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I

THE KING’S JESTER

I have often wondered if we gained much by abolishing the fool — I mean, of course, the professional fool — from courts, castles, and a few other places. It is at least arguable that it would have been better, instead of banishing the fool from the large houses to have introduced him into the small ones. If a thing is a good thing, why should not everybody enjoy it? And a fool is a good thing! Look at the history-books! Look at Wamba in Ivanhoe! There is no gainsaying the fact that the fool cuts a striking and impressive figure in the brave pageant of mediaeval story. I suspect that at some time or other we have all felt a sneaking admiration for him. There he is, with his variegated costume, his flying coat-tails, his pointed slippers, his ass’s ears, his cap and bells, and all the rest of it. No royal palace or baronial hall was complete without its jester. 

And, depend upon it, it was some true human instinct that placed him there. Review these odd characters for a moment in grotesque but picturesque procession! And from Touchstone, the prince of Shakespearian clowns, to Archie Armstrong, the last of our Court Jesters, they make up an amiable and inviting company. Taking them as a whole, they are a lovable lot. Dickens touched with the wand of his genius the apparently sordid assemblage known as Sleary’s Circus Troupe. Instantly an atmosphere of pathos and romance enveloped the performers; and we have all felt tenderly towards smirking clowns and tinselled equestriennes ever since. If only the same wizard had taken it into his head to write a story of the Middle Ages, I am certain that he would have flung the same resistless glamour over the person of the Court Jester. We should all have fallen in love with him; it is even possible that we should have wanted to popularize him. The fool was a fool, it is true; but, generally speaking, the folly of that fool was a little in advance of ordinary people’s wisdom. ‘He is undoubtedly crackt,’ says Miss Baillie in the course of her criticism of poor Touchstone, ‘but, then, the very cracks in his brain are chinks which let in the light,’ Taking Miss Baillie’s criticism at face value, it suggests a curious question. Is it not worth while having a few cracks in your brain if through those chinks the light comes streaming? And if there are a few men in the world whose brains, like those of Touchstone, admit the light, ought they to be banished from courts and castles? Ought they not rather to be welcomed everywhere? 

But I ought to proceed no farther until I have explained the circumstances that led me to break into this strain. Yesterday afternoon I was lying on a grassy cliff overlooking the sea. To my left, down the slope, was a cluster of picturesque old fisher-huts. Far below me the waves were playing over an enormous reef. As I looked down I could see a score of people, shoeless and stockingless, clambering over the rocks in search of such mysterious treasure as the sea had deposited among the cracks and crevices. But I had the laugh of all of them. For I lay still upon the grass and found treasure that put their shells and seaweed to shame. I was reading The Poet at the Breakfast-table when I came upon this gem. ‘One does not have to be a king,’ says the Poet, ‘to know what it is to keep a king’s jester,’ What does he mean? It is a case of ‘Sez I to myself, says If The Old Master is thinking of that inner voice that sometimes speaks in the depths of a man’s soul; and he has been telling of some of the brutally candid criticisms that this second self occasionally addresses to the primary self. ‘I never got such abuse from any blackguard in my life as I get from that Number Two of me! One does not have to be a king to know what it is to keep a king’s jester.’

The point clearly is that, both amidst the dazzling splendours of the court and amidst the awful solitudes of the soul, the king’s jester is the one man who can laugh at the king. And it is a fine thing for the king to have one? man who will look into his face and laugh at him. It is a fine thing for us all to be laughed at at times. That is why I am inclined to lament the abolition of fools. And that is why Jaques, in As You Like It, thought that to be a fool was to be the finest creature breathing. Cried he: 

A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool ! O, that I were a fool !
I am ambitious for a motley coat!

The Duke, naturally enough, questions the melancholy Jaques as to why he is so eager for a fool’s cap. And Jaques replies that he would fain be a fool because a fool can speak the truth, fearing the face of no man. 

