Mark Twain's father

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
Mark Twain

At the time of Franklin, and — later — Mark Twain, there is no doubt the Americans had a sense of irony. People as late as Thurber had it too. When someone told him the women in his drawings had no sex appeal (a very 1950's expression) he replied ``They have for my men''.

I have heard the theory that their lack of irony is because WASP America has -—thanks to the damned Puritans — no indigeneous theatre. In particular they do not have Pantomime. Theatre arrived later, with Jews and other Europeans but by then the damage was done. Thurber I think had German antecedents. (He had a brother called Hermann, and there are bits of German text that appear in his writing without comment or glossing.) His retort certainly reveals an instinctive understanding of theatre, and of the dignities and rights of fictional creatures, without which theatre is impossible.

Somehow all this has got lost in modern America. (And don't tell me about Randy Newman: he is a miraculous freak)

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