Mr. Punch's Country Life: Humours of Our Rustics by J. A. Hammerton (top 100 books to read .TXT) 📗

Than the compilation of such a series of books as that which includes the present volume there could surely be no more engaging occupation for one who delights to look on the humorous side of life. The editor feels that if his readers derive as much enjoyment from the result of his labours as these labours have afforded him he may reasonably congratulate them! He has found himself many times over, as a book has taken shape from his gatherings in the treasure house of Mr. Punch, saying "This is the best of the lot"—and usually he has been right. There is none but is "the best!" There may be one that is not quite so good as the other twenty-four; but wild horses would not drag the name of that one from the editor. He feels, however, that in illustrating the humours of country life Mr. Punch has risen to the very summit of his genius. There is, of course, good reason for this, as it is notorious that the richest humour is to be found in the lowly[Pg 6] walks of life, and flourishes chiefly in rustic places where folks are simple and character has been allowed to grow with something of that individuality we find in the untouched products of Nature. Your true humorist has always been in quick sympathy with the humblest of his fellow men. In the village worthy, in poor blundering Hodge, in the rough but kindly country doctor, the picturesque tramp, the droning country parson, the inept curate, the village glee singers, and such like familiar figures of rural England, the humorist has never failed to find that "source of innocent merriment" he might seek for vainly in more exalted ranks of our complex society. But he seeks among the country folk because his heart is there. The very best of Mr. Punch's humorists of the pencil, Charles Keene and Phil May in the past, and Mr. Raven-Hill and Mr. C. E. Brock to-day, have given more consideration to the country ways of life than to any other, and hence the exceeding richness of the present volume. It is thus in no sense a comic picture of Mr. Punch's notions of how the so-called country life is attempted by the townsman—one of the most notable features of our present social conditions—but is, in effect, a refreshing breath of genuine rustic humour, kindly, whole-hearted, and "racy of the soil."