Frank Wigglesworth Clarke - Personality, Including Humor.

Personality, Including Humor.

Professor Clarke was not a hearty laugher. He was known to “ripple” quietly at exceptional displays of wit or humor. Clarke’s humorous use of language was compared to Lewis Caroll and the talent was renowned at Washington D.C.’s Cosmos Club. Somewhat of a gossip, he specialized in knowing not only what people were currently doing, but also what their forebears had done. Professor Clarke was known for a sharp wit, sometimes employing deadpan. While attending a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner, Clarke noticed the host struggling with that metric of American male performance, the carving of the turkey. Clarke “suggested that it might profit the carver to visit the National Museum, for a certain door therein bears on it the sign ‘Division of Birds’.” A colleague recalled his dining habits at Washington D.C.’s Cosmos Club, “hould you join him at lunch and when the waiter has served the butter this man has said, ‘Take it away, please,’ and of the potatoes, ‘Take that away also,’ and should he be eating of sweet potato and some one has remarked to him, ‘Why I thought you did not like potatoes,’ he replies, ‘This is not potato, it is convolvulus . . .” Anger was not a Clarke character trait. Toward the end of his life, Professor Clarke was described as “about five feet five inches in height, one hundred and ten pounds in weight, with pale blue eyes, little hair and most of that under his ears, chewing his finger nails and apparently absorbed in thought, though really most alert.” His voice delivered in “. . . a low tone with a well-modulated and quite agreeable voice, using very well-chosen language, talking good sense, but with a mild undertone of gaiety, and you find him bright and entertaining and then you find him clever . . . .” In his communications, Professor Clarke exhibited restraint in speaking either negatively or positively of others. His praise he reserved for the individual’s absence and many were advanced in his profession by Clarke’s recommendation out of the earshot of the candidate.