Best Loved Classics Selected Essays Author:Wm Makepeace Thackeray, and others In treating of the English humourists of the past age, it is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to speak to you; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely humorous or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and ... more »was himself, the story goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harlequin...« less