Irony and softer modes of meditation

As we know, not everyone does irony and it doesn’t work with all audiences, even though it can be a powerful rhetorical device if handled well in the right context.


"A thousand pounds a week!" Lilian murmured, aghast. Her imagination resembled that of a person who, on reaching a summit which he has taken for the top of the range, sees far higher peaks beyond. And the conviction that those distant peaks were unattainable saddened her for a moment. "It's absolutely awful."

"Why awful? If you have the finest you must pay for it. A thousand a week's nothing to that fellow. Moreover, he's a British citizen, and he did splendid service for his country in the war. Among other things, he owns two of the best brands of champagne. The War Office gave him a commission and a car; and he travelled all over Europe selling his own champagne at his own price to officers' messes. After all, officers couldn't be expected to fight without the drinks they're accustomed to, could they?"

Lilian obscurely divined irony. She often wished that she could be ironical and amusing, as Felix was; but she never could. She couldn't conceive how it was done.

Arnold Bennett – Lilian (1922)


Mrs H and I both do irony and that seems to be significant as we chat about life and current affairs over coffee. Maybe there is a certain social divide between those who do irony and those who don’t. Perhaps irony can highlight a social divide which was there to begin with, because there are those who do seem to prefer a softer form of social discourse.


Irony and sarcasm — very agreeable to a certain class of newspaper readers — were just now his stock-in-trade, and he could not afford to indulge any softer mode of meditation.

George Gissing - In the Year of Jubilee (1894)