Mr. MacBorrowdale. I think you may just buz that bottle before you.
Lord Curryfin. I mean your opinion of Greek perspective?
Mr. MacBorrowdale. Troth, I am of opinion that a bottle looks smaller at a distance than when it is close by, and I prefer it as a full-sized object in the foreground.
Lord Curryfin. I have often wondered that a gentleman so well qualified as you are to discuss all subjects should so carefully avoid discussing any.
Mr. MacBorrowdale. After dinner, my lord, after dinner. I work hard all the morning at serious things, sometimes till I get a headache, which, however, does not often trouble me. After dinner I like to crack my bottle and chirp and talk nonsense, and fit myself for the company of Jack of Dover.
Lord Curryfin. Jack of Dover! Who was he?
Mr. MacBorrowdale. He was a man who travelled in search of a greater fool than himself, and did not find him.{1}
1 Jacke of Dover His Quest of Inquirie, or His Privy Search
for the Veriest Foole in England. London, 1604. Reprinted
for the Percy Society, 1842.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. He must have lived in odd times. In our days he would not have gone far without falling in with a teetotaller, or a decimal coinage man, or a school-for-all man, or a competitive examination man, who would not allow a drayman to lower a barrel into a cellar unless he could expound the mathematical principles by which he performed the operation.
Mr. MacBorrowdale. Nay, that is all pragmatical fooling. The fooling Jack looked for was jovial fooling, fooling to the top of his bent, excellent fooling, which, under the semblance of folly, was both merry and wise. He did not look for mere unmixed folly, of which there never was a deficiency. The fool he looked for was one which it takes a wise man to make—a Shakespearian fool.{1}