More Quaker Laughter (review)

Book Reviews121 self "more of a Quaker than anything else." But, as Dr. Irie also points out, Emerson could not be "anything else" (that is, commit himself exclusively to any sect) because with him this is an experience of the individual and can only be achieved in "solitude," whereas the Quaker thinks of it as a group experience which is intensified by being shared and which incites to group rather than individual action. Dr. Irie traces the growth of this common emphasis on a self-reliance which is in effect a God-reliance from Emerson's earliest days at Harvard to the point of his purest transcendentalism, 1836-1838, and then argues that his position was very little if any changed between then and 1860 when he wrote his more complex and often apparently skeptical essays and lectures. He aims his attack mainly at Whicher, Carpenter, and others who have argued for a fundamental psychological and theological change in Emerson's position and personality during a major crisis between 1838 and 1844. Particularly telling are his point that Emerson experienced periods of acute self-distrust and despair at various times throughout his life and his argument that, whatever alternatives Emerson offered, he always returned finally to a monistic faith in the one moral law. But even when these arguments are admitted, Emerson's shift to a more dialectic and pragmatic method of presenting his ideas during these years, whatever the reasons, as argued and documented by Rusk, Lindeman, and many other Emerson students, remains to be explained. Dr. Irie does not undertake this much more complex task, but he need not fear to do so because practicality and pragmatism are also shared by Emerson with the Quakers. University of PennsylvaniaRobert E. Spiller More Quaker Laughter. By William H. Sessions. London: William Sessions Ltd., 1967. 144 pages. $2.75. The publication, late last year, of William Sessions' More Quaker Laughter provides us with our second British anthology of humorous Quaker stories and anecdotes. His Laughter in Quaker Grey, also published by his own firm, which first appeared in 1952, was reissued in 1966. These, together with our two American volumes of similar nature (Poley's Friendly Anecdotes and Helen Charles' Quaker Chuckles), give us a considerable body of 'ethno-religious' lore. Some of the British examples are also met with in the American collections, and vice versa. An interesting study could now be made of the British and American variants of similar, and in some cases identical, motifs. Orally transmitted material of course always varies, not only between different areas in the same country and different segments of the same population, but between different countries as well. A systematic study of these variants has never been made of our Quaker lore. Another interesting characteristic, occasionally suggested by the Sessions material, and also quite clearly to be seen in some of the Poley anecdotes, is that there is a discernible difference in tone, in nuance, and of course in locutions used, 122Quaker History when a tale is told about Quakers by Quakers, and when it is related about Friends by non-Friends. This is also an aspect of our lore which has never been investigated or reported. William Sessions makes no folkloristic analysis of the stories he offers us. He writes, of course, as a Friend, not as a folklorist, and for Friends, rather than for folklorists. His collecting, however, has been assiduous for years, and he presents the stories to us as they have been told or reported to him. He does not rewrite them, or embellish them in any way. We have here, therefore, a collection of genuine folk material. He does occasionally comment on certain Friendly aspects of the lore, but these comments can easily be distinguished from the lore itself. It is a pleasure to have the Friendly philosophy and gentle wisdom he shares with his readers. It is easy to see the personality and the character of the author showing through, and one realizes, as his son assures us, that William Sessions died in his eightyeighth year after a "full and happy" life. The volume is posthumously published, for the author died in October, 1966. "Sessions of...