The Best of the Worlds Classics, Restricted to Prose | Page 4

upon wit as upon humor; and I will
add, that it is not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body,
which naturally attend such merry emotions of the mind. I know very
well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off to
advantage, where the hearer is to be surprized in the end. But this is by
no means a general rule; for it is frequently convenient to aid and assist
by cheerful looks and whimsical agitations.
I will go yet further, and affirm that the success of a story very often
depends upon the make of the body, and the formation of the features,
of him who relates it. I have been of this opinion ever since I criticized
upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I very often had the weakness to repine
at the prosperity of his conceits, which made him pass for a wit with
the widow at the coffee-house and the ordinary mechanics that frequent
it; nor could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, tho upon
examination I thought most of them very flat and insipid. I found, after
some time, that the merit of his wit was founded upon the shaking of a
fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a
fit of sickness, which robbed him of his fat and his fame at once; and it
was full three months before he regained his reputation, which rose in
proportion to his floridity. He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath
a good constitution for wit.
Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature, are apt to show
their parts with too much ostentation. I would therefore advise all the
professors of this art never to tell stories but as they seem to grow out
of the subject-matter of the conversation, or as they serve to illustrate or
enliven it. Stories that are very common are generally irksome; but may
be aptly introduced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by
way of allusion. Those that are altogether new, should never be ushered
in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons
concerned, because, by that means, you may make the company
acquainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and trivial
accounts of those who are familiar to us, administer more mirth than
the brightest points of wit in unknown characters.

A little circumstance in the complexion of dress of the man you are
talking of, sets his image before the hearer, if it be chosen aptly for the
story. Thus, I remember Tom Lizard, after having made his sisters
merry with an account of a formal old man's way of complimenting,
owned very frankly that his story would not have been worth one
farthing, if he had made the hat of him whom he represented one inch
narrower. Besides the marking distinct characters, and selecting
pertinent circumstances, it is likewise necessary to leave off in time,
and end smartly; so that there is a kind of drama in the forming of a
story; and the manner of conducting and pointing it is the same as in an
epigram. It is a miserable thing, after one hath raised the expectation of
the company by humorous characters and a pretty conceit, to pursue the
matter too far. There is no retreating; and how poor is it for a
story-teller to end his relation by saying, "that's all!"

III
SIR ROGER AND THE WIDOW[2]
In my first description of the company in which I pass most of my time,
it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction which my
friend Sir Roger had met with in his youth; which was no less than a
disappointment in love. It happened this evening that we fell into a very
pleasing walk at a distance from his house. As soon as we came into it.
"It is," quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, "very
hard that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used
me so ill as the perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a
sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon
her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in
the world. You are to know, this was the place wherein I used to muse
upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same
tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually walked with
that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to
carve her name on the bark of several of these