III. “TOUCHES OF NATURE.”
“The ludicrous has its place in the Universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys, long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare.”—Holmes.
“TOUCHES OF NATURE.”
“To explain the nature of laughter and tears is to account for the condition of human life; for it is in a manner compounded of these two. It is tragedy or comedy, sad or merry, as it happens.”—Hazlitt.
“One touch of nature,” says Shakespeare, “makes the whole world kin;” but the great dramatist did not define exactly what he meant by “touch of nature,” and the critics of many generations have been at war over the question. Perhaps he could not have told us, even if he had tried,—any more than the critics can tell us. When Democritus was asked his definition of a man, his only reply was, “A man is that which we all see and know.” Further than this the philosopher could not proceed. But while Shakespeare has not given us a definition, he has given us an illustration:
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,—
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Tho’ they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’erdusted.”
The whole world is kin in this, that all with one consent inexcusably forget the substantial past and praise the present folly, if that folly be well tricked out. Humanity proves its oneness by its foibles as well as by its virtues. “Foolery, sir, doth walk about the orb; like the sun it shineth everywhere.” Things deserving of laughter and things intended to provoke it have always been happening; and the faculties by which men perceive the foolish and ludicrous have always existed in human nature.
“Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And laughter holding both his sides,”—
all these were in the past as well as in the present. They are “touches of nature” that “make the whole world kin.”
The statement was made in the preceding chapter that the writers of the Bible, especially of the historical books, drew faithfully from real life, and sketched manners and traits as they found them. They neither smoothed over nor concealed anything. They were absolutely frank. This fidelity to nature made it inevitable that the writers should now and then depict the ludicrous side of life and character, describe grotesque situations and paint amusing scenes. These are not uproariously funny, they will not provoke boisterous merriment, any more than will a page of Addison; but they are none the less specimens of genuine humor. Indeed, Carlyle reminds us that “true humor springs not more from the head than from the heart; it issues not in laughter, but in smiles that lie far deeper.”
We may be sure that all life from the very beginning has had its humorous no less than its serious side. If any record had been kept, we should no doubt find that Adam and Eve had their jokes about the apples—it is universally assumed that they were apples—on that forbidden tree, and that they were quite as good as any jokes that have been made about those same apples in more recent years. The masons and bricklayers on the tower of Babel no doubt poked their thumbs into each other’s ribs and slapped each other on the back to emphasize their rude jokes about the late “wet spell,” and wondered how long it would take to get to Heaven with their building. And we imagine that even during the flood itself there were sanguine souls who took the whole matter philosophically, declaring that ‘it never rained long when the clouds looked that way and the wind was in that direction.’ The Israelites, we suspect, lightened their bondage in Egypt by mimicking the pompous manners of their hated taskmasters and ridiculing the fools who thought that bricks could be made without straw. And the grimmest Egyptian mummy that now graces a museum or helps to fertilize the wheat-fields of the West once wore a smile or grin upon his leathern face as he related to a brother mummy how Pharoah made sport of the Israelites by promising to “let them go,” and then when they were all on tip-toe with expectation, countermanding the order. Then they would both shake their heads and chuckle with delight over the pleasant humor of their monarch and declare that ‘Pharoah was in high spirits to-day.’ Thus the world has rolled and chirruped and cackled on since the time when man emerged from the animal. And Holmes suggests, in our motto, that the sense of humor was in the animal before man.
I.
Sometimes the humor of the Bible lies in the thing described,—the odd or awkward or absurd thing said or done.
“The Iliad,” says Sidney Smith, “would never have come down to these times, if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have trembled for the Æneid, if some Trojan nobleman had kicked the pious Æneas in the fourth book. Æneas, may have deserved it, but he never could have founded the Roman Empire after so distressing an accident.” And yet accidents quite as distressing, if not of precisely the same nature, have happened in the best families that ever lived upon this planet. The writers of the Bible have not hesitated to give us a very frank account of some of them.
Imagine the vacant look of the terrified Aaron, as he gave his imbecile explanation of the golden calf! Moses and Joshua are coming down from the mountain. “And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And Moses answered, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them that sing do I hear.” Soon they draw near the camp and see “the calf and the dancing.” Then does the anger of Moses wax hot. In his rage he flings down and shatters the “tables of stone.” Like a whirlwind he descends upon the camp, hurls the miserable calf into the fire, and demands an explanation of his recreant brother. “What did this people unto thee that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?” Aaron quails beneath the wrath of Moses and stammers: “Thou knowest the people that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go before us: for as for this Moses”—think of that, this Moses—“that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.” You see they are set on mischief; they were disrespectful even unto you—this Moses. Something had to be done. “And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and”—what do you suppose happened?—“there came out this calf!” I was as much surprised as you are, but no one is responsible—it did itself!