… I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please …
Invest me in my motley : give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of th’ infected world
If they will patiently receive my medicine

By this time, I flatter myself, the glory and dignity of the fool’s profession is beginning to appear. Let us glance over the treasures we have picked up so far. 

‘It is a fine thing to be a fool,’ says Joanna Baillie, ‘for the cracks in a fool’s brain are the chinks through which the light comes streaming.’ 

‘It is a fine thing to be a fool,’ says the melancholy Jaques, ‘for a fool can speak the truth whenever he will, fearing the face of no man.’

‘One does not have to be a king,’ says the Poet of the Breakfast-table, ‘to know what it is to keep a king’s jester.’ 

That is the beauty of it. I am not writing for kings. The number of kings who will read this essay of mine is, I am afraid, extremely limited. But kings are not the only people in the world who need to be told the truth. Kings are not the only people in the world who deserve to be laughed at. They were wise kings who taught their jesters to laugh them out of their follies. And if I am half as wise as I sometimes pretend to be, I shall encourage my other self, my Number Two, my Court Jester, to lift up his voice in loud guffaw and boisterous cachinnation at my expense. 

In his lectures on Conscience, Dr. Joseph Cook has a notable address on ‘The Laughter of the Soul at Itself.’ Almost the whole of the lecture is occupied with one illustration — the story of Jean Valjean. Those who have read Victor Hugo’s masterpiece — in some respects the greatest novel ever penned — will instantly see the relevance of the citation. They will recall the skill with which Hugo piles up the interest of the great story until the climax is reached. And at that terrific climax Jean Valjean has to make his great decision. In reality he is an escaped convict; but he is living under an assumed name, is doing well, is the owner of a vast industry, and is loved, honoured, and revered by all the townsfolk. But one day he reads that Jean Valjean has been re-captured and is before the court. Here, then, is the problem. Shall the real Jean Valjean dash to the ground his own happiness, and the happiness of thousands, by declaring himself? Or shall he maintain silence and allow the other man, who is known to be a rogue, to suffer in his stead? Jean Valjean sees, clear as noonday, what he ought to do. He knows that, strictly, he should ‘follow right in scorn of consequence.’ But he cannot bring himself to it. He resolves on silence and security. ‘Just there,’ says Victor Hugo, ‘just there he heard an internal burst of laughter!’ It was the laughter of the soul at itself. Jean Valjean was no king; he was a convict; but, as the Poet of the Breakfast-table says, he knew what it was to keep a king’s jester. 

I am surprised that Dr. Joseph Cook, an American lecturing to Americans, should have gone to French literature for his illustration, excellent as that illustration is. For he might have found an equally good one by staying at home. Nathaniel Hawthorne was also an American; and the laughter even of Jean Valjean is less pronounced than the terrible laughter of Arthur Dimmesdale. Arthur Dimmesdale was a minister; and he and Hester Prynne had sinned. She bore every day the burning brand of her shame, but no inquisitor could wring from her the name of her partner in guilt. Like Jean Valjean, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale had to make a great decision. Should he confess his iniquity and stand in that New England pillory by the side of Hester Prynne? Or should he keep his frightful secret locked up in his own breast and let Hester bear the shame alone? He thought of his name, his position, his influence, his crowded congregation; and he kept silence. He kept silence, that is to say, so far as the world knew. But within! Walking along the streets of his parish, he fancied that he saw himself standing in the pillory beside Hester Prynne, whilst around him there stood, gaping up at him in horror-stricken bewilderment, the officers of the church, the august personages who came from the best dwellings in the city to listen to his eloquence, the decorous matrons who presided over the elegant households in his great congregation, and ‘the young virgins who idolized their minister and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms.’ And as the horror of this picture burst upon his fancy, there rose, in the soul of the distracted young minister, ‘a great peal of laughter.’ Later on Hester tries, good soul that she is, to comfort him. The people reverence thee,’ she says. ‘And surely thou workest good among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort?’ ‘Misery, Hester, more and more misery! What can a ruined soul like mine; effect towards the redemption of other souls? Or a polluted soul towards their purification? Canst thou deem it a consolation that I must stand up in my pulpit, must meet so many eyes turned toward my face as if the light of heaven were beaming from it, must see my flock listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking, and then look inward and discern the black reality! I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am! And Satan laughs at it!’

