Stephen Leacock as Man of Letters

'STEPHEN LEACOCK AS MAN OF .LETTERS G. G·, SEDG.EWICK I • 1 T~E task o( determining an author's "place'' in literature .is at best·uncer'tain and thankless.· It is hard enough when the subject is centuries old, and in the case of Stephen .Leacock ic is. impossible: critics, especiaJly Canadian critics, are still tOO close to him In place and time. For a.reas·onably assured "determination..,. we shall ·have to wajt two or thr~e · decades.. This inquiry, therefore> muse be taken as experimental and compfetely "subjective'\ although it may often appear to speak with the·autho.rity of scribes; and since it has no pretension to such authority, it has been cast in a deliberately informal mode. What is m.ore, I have only a fragmentary knowl~dge of Leacock's li(e and hav:e had no acces·.s to a·great deal of his uncollected writings. Consequently I cannot discuss his ."p:5ychology" or. his "social consciousness.., as it has· been fashionable to do; nor should I be competent to discuss .such things if the data ·were available to ,m~.' Tnese confession.s, I hope, will give sufficient warning about. the nature of this piece. It may still be proper for a student of literature to consider Leacock's books in an old-fashioned way. A {ormidable task awaits the critic who at some future date will attempt a "d~finitive" study of Leacock's writings. The quantity of those writings .is enormous. Lacking_an up-to..date bibliography, I do not know the·exact number of his published books; butJ quite apart (rom anthologies and the· like, there must be forty of chcm. As [or the fugitive material, 1ts titles nearly fill the ample and valuable study which McGill bibliographers put out in 1935, and even they had to thr~w up their hands when chey tried co list the syndicated articles. It is a fair guess that, if all Leaco·ck•s writings could be collected, they would ftjj twice forty volumes. . One fact, remarkable in itself, will perhaps make the critic'~ task less difficult. W_hen Leacock's first book, Elements of Political Science, was published (1906), its author was thirty-se~en years old; and.. the Leacock . whom all the world knows, was forty-one when he presented himseJf bashfuUy (1910) to an audience larger than he h·ad add.ressed before. (If you raise an eyebrow at "bashfully", consider the final it:em on the· title-page o( the Montreal edition of Literary LapstJ: "Price .35 cents"!) By the I- time a writer is fo'rty-one, his produce can no longer be considered ·a t~nder button of the spring. Leacock did most of his growing before he appeared on the public ~tage, not a.S a profeS.sor but in prop1·ia perjona as humorist. Our critic may have t:rou ble in dealing with mass,· but he· need nor. worry much about "development." Unhappily for him, the mass has an' equally enor.mous va'riety. It is not easr to. think of a su bje touch off. No other Ca~adian writer has or has h.ad anything . I·tB THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY '· like· his range of interests; and those interest writes Leacock in Sunshine SJutches, '~led off with a sermon on- 'Lord> be merciful even unto this publican, Matthew Six' , ; while the PreSbyterian minister· inquired, "Lo, what now deeth Abiram in the land of.Melchizedek> Kings Eight and Nine?" ·.. Clearly the-Dean's congregation, among whom young Stephen must have been seated, might agree with their sectarian friends in general principle, but they would prefer modest and gentle sent~ment to blasts from a beJiigerent ram's horn.- Stephen .was no ·covenanter: he had the temper of a magnified ordinary .Canadianof the sort, I mean) indicated by the terms anglican and conservative.' These points I have dwelt on {or the reason assigned, ·and also bec.ause they suggest so~ething that I shall labour .all too hard: the fact that no , . schism existed as between Leacock the serious critic of affairs and· Leacock the humorist. .. The latter personage I shall regard as the Man...