In quaint fashion did Saul make honest confession when smitten with remorse on account of his persecution of David: “Behold I have played the fool!” The regret of Prince Hal also—“Thus do we play the fools with time, while the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.”
What an odd—almost laughable—spectacle is the bombastic Nebuchadnezzar, one moment proudly striding along the battlements of his palace, “Is not this great Babylon which I have builded?”—the next eating grass like the beasts of the field! As Carlyle says: “A purple Nebuchadnezzar rejoices to feel himself now veritably emperor of this great Babylon which he has builded; and is a nondescript, biped-quadruped, on the eve of a seven years’ course of grazing.”
There is a scene in the life of David in which that worthy is represented as cutting fantastic capers before high heaven. At one time, in order to keep out of Saul’s way, David went down to Gath. The servants of King Achish recognize him, and tell their royal master that this is the famous David over whose exploits the daughters of Israel sang. “Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?” But David does not wish his identity known and with characteristic shrewdness he feigns insanity. “He feigned himself mad, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his beard,”—a sorry looking hero! So thinks the king Achish. What, this the man that slew the giant? this drivelling lunatic the victor that Israel’s daughters praised? His disgust knows no bounds. He is almost as grotesque in his anger as is David in his appearance and conduct. He turns upon his courtiers in offended dignity and cries, “Lo, ye see the man is mad; wherefore have ye brought him to me? Have I need of madmen, (are not ye my own servants sufficient?) that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?” “Fool me no fools,” says King Achish. When King Achish asked, “Have I need of madmen?” he evidently thought of his own servants and courtiers as did Christian I., of Denmark, in modern times, of those who graced his Court. He sharply remarked, on a presentation to him of several court fools, that “he was not in want of such things, and if he were, he had only to give license to his courtiers, who, to his certain knowledge, were capable of exhibiting themselves as the greatest fools in Europe!”
In Nehemiah’s account of building the walls of Jerusalem, he shows how sorely the Jews took the clumsy jibes of their foes and gives us a specimen of Samaritan joking in that early day. Sanballat mocked the Jews and said, “What do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burned?” Tobiah, the Amorite, was yet more caustic: “Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he will even break down their stone wall.” This ridicule, although the jests do not seem very formidable to us, was harder to bear than attacks with sword and spear. It is so to-day. We can stand anything but laughter. One would rather be made to appear infamous than ridiculous. The only answer the builders could make was to pray for the destruction of their sarcastic persecutors. They wished that heaven’s bolts of lightning might answer these bolts of wit.
II.
Sometimes the humor lies in the description itself rather than in the thing described. Dr. Barrow, in his famous essay, says of facetiousness, “Sometimes it is wrapped up in a dress of humorous expression.”
An excellent example is furnished in the account of the mob at Ephesus: “Some, therefore, cried one thing and some another; for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together.”
When Sidney Smith speaks of “distressing accidents,” we are reminded that an exceedingly “distressing accident” happened in the very first family of which we have any record—the family that started in Eden. Aside from any question as to the literal truth of the story, nothing can exceed the simplicity and naturalness with which the writer has described the culprits and their excuses. The first thing they did after their transgression was to hide. The supreme and perpetual folly of guilt is to imagine that it can be hid when the voice of the Lord God is heard in the garden. “And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” The culprit creeps forth from his hiding-place and stammers, “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?” Now the guilty secret is out and Adam pleads in extenuation, “The woman that thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.” It was no fault of mine. That woman was to blame—the woman, O Lord, remember, that thou gavest to be with me. Is not a little of the responsibility thine also, O Lord? A touch of nature! “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be!” But Eve will not bear all the blame. She also is ready with her excuse: “The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” Another remove in the location of the responsibility. If we can forget all that theology has put into this story and look on it simply as a bit of literature, it is a charming description of the way in which we mortals disclaim accountability for our deeds.
“And oftentimes excusing of a fault,
Doth make the fault worse by the excuse;
As patches set upon a little breach,
Discredit more in hiding of the fault,
Then did the fault before it was so patched.”
Job has expressed his contempt for Adam’s conduct in Eden by invoking upon himself even greater ills than he was then suffering, if he followed that disgraceful example,—“If I covered my transgression as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom.” In magnificent scorn of Adam’s hiding from the Lord and laying his guilt upon another, Job exclaims, “Behold, my desire is that the Almighty would answer me!” and avows that “he would declare unto him the number of his steps, and as a prince would go near unto him,”—not skulk away from his presence among trees and bushes. The low estimation in which Job holds Adam suggests that the old Hebrew who wrote the story in Genesis, may have intended to hold up that primal man in a humorous light.
