Rather it was invented by old
people trying to prove their first childhood, and sometimes succeeding
only in proving their second. But whatever else the thing was, it was
English and it was individual. Lewis Carroll gave mathematics a holiday:
he carried logic into the wild lands of illogicality. Edward Lear, a
richer, more romantic and therefore more truly Victorian buffoon,
improved the experiment. But the more we study it, the more we shall, I
think, conclude that it reposed on something more real and profound in
the Victorians than even their just and exquisite appreciation of
children. It came from the deep Victorian sense of humour.
It may appear, because I have used from time to time the only possible
phrases for the case, that I mean the Victorian Englishman to appear as
a blockhead, which means an unconscious buffoon. To all this there is a
final answer: that he was also a conscious buffoon--and a successful
one. He was a humorist; and one of the best humorists in Europe. That
which Goethe had never taught the Germans, Byron did manage to teach the
English--the duty of not taking him seriously.
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