Would not the Comic view of the discussion illumine it and the disputants
like very lightning? There are questions, as well as persons, that only
the Comic can fitly touch.
Aristophanes would probably have crowned the ancient tree, with the
consolatory observation to the haggard line of long-expectant heirs of
the Centenarian, that they live to see the blessedness of coming of a
strong stock. The shafts of his ridicule would mainly have been aimed at
the disputants. For the sole ground of the argument was the old man's
character, and sophists are not needed to demonstrate that we can very
soon have too much of a bad thing. A Centenarian does not necessarily
provoke the Comic idea, nor does the corpse of a duke. It is not provoked
in the order of nature, until we draw its penetrating attentiveness to
some circumstance with which we have been mixing our private interests,
or our speculative obfuscation. Dulness, insensible to the Comic, has the
privilege of arousing it; and the laying of a dull finger on matters of
human life is the surest method of establishing electrical communications
with a battery of laughter--where the Comic idea is prevalent.
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