'"
The unworthy member succumbed and returned to the meeting, wondering
whether the verse was an impromptu or whether it was part of one of the
inspiring Sunday hymns our grandfathers sang in their cheerless,
unwarmed meeting-houses. In a version of Watts' Hymns this verse is
found:--
"And are we wretches still alive,
And do we yet rebel?
'Tis boundless, 'tis amazing love
That bears us up from hell."
It might have been the one Mr. Ripley quoted.
I have heard it said that a prominent literary man "could not
understand the condition of mind it required to make a pun." It would
be out of place here to try to explain that condition to him or to any
one else. It is certainly not an unhappy frame of mind, and I am not
aware that it indicates any depraved condition. I don't know of any
very bad men who make puns, but I have known of many good men who make
bad puns. It is not an avaricious state of the mind, for who ever heard
of "puns for sale or manufactured to order," or of a man getting rich
in the wholesale or retail pun trade!
In fact, a pun is like an egg--the moment you crack it the meat is out.
Some men carry things to extremes; I wouldn't myself like to be a
punster _in toto_, but only now and then to have a finger in one.
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