The Lord Chief-Justice playing croquet with a
pretty girl owes nearly all its point, as a joke, to the popular
awe of him and the mystery which surrounds his mode of life in
popular eyes; a picture of Chief-Justice Chase doing the same
thing would hardly excite a smile, because everybody knows him,
and has known him all his life, and can have access to him at any
hour of the night or day. And then it must be borne in mind that
Paris and London contain all the famous men of France and
England, and anybody who jokes about them is sure of having the
whole public for an audience; while the best New York joke falls
flat in Boston or Philadelphia, and flatter still in Cincinnati
or Chicago, owing to want of acquaintance with the materials of
which it is composed.
We might multiply these illustrations indefinitely, but we have
probably said enough to show anyone that the field open to our
comic writer is very much more restricted than that in which his
European rival labors. He has, in short, to seek his jokes in
character, while the European may draw largely upon manners, and
it is doubtful whether character will ever supply materials for a
really brilliant weekly comedian.
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