Humors of the Day

In Harper’s Weekly, this entertaining addition is found in-between Mr.Bruff’s narratives. These humours break up the tense narrative that has so far been established with the discovery that Godfrey Ablewhite only wished to marry his cousin Rachel for her money. By including these humours just before the last section of Mr. Bruff’s narrative, the mood is effectively lightened before diving into the revelations that Mr. Murthwaite provides to his dinner companion. Instead of building on the tension created in the first part of his narrative, it instead breaks it down so that the reader finds themselves in a more jovial mood when they take to the light atmosphere of the dinner table with the two gentleman, before again being plunged into the drama surrounding the missing Moonstone. In a way, this makes the mystery seem all the more intense and serious when placed contrastingly to such light-hearted (and terribly told) jokes of the day.

Works Cited

Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Harper & Brothers, 1868, New York, p. 311.