WOMEN'S HUMOUR.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20098, 29 November 1930, Page 13

WOMEN'S HUMOUR.

(specially written for the tress.) [Ey Cyrano. ] An Fnjtlish p iblicist is reported to luive remarked locently that there iv.i* no w iman "'opiKJsitc" number" to Mr I'. G. Wodehouse. that there was no Wilhelmina Rogers, no Stcphcnctta Ijeacock, no femin'no D. B. Wyndliam or A. P. Herbert, or Low, or Ben Travors. In Inct be seems to have charged woman, directly or by implication, with being much interior to man in the creation of humour And when you come to think of it, the out* nut of man's humour in literature and in art is vastly greater than woman's It is not that woman's sense of humour is ncccssaii.y inferior to mans, though a great many men think it is. Manv women have n very keen sense of humour; some of thetn, on-' suv pects, find life intolerable without it. They have wit and subtlety and irony and a tine sense of the ridiculous. Women, however, do not seem able to rival men in the supp.ying of broad sireams of popular ntimour. it ts significant thai thev do not ivnto farces 1 may be wron;>, out I believe that all the ruarinci -ueeesses among larees —" r i lie Private Secretary, "Chariey's Auik," "When 1-CiugiiiS Were B .Id," to name three have oeen the iv.irk of men. N.ir can I think oi any comic obick and white artist who is or was a woman.

Turn. lift to Mr I'riesi.ey's admirable little book on iiing..sii humour for enli'jlitennunt, I find that he mentions onl • three women novelists —Jane Austen, Mrs Gaskeil, and Ceorge Kliot In the erection of gre.it comic characters mm are first and women almost no.vlicre. I would leave out the "almusi" were it not for the -\L. Collins of Jane Austen. (You must call him "Mr ' Co ii" *.) ft is one of the extraordinary things about Jane's genius that, wuilo she is essentially a painter of polite society i'i a very n-sr rict.ed sphere—Mr Priestley describes tier as "a very cool woman, delo-ateiy and delicious.\ raising her eyebrows"—:he created in Mr Collins one of the great drolls of our literature, a glorious fool who is gigiintic and universal in his folly. Englisls comic literature is ; ich indeed in giants of humour drawn with i:i:mense gusto ill bruad and of.en coarse and greasy n.n.kes, cr. ::fares of more than mortal stature. They are one of the glories of Kng! ; sh letters. Kalstafl", Un le Toby. Parson Ad.°ms, Micawber, and Mrs Camp are as as crieUet er a Warwick .hire lane. They towir above the ordinary run of humour because they are • mag.ned with the intensity of genius and filled out with its sympathy. The English love the droll character just as tley love nonsense verse:!: it is the eteriK'l child within them that demands Mu-li humour. Charlie Chaplin is in the Irftdith n, and so is Marry Laud"i\ Mr Collins is akin to thes_> huge and exuberant immortals. lie is, I should think the only character of the kind created by a woman in Knglish literature. Mr Priestley th'nks his p.opcsal to Elizabeth easily the best comic proposal:

reasons for are thur 1 think it a right tlrnj; for every clergyman in easy c'rcntpstnr>'V;R (like ir.yself) to set e?:ui:ip!e of m«ti imonv in hi* pariah: Rccondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to m\ haiu>in« ss : th'rdly. \v!ii : -h perh.-'pH I to iuive m"ntioTi'-d eirlir-r, th-n it is the particular fl(lv'.-e ar.d rooomtr.einlntion ef vi'ry not-'o 'adv whom I have the honour of calling patroness. .

But why quote more? T should say this was not onlv the fimn:c;t ]>roposal in lit; ratr.re, but oi:e of the tv.o or three most richly humorous s cues in Knplisli. It goes with the trial scene in "I'icltwirlc.''

When you come to Mrs Gaskell you come to a different form of humour. "Cranfo.d" is delightful, exquisite, a c assic of sentimental humour, but th?ie is no Mr Collins. Jane Austen reaches out from her c'rcumscribed wo:ld of tea-tabics and local balls, and touches the great boisterous world of Dickens and Fielding, but M-s Gaskell remains in hsr village. As for George Eiiot, I cannot help feeling that her humour has something to do with her dec ine in popularity. It is genuine humour, but I think it has been over-rated, and it is not to the taste of our time. Not even the interpretative art of Mr Alexander Watson can make me feel th.it M s Poyser is a g cat comic character. But what does it matter. "Mid.ileina. ch" remains one of the greatest of English novels.

Among present-day woman writers there is plenty of w'.t and humour, but in the broad humour that captures the c.owd mon are still far superior. Much of woman's wit and humour :s intellectual and somewhat acrid. Rcbc Macaulay, for example, seems to laugh at life rather than with it. The German "Eli-'.-vbcth" do s both, b"t she e-n be very bitter. As a wit and a humorist she is excep.iona ly gifted; if iou doubt it read the conversation between father and daughter on the subject of food in "F.aul-in Schmidt and Mr Anstruther." Then, as a tour do force in sustained humorous ir- : •, "The Caravanners" has hardly been i.jttered in our time. The wonderful Irish partnership cannot be omitted. Edith Somcrville and Ma.'tin Ross are genuine liumo ists, with more than a touch of the qualities associated with male writers. They are as successful with their men as with their women. Flu ry Knox and Slipper, to say nothing of a crowd of minor characters, are fully a'ive and racy of the soil. It is interesting to compa-e these collaborators with "George Birmingham," who also writes do'iglitfully of Irish life. Canon Hannay hns the man's capacity for farce; his J. .T. Meldon and the scenes in "General John Regan" are funn'er in a boisterous way than anything in the "Irish R.M.," but the women are the finer artists, and I think they will outlive the other.

We iirrd the* a°-me thing in tative art. The great clowns and drolls on the stag 3 are men. Tlieie are, of course, mnny women who are very popular by reason of similar qualities—Marie Lloyd, for example, whom Mr Priestley mentions—but they do not rival an Albert Ch~valicr, a Dan Leno, or a Harry Lauder. There has been no female Char ie Chaplin, as there has been no woman who wrote glorious nonsense like Low'.s C.'rroll. Virginia Woolf m'ght retort that all this is not entirely woman's fault; she has lacked, in the of this novelist, a room of her own. That is to day, man has had all the advantages of comfort and leisure and att n'ion. T.t, is true also that, at any rate until the pressnt time, man has had a far wider field of world'y experience open to him. He could /jo where he liked and saimle every stream. We sha'l see. In a world of free women the sex miy do what it has not done before; it may conquer the whole field of humour. On the other hand it may be that what we hn"e been considering is caused by fur'Vun-ntal differences between the and that all the vo'es and latch-keys in the world will not en-hi" 1 women to muni men in the creation of great h-mour.