Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 2.djvu/284

274 under the more general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly happy, and the ludicrous effect produced by it excessively strong. To this class also belongs the following announcement from Hall in a newspaper of March 1851: "The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were again delivered over to us with obligate accompaniment." This subsuming of a police escort under a musical term is very happy, though it approaches the mere play upon words. On the other hand, it is exactly a case of the kind we are considering when Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli, describes him as "Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body." The small statue of the actor was known to the whole town, and thus under the conception "great" unusual smallness was presented to the mind. Also when the same Saphir calls the airs of a new opera "good old friends," and so brings the quality which is most to be condemned under a conception which is usually employed to commend. Also, if we should say of a lady whose favour could be influenced by presents, that she knew how to combine the utile with the dulci. For here we bring the moral life tinder the conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an æsthetical reference. Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the "modest abode of quiet joys." Good society, in order to be thoroughly insipid, has forbidden all decided utterances, and therefore all strong expressions. Therefore it is wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them by expressing them through general conceptions. But in this way it happens that they are more or less incongruously subsumed, and in a corresponding degree the effect of the ludicrous is produced. To this class belongs the use of utile dulci referred to above, and also such expressions as the following: "He had unpleasantness at the ball when he was thrashed and kicked out; or, "He has done too well" when he is drunk; and also, "The woman has