Feast of Stephen

" Do you know the characteristic wine of Madeira?... I do not know whether Leacock ever drank Madeira himself - he was very much a Scotch-whisky man - but I enjoy Madeira greatly, and I never drink it without thinking of Leacock, who was sometimes dry, sometimes sweet, but who always leaves upon the tongue a hint of brimstone... "
In his witty and illuminating introduction, which takes up the first third of the book, Robertson Davies invites us to join him in a "Feast of Stephen." Davies' selection of fifteen pieces from Leacock's less familiar works presents the humorist as a true, broad, and sympathetic interpreter of Canadian life, as a man who may have lacked self-knowledge and sensitive insight into the feelings of others, but " whose best work was the outpouring of genius." All shades of Leacock's writing are represented here, from the " brilliant nonsense which made some critics liken him to Lewis Carroll, " to his occasional attacks of " aggressive Lowbrowism." Together in all their diversity, Davies' selections pay tribute to the gifts of exuberance, originality, and slightly malicious truth with which Leacock so entertainingly extends our vision.