Delphi complete works of.., p.203
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 203
The average man is not, by statistics, a great traveller. The poor fellow has been only sixty-two miles away from his own home. He owns nine-tenths of a Ford car, punctures a tire once every twenty-two days, and spends, in the course of his whole life, a month and a half underneath his car.
The education of the average man cost $350. But it didn’t get him far. He stopped — according to the educational statistics — within one year of being ready for a college. Most of the things he learned had no meaning for him. He gave up algebra without yet knowing what it was about.
By the time I had got to this point of the investigation I began to realize what a poor shrimp the average man is. Think of him with his mean stature and his little chin and his Ford car and his fear of the dark and his home in Honkville, Indiana, or Red Hat, Saskatchewan. And think of his limited little mind! The average man, it seems, never forms an opinion for himself. The poor nut can’t do it. He just follows the opinions of other men.
I would like ever so much to start a movement for getting above the average. Surely if we all try hard, we can all lift ourselves up high above the average. It looks a little difficult mathematically, but that’s nothing.
Think how fine it would be to get away from the average — to mingle with men seven feet high and women six feet round; to consort with people who wouldn’t tell a lie except for big money, and to have friends who could solve cross-word puzzles without having to buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica!
But the only trouble with such a movement is that if I did really start it, and if I could, with great labor and persuasion, get it going and it began to succeed, then who would come flocking into it but the darned little average man himself. As long as it was unsuccessful, he’d keep out of it. But let it once succeed and in he’d come. That’s exactly his dirty little nature.
In short, now that I think of it I am not so keen on appealing to the average man. Nothing ever does appeal to him, until it has made a terrible hit somewhere else.
I had just brought my investigation to this point when I realized that I had forgotten about the average woman. What about her? Where does she come out?
So I picked up the census volumes again and took another little run through them.
The average woman, it seems, does not live at Honkville, Indiana, or at Red Hat, Saskatchewan. The percentage of women in the population being much greater in the eastern part of the country, the average woman lives one hundred and five miles east of the average man. But she is getting nearer to him every day. Oh, yes, she is after him, all right!
It is also clear that the average woman is about half an inch taller than the average man. Women, taken individually, are no doubt not so tall as men, but, on the average, a woman is just a little taller. Men will find it a little difficult to understand how this can be, but any woman can see it at once.
In point of personal appearance, it may be estimated that women, taken as an average, wear their hair just below their shirt collar and have their skirts, at an average, always two inches higher than they were a year before.
The average woman gets married at twenty-seven, has two children and a quarter, and is divorced once in every eight years.
In morals the average woman is away ahead of the man. Everybody knows this in a general way, but it is very pleasing to see it corroborated by cold, hard statistics.
The man as we have seen above, spends a week in the penitentiary. But the woman is there only half a day. In her whole life she consumes only one and a half gills of whiskey, but, on the other hand, she eats, according to the director of the census, four tons of candy. She is devoted to her two and a quarter children, but she makes more fuss over the quarter of a child than she does over the two whole ones.
In point of intellect, the average woman cannot reason and cannot think. But she can argue. The average woman, according to the educational section of the census, only got as far in arithmetic as improper fractions. Those stopped her.
And yet, take her as she is — even with her hair bobbed round her ears and her skirt higher than it was, and her inability to add or to reason — she is all right. The average man comes out of the investigation as a poor insignificant shrimp. But with the average woman, the more you think about her, the better she appears.
Perhaps on second thoughts I might dedicate this book to the average woman. But then, unfortunately, the average woman reads nothing — or nothing except love stories.
STEPHEN LEACOCK
McGill University
1926
The Outlines of Everything
DESIGNED FOR BUSY People at Their Busiest
A Preface to the Outlines
Within recent years it is becoming clear that a university is now a superfluous institution. College teaching is being replaced by such excellent little manuals as the “Fireside University Series,” the “World’s Tiniest Books,” the “Boys Own Comic Sections,” and the “Little Folks Spherical Trigonometry.” Thanks to books such as these no young man in any station of life need suffer from an unsatisfied desire for learning. He can get rid of it in a day. In the same way any business man who wishes to follow the main currents of history, philosophy and radio-activity may do so while changing his shirt for dinner.
The world’s knowledge is thus reduced to a very short compass. But I doubt if even now it is sufficiently concentrated. Even the briefest outlines yet produced are too long for the modern business man. We have to remember that the man is busy. And when not busy he is tired. He has no time to go wading through five whole pages of print just to find out when Greece rose and fell. It has got to fall quicker than that if it wants to reach him. As to reading up a long account, with diagrams, of how the protozoa differentiated itself during the twenty million years of the pleistocene era into the first invertebrate, the thing is out of the question. The man hasn’t got twenty million years. The whole process is too long. We need something shorter, snappier, something that brings more immediate results.
From this point of view I have prepared a set of Outlines of Everything covering the whole field of science and literature. Each section is so written as to give the busy man enough and just exactly enough of each of the higher branches of learning. At the moment when he has had enough, I stop. The reader can judge for himself with what accuracy the point of complete satiety has been calculated.
