"Try to say something original, James: that is stale. Jane asks me that about six times a day, and Mabel frequently, and—and the others. I was serious with you just now, or nearly: had I been entirely so, I might have knocked the top of your head off, and then they would have blamed me at home. You see, they think you are more of a man than you show yourself. To be serious all the time is the most serious mistake one can make in life; and I want no worse example than you. When I go back to town I shall write the Decline and Fall of an Alleged Seeker after Truth, who missed it by taking things too seriously. You are too stiff and narrow and rigid and dogmatic: you take one point of view and stick to it like grim death. You can't get at Truth in that way."
"I suppose you would stand on your head and look at it upside down, and then turn a back somersault and view it from between your legs."
"You express it inelegantly, but you have caught the idea. Truth is not a half pound package done up in brown paper and permanently deposited in one corner of the pantry shelf; she is big and various and active. While you have your head fixed in the iron grip and are staring at the sign 'Terms Cash,' she is off to the other side of the room—and you don't make a good picture at all in that constrained attitude. Your mind has got to be nimble and unbiassed if you want to overtake her, because she is always changing: that is, she appears in new and—to you—unexpected places. I gave you a hint of this in May, and another last summer, but you seem to have forgotten it. O, I could sit here all night and explain it to you, if you were in the right frame of mind."
"No doubt: happily I am not. What has this to do with your defence of buffoonery, and apotheosis of clowns and pantomimes?"
"A pantomime is a very good thing in its way. But that is your illustration; I would rather say opera bouffe, which is probably the truest copy of Life—if we were limited to one kind. But we are not: I tell you, we must have all sorts. There is tragedy in Life, and comedy—that more especially; a little of the other goes a long way. But they are always mixed—not kept apart, and one alone taken in large and frequent doses, after your fashion. Shakespeare understood his business pretty well; though, if I had been he, I would have put in more of those light and graceful touches which hit us where we live, and make the whole world kin."
"Like the Dromios, or the Carriers in Henry Fourth."
"Or the Gravediggers; they are more to your purpose. I want you to see that Humor is the general solvent and reconciler, the key that opens most locks: a feeling for it, well developed, would be money in your pocket. Things don't go to suit you, and you think your powers of the air are frowning, the universe a vault, and the canopy a funeral pall: perhaps the powers are only laughing at you, and want you to smile with them. If you could do that, it would let in light on your darkness. Any situation, properly viewed, has its amusing elements: if you ignore them, you fail to understand the whole. What did Heine say about his irregular Latin nouns? That his knowledge of them, in many a gloomy hour, supplied much inward consolation and delight. You ought to read him more, Jim."
"And Josh Billings, and Bill Nye. Well, that's enough of your wisdom for to-night. We must arrange for to-morrow. Are you up to another scramble?"
"Not like to-day's. Let's take in some decent scenery along with the trout."
"There is a wild gorge ten miles off, with a brook in it. We can take Hodge's mare, put up at a house, and work down the ravine. It's not so bad as the last place, nor so good for fish." I agreed, and we went to bed.