Moreover, and, yea, more, as to smiles and laughter, don't you know what another poet says?—Shakspeare, for instance:
"''Tis better to laugh than be sighing;'
or, as Lord Bacon, or Plato, or somebody else says, 'Laugh and grow fat.' And didn't John Bunyan prefer the House of Mirth to the House of Mourning?
"'John Bunyan was a tinker bold,
His name we all delight in;
All day he tinkered pots and pans,
All night he stuck to writin'.
In Bedford streets bold Johnny toiled,
An ordinary tinker;
In Bedford jail bold Johnny wrote—
Old England's wisest thinker.
About the Pilgrims Johnny wrote,
Who made the emigration;
And the Pilgrim Fathers they became
Of the glorious Yankee nation.
Ad urbem ivit Doodlius cum
Caballo et calone,
Ornavit plnma pilenm
Et diiit:—Maccaroni!'
"Excuse me," he continued; "you don't understand dog-Latin, do you, Talbot?"
"No," said she, with a smile, "but I understand you, Brooke."
"Well," said Brooke, "but apart from the great question of one another which is just now fixing us on the rack, or on the wheel, or pressing us to any other kind of torment, and considering the great subject of mirthfulness merely in the abstract, do you not see how true it is that it is and must be the salt of life, that it preserves all living men from sourness, and decay, and moral death? Now, there's Watts, for instance—Isaac Watts, you know, author of that great work, 'Watts's Divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Infant Minds,' or it may have been 'Watts's Divine Songs and Spiritual Hymns for Infant Mind.' I really don't remember. It's of no consequence. Now, what was Watts? Why, on my side altogether. Read his works. Consult him in all emergencies. If anything's on your mind, go and find Watts on the mind. It'll do you good. And as the song says:
"'Oh, the Reverend Isaac Watts, D.D.,
Was a wonderful boy at rhyme;
So let every old bachelor fill up his glass
And go in for a glorious time.
Chorus.—Let dogs delight
To bark and bite,
But we'll be jolly, my lads, to-night.'"
During this last little diversion Brooke never turned his eyes toward Talbot. She was close by his side; but he stood looking out of the window, and in that attitude kept rattling on in his most nonsensical way. It was only in this one fact of his careful manner of eluding the grasp, so to speak, of Talbot's eyes, that an observer might discern anything but the most careless gayety. To Talbot, however, there was something beneath all this, which was very plainly visible; and to her, with her profound insight into Brooke's deeper nature, all this nonsense offered nothing that was repellent; on the contrary, she found it most touching and most sad. It seemed to her like the effort of a strong man to rid himself of an overmastering feeling—a feeling deep within him that struggled forever upward and would not be repressed. It rose up constantly, seeking to break through all bounds; yet still he struggled against it; and still, as he felt himself grow weaker in the conflict, he sought refuge in fresh outbursts of unmeaning words. But amidst it all Talbot saw nothing except the man who had gone forth to die for her, and in all his words heard nothing except the utterance of that which proved the very intensity of his feelings.
"Oh yes," continued Brooke, "there are lots of authorities to be quoted in favor of mirthfulness. I've already mentioned Bunyan and Watts. I'll give you all the rest of the old divines.