Word: buffooning
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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Thus it comes to pass that the Morgue is no longer a mere inanimate building. It becomes weirdly endowed with an awful personality. It is an explorer, it is an expounder, it is a preacher, it is a prophet, it is a stern moralist, it is a ghastly buffoon, it is a broken-hearted recording angel. Like some horrible ghoul, grinning and gibbering forever amid its dark mysteries, it stretches out awful hands to the wretched and the despairing throughout the vast, throbbing city, and whispers: "Come to me, come to me!" and they hear and shudder and turn cold...
Very few people in these days read Rabelais' writings, and Mr. Walter Besant, who has just published his "Readings from Rabelais," thinks "it is time that the wisest and kindliest of all Frenchman should at length cease to be regarded and spoken of as a buffoon with a foul mouth and mind." He aims to have this author, the contemporary of Luther, recognized, as Shakespeare and and Milton are, for what he is really worth, for his stout heart, his cheerfulness and his brave face. He follows Urqhart's translation, but does not hesitate to improve it whenever...