Volume One — The Outline of Shakespeare
Designed to make Research Students in Fifteen Minutes. A Ph.D. degree granted immediately after reading it.
1. Life of Shakespeare. We do not know when Shaksper was born nor where he was born. But he is dead.
From internal evidence taken off his works after his death we know that he followed for a time the profession of a lawyer, a sailor and a scrivener and he was also an actor, a bartender and an ostler. His wide experience of men and manners was probably gained while a bartender. (Compare: Henry V, Act V, Scene 2. “Say now, gentlemen, what shall yours be?”)
But the technical knowledge which is evident upon every page shows also the intellectual training of a lawyer. (Compare: Macbeth, Act VI, Scene 4. “What is there in it for me?”) At the same time we are reminded by many passages of Shakspere’s intimate knowledge of the sea. (Romeo and Juliet. Act VIII, Scene 14. “How is her head now, nurse?”)
We know, from his use of English, that Shagsper had no college education.
His Probable Probabilities
As an actor Shicksper, according to the current legend, was of no great talent. He is said to have acted the part of a ghost and he also probably took parts as Enter a citizen, a Tucket sounds, a Dog barks, or a Bell is heard within. (Note. We ourselves also have been a Tucket, a Bell, a Dog and so forth in our college dramatics days. Ed.)
In regard to the personality of Shakespere, or what we might call in the language of the day Shakespere the Man, we cannot do better than to quote the following excellent analysis done, we think, by Professor Gilbert Murray, though we believe that Brander Matthews helped him a little on the side.
“Shakespere was probably a genial man who probably liked his friends and probably spent a good deal of time in probable social intercourse. He was probably good tempered and easy going with very likely a bad temper. We know that he drank (Compare: Titus Andronicus, Act I, Scene I. “What is there to drink?”), but most likely not to excess. (Compare: King Lear, Act II, Scene I. “Stop!” and see also Macbeth, Act X, Scene 20. “Hold! Enough!”) Shakespere was probably fond of children and most likely of dogs, but we don’t know how he stood on porcupines.
“We imagine Shakespeare sitting among his cronies in Mitre Tavern, joining in the chorus of their probable songs, and draining a probable glass of ale, or at times falling into reverie in which the majestic pageant of Julius Caesar passes across his brooding mind.”
To this excellent analysis we will only add. We can also imagine him sitting anywhere else we like — that in fact is the chief charm of Shakesperian criticism.
The one certain thing which we know about Shakespere is that in his will he left his second best bed to his wife.
Since the death of S. his native town — either Stratford upon Avon or somewhere else — has become a hallowed spot for the educated tourist. It is strange to stand today in the quiet street of the little town and to think that here Shakespeare actually lived — either here or elsewhere — and that England’s noblest bard once mused among these willows — or others.
Works of Shakespeare
Our first mention must be of the Sonnets, written probably, according to Professor Matthews, during Shakesbur’s life and not after his death. There is a haunting beauty about these sonnets which prevents us from remembering what they are about. But for the busy man of today it is enough to mention, “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes,” “Rock Me to Sleep Mother,” “Hark, Hark the Dogs do Bark.” Oh, yes, quite enough. It will get past him every time.
The Historical Plays
Among the greatest of Shakespeare’s achievements are his historical plays, — Henry I, Henry II, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VII and Henry VIII. It is thought that Shakespeare was engaged on a play dealing with Henry IX when he died. It is said to have been his opinion that having struck a good thing he had better stay with it.
There is doubt as to authorship of part, or all, of some of these historical plays. In the case of Henry V, for example, it is held by the best critics that the opening scene (100 lines) was done by Ben Jonson. Then Shakespeare wrote 200 lines (all but half a line in the middle) which undoubtedly is Marlowe’s.
Then Jonson, with a little help from Fletcher, wrote 100 lines. After that Shakespear, Massinger and Marlowe put in 10 lines each. But from this point the authorship is confused, each sticking in what he could.
But we ourselves are under no misapprehension as to what is Shakespeare’s and what is not. There is a touch which we recognize every time. When we see the real Shakespeare, we know it. Thus, whenever it says “A Tucket Sounds, Enter Gloucester with Hoboes,” we know that Shakespeare, and only Shakespeare, could have thought of that. In fact Shakespeare could bring in things that were all his own, such as:— “Enter Cambridge followed by An Axe.” “Enter Oxford followed by a Link.” His lesser collaborators could never get the same niceness of touch. Thus, when we read, “Enter the Earl of Richmond followed by a pup,” we realize that it is poor work.
Another way in which we are able to test whether or not a historical play is from Shakespeare’s own pen is by the mode of address used by the characters. They are made to call one another by place designations instead of by their real names. “What says our brother France?” or “Well, Belgium, how looks it to you?” “Speak on, good Burgundy, our ears are yours.” We ourselves have tried to imitate this but could never quite get it; our attempt to call our friends “Apartment B, the Grosvenor,” and to say “Go to it, the Marlborough, Top Floor No. 6” has practically ended in failure.