Arthur Dimmesdale was no king; but he knew what it was to keep a king’s jester. And, even in the pulpit, his Court Jester looked him full in the face and laughed at him! It was the laughter of the soul at itself — the most terrible laughter of all. And his Court Jester gave him no rest day or night until he threw aside all seeming and made his great confession. And then, but not till then, the Court Jester bowed respectfully to his lord, and retired. 

Yes, it does us all good to be laughed at. I sometimes wish that a visitor from Mars would light on this planet just to laugh at us. He would see the funny side of things as we, the inhabitants of the sphere, can never hope to do. He would go to our public libraries, expecting to find them crowded with ignorant people hungry for knowledge. He would find them the haunts of bookworms and philosophers! He would go to our banks, expecting to find them stormed by those who, lacking wealth, had come to fill their hands with treasure. He would find them thronged with the wealthy and the prosperous ! He would go to our great banquets, expecting to find the seats filled with the ragged and the starving. He would find them occupied by the sleek, the well-fed, the well-to-do ! He would come to our churches, expecting that in a world that had received a special revelation of divine regard all the sinners on the face of the earth would rush to hear the message of redeeming love; but he would be sadly disillusioned ! And he would laugh ! Oh, how he would laugh at the madness of our topsyturvy world! His laughter would shake the globe from pole to pole and be heard, like distant thunder, in his native sphere. And that reverberating peal would do us all good. We should have a wiser world if some clear-sighted fool from the celestial spaces were sometimes to come and laugh at us. 

The world has never been particularly clever in recognizing its fools. We so often play charades and indulge in make-believe. It does not at all follow, because a man wears a crown, that he is therefore kingly. It does not at all follow, because a man wears a cap and bells, that he is therefore mad. It often happened, in those archaic days when courts and castles kept their fools, that the fool was the only wise man on the premises. Wisdom often masquerades. She does not cry, nor lift up, nor cause her voice to be heard in the street. As Joaquin Miller says : 

Ah, there be souls none understand,
Like clouds, they cannot touch the land,
Drive as they may by field or town.
Then we look wise at this, and frown,
And we cry, ‘Fool !’ and cry, Take hold
Of earth, and fashion gods of gold!’ 

Unanchored ships, that blow and blow,
Sail to and fro, and then go down
In unknown seas that none shall know,
Without one ripple of renown ;
Poor drifting dreamers, sailing by, 

That seem to only live to die.
Call these not fools; the test of worth
Is not the hold you have on earth.
Lo, there be gentlest souls, sea blown,
That know not any harbour known ;
And it may be the reason is 

They touch on fairer shores than this.
To be a fool — so thought the melancholy Jaques —
was to be the finest creature breathing!
A fool, a fool! I met a fool in the forest,
A motley fool ! O, that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat!

I find that the good Jaques is not alone. Dr. Alexander Whyte, in his Lecture on Festus, quotes old Matthew Mead as saying that ‘he is no true Christian who is not the world’s fool!’ We shall get no farther than that!

‘Oh, to be a fool!’ sighs Miss Joanna Baillie, ‘for the cracks in a fool’s brain are the chinks through which the light comes streaming!’ ‘Oh, to be a fool!’ cries the melancholy Jaques, ‘for a fool can speak the truth whenever he will, fearing the face of no man!’ ‘Oh, to be a fool!’ exclaims the Poet at the Breakfast-table, ‘for a man has not to be a king to know what it is to keep a king’s jester!’ ‘Oh, to be a fool!’ prays old Matthew Mead, ‘for he is no true Christian who is not the world’s fool!’

Was I so very far astray when I suggested that we should have been wiser, instead of banishing fools from royal palaces and baronial halls, had we left them there, and introduced them into all our villas and cottages as well? 

-FWB