“Life, from the angle of seventeen, is so dreadfully funny—seen from the angle of thirty-eight,” she assured me—though why it should be “funny” she was not apparently able to explain.
“It may be interesting, but I don’t see anything particularly funny about it, Aunt Augusta,” I answered, slightly hurt at the adjective.
She did not attempt to argue, but continued:
“You must promise me to write your eighteenth year, too,” she said. “It will be something for your old aunt to look forward to. You must promise faithfully.”
“That depends,” I answered rather coldly. “Life is life, and I find it a serious thing, though it may seem ‘dreadfully funny’ to you, Aunt Augusta. Anyhow, funny or not funny, I shall not butcher my eighteenth year to make a Roman holiday, as they say. Important things must happen to me in my eighteenth year. Nobody can get through their eighteenth year without important events; but if you think———”
“Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean it for a moment. It’s a lovely diary, and I shall always treasure it, and I wouldn’t have a word altered—and it’s my birthday, so you mustn’t be cross.”
Well, I forgave her; because she’s really a jolly old thing, and of the greatest assistance to me behind the scenes, so to speak. Besides, everybody knows that the feminine sense of humour is merely dust and ashes. No doubt, if I had written with badinage or pleasantry, in a light and transient vein, enlivened by sparks of persiflage and burlesque, she would have taken it in a tearful spirit and cried over it.
But only a woman can laugh at the naked truth; men know it’s a jolly sight too serious. To laugh at my diary was the act of the same woman who drank champagne on the night of the revolution. We must remember that they are not as we are, and treat them accordingly.