The result was The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (1819 20), a collection of stories and essays that mix satire and whimsicality with fact and fiction.
The later writers who most nearly recall the charm of Montaigne include, in England, Robert Burton, though his whimsicality is more erudite, Sir Thomas Browne, and Laurence Sterne, and in France, with more self-consciousness and pose, André Gide and Jean Cocteau.
A great deal of human emotion, after all, can be quietly anaesthetised by "dignity", and the 80-year-old who settles, instead, for a kind of mischievous whimsicality can nearly always be sure of a hearing.
Despite my irritation with the elite whimsicality of the self-titled "Bloomsberries", I enjoyed this exhibition a lot.
And when Parini appraises the work, he has the knack for finding just the right phrase, as when he refers to Melville's "iron whimsicality": a more precise description of his singular prose style you will not find.
On the other hand, the line between a mischievous whimsicality and making an exhibition of yourself is not always easily drawn.
The footnote may be merely a piece of light whimsicality unlooked for in a transportation table, or, it may represent nuance and flexibility in the use of language beyond the dreams of a semanticist, or, as seems most likely, it may be the work of a schedule worker who has developed an acute contempt for the word information.
It doesn't offer redemption (as "Manhattan" did) through Louis Armstrong and Flaubert, Willie Mays and Mozart, but through the immediate contemplation of street life and carnival whimsicalities, of the sun and the sea — of the transitory moments, perceptions, and impressions to be rescued from oblivion, with the confidence that they're worth the effort to do so.
Some of the quirky whimsicalities appear more than once: he seems to be making a point.
"Barrie's whimsicalities serve to compare the cognitive abilities of babies, children, and fairies (who represent children's imagination) to those of adult humans.
Fifty-one years later, Mr. Rowles, 69, is still at it, pouring drinks at the chic Madison Avenue boîte in the Carlyle, under the New York whimsicalities of Ludwig Bemelmans, the artist who created Madeline.
