FREDDLE #1 - Books as Time Machines for Jokes

My taste in books runs to older volumes. I tend to prefer time-tested, pre-vetted tomes that have withstood the ravages of time to newer, untried works. So you'll find me reading Dickens, Wodehouse, Chandler, Gaddis, and other writers who have been around somewhere between "a while" and "quite a while".

One thing I enjoy about reading older works is the random way in which bits of humor are magically transported from long-ago times to my eager consciousness. Quips, puns, and other minor jests make their way from long ago to my brain, a result never anticipated, I'm sure, by their originators. I find this quite charming.

I've been making my way through "Ego", James Agate's series of autobiographical works. Born in 1877, Agate was active in England as a dramatic critic from 1921 to 1947. The Ego series is a hodge-podge of information about the theatre, his friends, his personal life, his personal secretaries, his horse, his cars . . . no detail is either too large or to small to be included.

Among the many tidbits to be enjoyed in the Ego volumes is this one, where Agate quotes a letter he received in response to one of his columns, complaining about his use of the word "bicep". Bearing in mind that "Balls!" in British slang is roughly equivalent to saying "Nonsense!" (or something worse), here is Agate in 1933 regarding his anonymous letter-writer:

. . . a postcard objecting to my use in the S.T. (Sunday Telegraph) of the word "Bicep". The writer says: "One can no more have a bicep than wear a knicker or a stay, or be afflicted with a diabete or a scabie. Such writing is, so to speak, ball!"

After I stopped laughing, I found myself wishing that I could somehow let this anonymous quipster know that 84 years later I am laughing at his joke, and appreciative that someone took the trouble to record it for my (much) later enjoyment.

Anyone else pick up old jokes from old books? After all . . .

there are an awful lot of books I haven't read yet.