Stephen Leacock

My Discovery of England Stephen Leacock

Book Excerpt: ...heredity; but he has caught something of the spirit of American humour by force of association. This puts him in a similar position to that in which I found myself once when I took the liberty of swimming across a rather large loch in Scotland. After climbing into the boat I was in the act of drying myself when I was accosted by the proprietor of the hotel adjacent to the shore. "You have no business to be bathing here," he shouted. "I'm not," I said; "I'm bathing on the other side." In the same way, if anyone on either side of the water is unintelligent enough to criticise Mr. Leacock's humour, he can always say it comes from the other side. But the truth is that his humour contains all that is best in the humour of both hemispheres. Having fulfilled my duty as chairman, in that I have told you nothing that you did not know before--except, perhaps, my swimming feat, which never got into the Press because I have a very bad publicity agent--I will not detain you longer from what you are really wanting to ge...