The Great Tragedies
Every educated person should carry in his mind an outline idea of the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. This outline when reduced to what is actually remembered by playgoers and students is not difficult to acquire. Sample:
Hamlet (not to be confused with Omelette which was written by Voltaire). Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, lived among priceless scenery and was all dressed in black velvet. He was deeply melancholy. Either because he was mad, or because he was not, Hamlet killed his uncle and destroyed various other people whose names one does not recall.
The shock of this drove Ophelia to drown herself, but oddly enough when she threw herself in the water she floated, and went down the river singing and shouting. In the end Hamlet killed Laertes and himself, and others leaped into his grave until it was quite full when the play ends. People who possess this accurate recollection rightly consider themselves superior to others.
Shakespeare and Comparative Literature
Modern scholarship has added greatly to the interest in Shakespeare’s work by investigating the sources from which he took his plays. It appears that in practically all cases they were old stuff already. Hamlet quite evidently can be traced to an old Babylonian play called Humlid and this itself is perhaps only a version of a Hindoo tragedy, The Life of William Johnson.
The play of Lear was very likely taken by S. from the old Chinese drama of Li-Po, while Macbeth, under the skilled investigation of modern scholars, shows distinct traces of a Scottish origin.
In effect, Shakespeare, instead of sitting down and making up a play out of his head, appears to have rummaged among sagas, myths, legends, archives and folk lore, much of which must have taken him years to find.
Personal Appearance
In person Shakespeare is generally represented as having a pointed beard and bobbed hair, with a bald forehead, large wide eyes, a salient nose, a retreating chin and a general expression of vacuity, verging on imbecility.
Summary
The following characteristics of Shakespeare’s work should be memorized — majesty, sublimity, grace, harmony, altitude, also scope, range, reach, together with grasp, comprehension, force and light, heat and power.
Conclusion: Shakespeare is a very good writer.
Volume Two — The Outline of Evolution
Specially Revised to Suit Everybody, and Particularly Adapted for the Schools of Tennessee.
It seems that recently there has been a lot of new trouble about the theory of evolution in the schools. Either the theory is being taught all wrong or else there is something the matter with it. For years it had seemed as if the doctrine of Evolution was so universally accepted as to lose all its charm. It was running as a close second to Spherical Trigonometry and Comparative Religion and there was no more excitement about it than there is over Anthropology.
Then suddenly something seems to have happened. A boy in a Kansas public school threw down his book and said that the next time he was called a protozoon he’d quit the class. A parent in Ostaboola, Oklahoma, wrote to the local school board to say that for anyone to teach his children that they were descended from monkeys cast a doubt upon himself which he found intolerable. After that the wave of protest swept through the colleges.
The students marched in processions carrying banners with the motto “Are we baboons? Rah, Rah, Apes!” The Rotary Clubs of town after town voted by a standing vote that they were unable to support (or to understand) the doctrine of biological biogenesis, and they wanted it taken away.
The Woman’s Culture Club of Winona, Utah, moved that the name of Charles Darwin be changed in the text books of the state to that of W. J. Bryan. The Anti-Saloon League voted that the amount of Darwinianism that should be licensed in the schools should not be more than one-half of one per cent.
It is to meet this difficult situation that the present outline of Evolution has been prepared. It is intended so to revise and modify the rigid character of the theory as to make it acceptable to everybody.
The obvious beginning of the matter is to present the theory of evolution as it stood before the trouble began in Tennessee. Each of us at that time carried in his head an outline, a little bit hazy, but still usable, of the Doctrine of Evolution as we remembered it from our college training.
Outline of Evolution as Dimly Recalled from College Education
We are all descended from monkeys. This descent, however, took place a long time ago and there is no shame in it now. It happened two or three thousand years ago and must have been after and not before the Trojan war.
We have to remember also that there are several kinds of monkeys. There is the ordinary monkey seen in the street with the hand organ (communis monacus), the baboon, the giboon (not Edward,) the bright, merry, little chimpanzee, and the hairy ourang-outang with the long arms. Ours is probably the hairy ourang-outang.
But the monkey business is only part of it. At an earlier stage men were not even that. They probably began as worms. From that they worked up to being oysters; after that they were fish, then snakes, then birds, then flying squirrels, and at last monkeys.
The same kind of change passed over all the animals. All the animals are descended from one another. The horse is really a bird, and is the same animal as the crow. The differences between them are purely superficial. If a crow had two more feet and no feathers it would be a horse except for its size.
The whole of these changes were brought about by what is called the Survival of the Fittest. The crookedest snake outlived the others. Each creature had to adapt itself or bust.
The giraffe lengthened its neck. The stork went in for long legs. The hedgehog developed prickles. The skunk struck out an independent line of its own. Hence the animals that we see about us — as the skunk, the toad, the octopus, and the canary — are a highly selected lot.
