out of mountains
of emeralds and tons of gold--surely that is humiliating!
The North Pole is not a very good joke to start with. An icicle
hanging on one's nose is a simple sort of humour in any case.
If a set of spontaneous mummers got the effect cleverly with cut
crystals from the early Victorian chandelier there might really be
something suddenly funny in it. But what should we say of hanging
diamonds on a hundred human noses merely to make that precious
joke about icicles?
What can be more abject than the union of elaborate and recherche
arrangements with an old and obvious point? The clown with the red-hot
poker and the string of sausages is all very well in his way.
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