Upon thine head, as they have done on mine.”
A TIME TO WEEP, AND A TIME TO LAUGH.
Ecclesiastes iii. 4.
As to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun,—for as Shakspeare words it, “How many things by season seasoned are to their right praise and true perfection!”—be sure that the Wise King includes laughter and weeping in the list. “A time to weep, and a time to laugh.” Acquainted with grief, he had also been familiar with merriment. He had said in his heart, Go to, now, I will prove thee with mirth; but the result was that he said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doeth it?—For all this, he freely recognises a time to laugh, so that one keep to the time. So much depends, here, on the due observance of times and seasons. It is with the frivolous habit of laughing out of season, and at all seasons, that the following notes are concerned.
The laureate’s is a good keynote to begin with:—
“Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearieth me, May Lilian.”
So with Barry Cornwall and his Hermione:—