M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Mark Kohut]

Life Against Death....and Dixon fearing he is unfit for being with
others in public.

Then, related, Mason's Puritanism sees joke-telling Dixon as perhaps
dicey to be in public with.

a lot in its way....major contrasting temperaments and each seeing a
different public self.
has to lead someplace in the book.........

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 3:05 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the implication is that Mason's grieving has brought on a
> depression, generating a morbid fascination with death. I don't know how
> much deeper one could examine this.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 1:39 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 15.10: "Mason explains, though without his precise reason for it, that,
>> for the past Year or more, it has been his practice to attend the Friday
>> Hangings at that melancholy place ..." (Tyburn)
>>
>> Anybody care to venture a "precise reason"? This first meeting is in 1760
>> or 1761, so his habit might date to his wife Rebekah's death in 1759
>> (although later we'll get reasons to think he had tended to the
>> Melancholick well before that). And yes, the Tyburn hangings were an
>> acknowledged Sight of London.
>>
>> Is that enough to explain it? Mason is rather gentle, neither sadistic nor
>> vindictive; I for one don't see an obvious or direct connection between
>> mouning and a desire to watch excutions.
>
>
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