LIONEL TRILLING
497
systems of honor and morality which never never will he be able com–
plete!y to get rid of, 3. the attainment of "ideals," of
a priori
desires, of
a
priori
emotions. He should amuse himself with fact only: he will
then not learn that if the weak younger son do or do not the magical
honorable thing he will win the princess with hair like flax.
It
is ob–
jected that he will not ever learn of beauty and he will never desire:
but he will and if he do not that is his choice.
If
he read a true ac–
count of a polar expedition he will find both misery and glamor
&
he
may balance his account. He will learn the so-necessary thing that
every lovely thing may-must?-have a sordid disagreeable founda–
tion. He will come out for the world without preconceptions, without
self-deceptions which it will take him years to set right. -Poetry he
might read because of the element which Wordsworth notes of for–
mal unreality. The great books taught me, they never made me dream.
The bad books made me dream and hurt me: I was right when 4 years
ago I said that the best rule-of-thumb for judgment of a good novel
or play was- Do you want to be the hero?
If
you do, the work is bad.
(1931-32?)
Humor seems almost never to be revolutionary-as the common
opinion makes it out to be: see the
Nation's
praise of Peter Arno
1
&
Cohen's
2
anger that Arno really exalts and defends the class he
seems to attack. But Aristophanes was a Tory
&
hated Socrates' seri–
ousness with the usual Tory's hate of it. The fabliaux were not
discouraged by the Church (see the Churl in Heaven). Cervantes
was far from revolutionary. Rabelais defended an aristocratic ideal.
Dickens ...
3
Carlyle says that a sense of humor is a kind of inverted
sense of sublimity: it raises what is generally lowly into our affec–
tions. By affording a comic katharsis, Falstaff and Charlie Chaplin
draw off our resentment of what is above us. Probably it is impossi–
ble for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do lit–
tle more than generate irony.
(1931-32?)
Reading Mill's Autobiography for the about 3rd time. Remember–
ing how I used to find it dull and gray and now enormously rich and
exciting, I understand how very changed I have become. Especially
the parts relating to his difficulties with the problems of government
are exciting....
1
Cartoonist for
The New Yorker.
2
Elliot E. Cohen, editor of
The Menorah journal.
3Trilling's ellipsis.