Whether the story of Balaam is literally correct in its details is one of the questions this little volume is not intended to discuss. The writer of that story tells his tale as naïvely as if conversations between men and animals were of everyday occurrence. If we read it as we would any similar piece, any other fable in which men and beasts speak to each other, we should say that there were some elements of the ludicrous in the picture of the prophet rebuked by his ass. “And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned aside out of the way and went into the field. And Balaam smote the ass to turn her into the way.” Just what any one would do to a “shying” animal, upon impulse. “But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side and a wall on that side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall; and he smote her again.” Naturally enough! “And the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam; and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.” The rising wrath of the prophet can no longer be controlled. The turning from the way, the crushing of his foot against the wall, and finally the falling down under him and refusing to proceed further,—these indignities on the part of the ass at length exasperate the prophet beyond all measure, and he right lustily lays on the cudgel. “What have I done unto thee that thou hast smitten me these three times?” meekly inquires the belabored ass. “Because thou hast mocked me, I would that there were a sword in my hand, for now I would kill thee,” roars Balaam. Thou hast mocked me; thou hast played tricks upon thy master, the prophet of God. Thou hast done this on purpose to vex me and put me to shame. Thou hast made a sorry spectacle of me with thy pranks, and thou hast crushed my foot in the bargain. “Am I not thine ass upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?” Should you not have known there was something unusual? These are touches of nature in a story which might illustrate the saying of Isaiah in which he attributes higher wisdom to brutes than to men: “The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not know, my people will not consider.” Was it this saying that Shakespeare had in mind when he said, through the lips of Mark Antony:
“O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.”
At one time the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and other cities, and put them into the cities of Samaria to take the places of the children of Israel; but the new inhabitants did not fear the Lord, so the writer tells us that the Lord sent lions among them and slew them. Some one spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which thou hast moved and placed in the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the God of the land.” They are not acquainted with his habits and methods, and have gotten themselves into great trouble. The God of the land has sent lions among them. The king, hearing this, is in great dismay. It will never do—the ravages of those lions must be stopped. He evidently thought, as did Nick Bottom, “There is no more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to it.” “Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence, and let him go there and dwell and teach them the manner of the God of the land.” The priest went and taught the uninitiated people not to provoke a God who could let hungry lions loose upon them at any moment. The people listened in terror. The result of the instruction was that “the people feared the Lord,”—with a side glance at the lions. They tried to refrain from what would make him angry enough to order out the lions but after all—and there must have been a twinkle in the eye of the scribe as he recorded it—“they served their own gods.”
When Queen Vashti refused to come into the presence of King Ahasuerus and his drunken lords, she did something that was wholly unprecedented. Nothing of the kind had ever before been heard of in the whole history of the empire. The revellers are shocked sober. Consternation reigns supreme. When did a queen ever refuse to do the bidding of a king? a wife the bidding of a husband? Are all our ancient notions of propriety to be overturned? What will be the effect of Vashti’s rebellion? The feelings of the king are outraged because the queen declines to unveil her beauty before his roistering courtiers. Enraged, he demands, “What shall be done unto Queen Vashti because she hath not performed the commandment of the King Ahasuerus?” It is a grave question. The lords themselves have a stake in this matter. They fear the result of this strong-minded example. The contagion of disobedience may spread. If it should, whose authority as husband is safe? And Memucan answered, “Vashti, the queen, hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are in the province of the King Ahasuerus. For this deed of Queen Vashti’s shall come abroad to all women, to make their husbands contemptible in their eyes, when it shall be reported that the King Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. And this day shall all the princesses of Persia and Media which have heard of the deed of the queen, say the like unto all the king’s princes. So shall there arise too much contempt and wrath.” Such a thought could not be entertained. As Dogberry would put it, “It is most tolerable and not to be endured.” Memucan, therefore, advises: “If it please the king let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and Medes, that it be not altered, that Vashti come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.” The penalty is severe, but the case is one that demands heroic treatment. “And when the king’s decree which he shall make, shall be published throughout all his empire, all the wives shall give to their husbands honor, both great and small.” The advice is accepted. “The saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did according to the word of Memucan; for he sent letters into all the king’s provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, to every people after their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house.” Thus perished the first recorded movement in the direction of woman’s rights!
III.
The humor of the Biblical writers is often shown in the way they pierce through outward actions and penetrate to the hidden motives of men. Before their keen vision external disguises are vain.
Let us turn to the account of sending the demons from the maniac into the swine. Let us take the account that speaks of but one maniac. “Then they that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus and see him that was possessed of the devil and had the legion, sitting clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.” It must have seemed absurd to the evangelist that these Gadarenes should have been afraid of the insane man after he had been restored. But the swineherds have not yet told all their story. “And when they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devils and also concerning the swine—” “Aye, there’s the rub!” “when they heard that, they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.” A man has been restored, but a herd of swine has been lost. This new prophet will ruin us all, if he stays here. Let him begone. Though he saved men, they prayed him to depart because he let the swine be drowned. Jesus himself said once that “every man was of more value than many sparrows;” but these Gadarenes seemed to think that no man was worth “two thousand swine.”
