VARIED TYPES
worldling, instead of what he was, a man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding which we find in most parody—which we find in all American parody—but which we never find in the parodies of Bret Harte.
"The skies they were ashen and sober,
The streets they were dirty and drear,
It was the dark month of October,
In that most immemorial year.
Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,
But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,
Yes, my thoughts were decidedly queer."
This could only be written by a genuine admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, who permitted himself for a moment to see the fun of the thing. Parody might indeed be defined as the worshipper's half-holiday. The same general characteristic of sympathy amounting to reverence marks Bret Harte's humour in his better-known class of works, the short stories. He does not make his characters absurd in order to
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