Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
JONATHAN
Ho, ho, ho! There the old man was even with her; he was up to the notch—ha, ha,
ha!
JESSAMY
But, Mr. Jonathan, you must not laugh so. Why you ought to have tittered piano,
and you have laughed fortissimo. Look here; you see these marks, A, B, C, and so
on; these are the references to the other part of the book. Let us turn to it, and you
will see the directions how to manage the muscles. This [turns over] was note D
you blundered at.—You must purse the mouth into a smile, then titter, discovering
the lower part of the three front upper teeth.
How? read it again.
JONATHAN
JESSAMY
“There was a certain man”—very well!—”who had a sad scolding wife,”—why don’t
you laugh?
JONATHAN
Now, that scolding wife sticks in my gizzard so pluckily that I can’t laugh for the
blood and nowns of me. Let me look grave here, and I’ll laugh your belly full, where
the old creature’s a-dying.
JESSAMY
“And she asked her husband”—[Bell rings.] My master’s bell! he’s returned, I
fear.—Here, Mr. Jonathan, take this gamut; and I make no doubt but with a few
years’ close application, you may be able to smile gracefully.” [Exeunt severally.
SCENE II.
CHARLOTTE’S Apartment.
Enter MANLY.
MANLY
What, no one at home? How unfortunate to meet the only lady my heart was ever
moved by, to nd her engaged to another, and confessing her partiality for me! Yet
engaged to a man who, by her intimation, and his libertine conversation with me,
I fear, does not merit her. Aye! there’s the sting; for, were I assured that Maria was
happy, my heart is not so selsh but that it would dilate in knowing it, even though
it were with another. But to know she is unhappy!—I must drive these thoughts
from me. Charlotte has some books; and this is what I believe she calls her little
library. [Enters a closet.
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