In the preceding section of this chapter, Paul’s description of a mob is noted. It will be interesting to understand the occasion of that mob. When Paul preached at Ephesus, there was a marked decline in the demand for images and silver shrines of Diana. The market became weak. One of the principal manufacturers, Demetrius, called together all who were in the same business and said: “Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover, ye see and hear that not alone in Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that there be no gods which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at naught, but that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth!” Demetrius, the unctuous hypocrite, seems to throw the real consideration into the background, and to be actuated mainly by concern for the honor of his goddess. Ah, Demetrius, Demetrius, little do you, little do your fellow craftsmen care for Diana and her worship, except as you get your gain through her devotees. But make the people think you are full of zeal for religion, and under the mantle of this falsehood cloak your motives, as you rush through the streets crying, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” Rouse the populace, always ripe for mischief, and always more furious than ever when they think that religion, something of which they do not understand the first letter, and of which they are absolutely destitute, is in danger. Rouse the people, make a pious demonstration, O Demetrius, but know that he who recorded it all for future ages, wrote down your inmost secret—“By this craft we have our wealth!”
Another instance of hypocrisy similar to that of Demetrius, occurred at Philippi. Paul and his comrades had spoiled the business of certain ones who had in charge a damsel who uttered prophecies and told fortunes, by casting out her “spirit of divination.” “And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the market-place unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrate, saying, These men being Jews do exceeding trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to observe, being Romans.” It is patriotism that furnishes the cloak in this case. No allusion to their loss of money—surely not; what matters that? “He who steals my purse steals trash.” But we must do our duty by our fellow-citizens. We must not let these Jewish notions corrupt our civilization. We are loyal Romans, let all the world know! Is there not something in this incident to suggest the truthfulness of Dr. Johnson’s remark, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?”
The result of the uproar was that the apostles were beaten and cast into prison. Somehow it was soon discovered that they themselves were Roman citizens, “and when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeants, saying, Let these men go. And the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go; now, therefore, depart and go in peace.” It is now Paul’s turn to be indignant, and he is not the man to let the opportunity slip. Paul insisted, as he had a right to do, upon his dignity as a Roman citizen. He tartly replied, “They have taken us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do they now thrust us out privily? Nay, verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us.” A touch of nature there! “And they came (meekly enough now, those pompous magistrates) and brought them out.”
A man who never lacked courage was Paul. It had been told him that there were certain ones among the Corinthians who had respect for his letters, but something bordering on contempt for his person. “For his letters, they say, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible.” This is his answer: “Let such an one think this, that such as we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such will we be also in deed, when we are present.” Let those scoffers look to themselves!
In lighter and almost playful vein, is his remark about the church at Corinth, in his second letter: “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.” And yet there was one point in which the Corinthian church was inferior to others: “For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome unto you?” Paul had allowed the other churches with which he labored to support him, but to the Corinthian church he had not accorded the same privilege. He had favored it with no opportunity for benevolence. “Forgive me,” he exclaims, “this wrong.”
Paul relates that on one occasion he had a dispute with Peter at Antioch, in which he “withstood Peter to the face, because Peter was to blame.” It is to be doubted whether Peter ever quite forgot this dispute. The memory of it may have lingered and been particularly active when he referred in one of his own letters to “our beloved brother Paul who, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles speaking of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unstable and unlearned do wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, (pray do not think that I am making brother Paul’s writings an exception) to their own destruction.”
There is another phase of this general subject that is reserved for separate treatment in the following chapter. We pause here to say that the people of Bible times have been removed from the people of to-day by a chasm too wide and deep. We have been accustomed to look upon them as belonging to another race—almost to another world. It is difficult to believe that they were “men of like passions with ourselves.” It seems almost like sacrilege to intimate that they had their follies and weaknesses; that they did things absurd and laughable, and sometimes went farther and did things that were mean and wicked. There was a vast deal of human nature in those sublime characters. Gail Hamilton sums them up as follows: “Adam had dominion over the earth, but he attempted to shield himself from the divine displeasure by laying the blame upon his wife, which no gentleman would ever do. Noah was a ‘just man and perfect in his generation,’ if you do not mind an occasional fit of drunkenness. Abraham was a fine old sheik, a truly heroic figure, brave, generous, courteous, hospitable, magnanimous; no wonder the haughty Jews loved to remember and repeat that they were Abraham’s children. But Abraham had his weaknesses and fell before his temptations; and Isaac followed in his footsteps. Of Jacob perhaps the least said the better, though he maintained his position as head of his family with unrelenting vigor, calling no man master, either son or king. There may have been other men whose life was ‘without fear and without reproach’; but their history is unknown to us; their portrait is hardly more than a name.”