It would be not bigamy but trigamy. There is enough of her to
furnish wives for a whole parish. You might people a colony with
her, or give an assembly with her, or perhaps take your morning's
walk round her, always providing there were frequent resting-places
and you were in rude health. I was once rash enough to try walking
round her before breakfast, but only got halfway, and gave up
exhausted."
Smith's humour was nearly always of this continuous kind, "changing its
shape and colour to many forms and hues." He wished to continue the
merriment to the last, but such repetition weakened its force. His
humour is better when he has some definite aim in view, as in his
letters about America, where he lost his money. But we have not many
specimens of it in his writings, the following is from "The Dun Cow:"--
"The immense importance of a pint of ale to a common man should
never be overlooked, nor should a good-natured Justice forget that
he is acting for Lilliputians, whose pains and pleasures lie in
very narrow compass, and are but too apt to be treated with neglect
and contempt by their superiors. About ten or eleven o'clock in the
morning, perhaps, the first faint shadowy vision of a future pint
of beer dawns on the fancy of the ploughman.
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