University of Virginia Library

WIT AND HUMOR.

IN attempting to define wit and humor, it is necessary
to premise, that they will be considered as active and
independent faculties of the mind; and not as abstract
qualities,—such as may be comprehended in a bon-mot or
an epigram. In other words, the endeavor will be to arrive
at the intention of the epigrammatist, not to discuss the
merits of the epigram itself. For the forms of wit and
humor are so various, it will scarcely be possible to form a
just conclusion, except by separating the conception and
intent, from the expression and the effect. Swift, it is
said, is a witty writer. Why? Because he wrote witty
poems. Why are the poems witty? The answer is, because
they were written by Swift. Very reasonable, to be
sure; but the object of this essay is to ascertain if there
be not another solution to the last question.

The great Swedish philosopher, Linnæus, or some other
philosopher equally great, in attempting to classify the
animal kingdom, found it rather perplexing to mark out
the boundaries of the grander divisions. That, once accomplished,
it was an easy and beautiful task to subdivide it
into genera, species, and varieties. But animals would be
alike in some respects, and differ in others, in spite of science.
Chickens flew, but so did bats and beetles. Chickens
and beetles laid eggs,—bats would not; but wingless
terrapins did. Some animals had warm blood, some had
cold, and yet, in other respects, were alike. Shad had
scales, but the armadillo wore them also. Bears were
covered with hair, and so were caterpillars and tarantulas.
Geese had quills, penguins had none, but the porcupine
had plenty. Elephants carried a flexible appendage at
one end, and monkeys at the other. The giraffe fancied
he could get along best by having his two longest legs in
front, but the kangaroo preferred having them abaft. The
female otter, living partly on the land, and partly in the
water, nourished her young like the wife of the Rev. John
Rogers; but the pelican, with the same habits, had nothing
to put into the mouths of young pelicans but fish.

To find one property, which certain animals had, and
others had not, was the question; but how discover it in

the apparent chaos of tastes? At last the problem was
solved:—Shad, elephants, bats, armadillos, kangaroos,
had back-bones—beetles, spiders, and terrapins had none.
Their relative positions were at once defined. “The
greater class,” said Linnæus with a wave of his hand,
“shall be called `vertebrata,' and, thank heaven, I am
one of them.”

In like manner this attempt shall be, to express the
generic definition of wit; and in like manner, the generic
definition of humor; so that, however variously presented,
wit may be identified by some property common to all its
species, and humor by one property common to all its
varieties.

It may be as well to observe here, in order to forewarn
the reader, that although the subject may seem suggestive
of mirth, it will be found a very serious one before he gets
through with it. A gentleman who sometimes attempted
essays, said he never felt so miserable as when he was
writing one on happiness; and therefore it is best, by
a timely caution to suggest, that in this analysis of wit
and humor, it must not be looked upon as a necessary
consequence, for the writer to give any proofs of possessing
either faculty himself.

With these brief remarks, I will proceed to a consideration

of the subject. The term “wit,” in its eldest signification,
implied generally “rationality,” and so we still
understand it in its derivations—“to wit,” (to know,)
“half-witted,” “witless,” “witling,” etc., etc. In the
time of Dryden it expressed fancy, genius, aptitude. Thus
the famous couplet—
is almost an amplification of that “fine frenzy” Shakespeare
has delineated, and “wit” in this sense is merely a
synonyme of “imagination.” Locke, who was cotemporary
with Dryden, defines “wit” as lying most in the assemblage
of ideas, and putting those together with quickness
and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity,
thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable
visions in the fancy. This definition of wit he places in
opposition to judgment, which he says “lies quite on the
other side,” in separating carefully one from another ideas
wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid
being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one
thing for another. Addison quotes this passage in the
Spectator, and says: “This is, I think, the best and most
philosophical account that I ever met with of wit, which
generally, though not always, consists in such a resemblance
and congruity of ideas as this author mentions. I
shall only add to it, by way of explanation, that every
resemblance of ideas is not what we call wit, unless it be
such an one that gives delight and surprise to the reader.
These two last properties seem essential to wit, more particularly
the last of them.” To come down still later,
Dugald Stewart endorses Locke, with this addition,
(“rather,” as he says, “by way of explanation than
amendment,”) that wit implies a power of calling up at
pleasure the ideas which it combines; and Lord Kames
denominates wit a quality of certain thoughts and expressions,
and adds: “The term is never applied to an action
or passion, and as little to an external object.”

From the preceding illustrations, we learn the term
“wit” was not formerly used in its present limited sense:
in fact, Addison gives us a list of different species of wit,
such as “metaphors, similitudes, allegories, enigmas, parables,
fables, dreams, visions, dramatic writings, burlesque,
and all methods of illusion,” from which we may gather, in
his time wit was an expression of considerable latitude,
embracing all ideas of a fanciful or whimsical nature. Dr.
Johnson describes wit “as a kind of concordia discours;
a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult
resemblances in things apparently unlike;” which Leigh

Hunt, in his essay on wit and humor, amplifies into “the
arbitrary juxtaposition of dissimilar ideas, for some lively
purpose of assimilation, or contrast, or generally of both.”
Why this would not apply as well to humor as to wit is
not so apparent. It is scarcely fair to suspect Mr. Hunt
did not quite understand the distinction between them
himself.

I could, in addition to those already named, quote
many other authorities, but they would bring us no nearer
to the points in question. The gist of all that has been
said concerning the subject-matter is contained in the definitions
already given. I must refer here, however, to one
book, which is so admirable in its way, so full of the witty
and humorous, so acute in detecting the errors of all other
writers upon the subject, and so far from being right in its
own solution of the question, that the perusal of it produces
the very effect which its author claims to be the
end of all wit, namely, “surprise!” The “Lectures on
Moral Philosophy,” by the Reverend Sydney Smith, as an
exemplar of wit, has no superior in our language; but
when he tells us that “whenever there is a superior act of
intelligence in discovering a relation between ideas, which
relation excites surprise, and no other high emotion, the
mind will have a feeling of wit,” we must beg leave to

differ from the conclusion; for wit sometimes excites admiration,
which may be considered a high emotion; and
we have known instances where it has produced a feeling
of implacable revenge. In the example which he gives
immediately after, he says:

“Why is it witty, in one of Addison's plays, when the
undertaker reproves one of his mourners for laughing at a
funeral, and says to him: `You rascal, you! I have
been raising your wages for these two years, upon condition
that you should appear more sorrowful, and the higher
wages you receive, the happier you look!' Here is a relation
between ideas, the discovery of which implies superior
intelligence, and excites no other emotion than `sur
prise.'”

Now the incongruousness of ideas here is calculated to
raise an emotion of mirth as well as surprise, and we are
pleased, not because it is witty, but because the accidental
ambiguity of the words turns the reproof into a jest.
True wit is never accidental, but always intentional.

Compare the above with the following, which would be
humorous if it were not very witty: “A gentleman owned
four lots adjoining a Jewish burying-ground, in the upper
part of the city. The owners of the cemetery wanted to
purchase these lots, but as the price they offered was no

equivalent for their value, the gentleman refused to accept
it. At last the trustees hit upon what they considered a
master-stroke of policy, and meeting Mr. V— a few
days afterward, said: `Ah, Sir, we tink you will not get
any body now to live on your property up dere. We have
buyed lots on de odder side, and behint, and it's Jews'
burying-ground all around it.' `Very well,' replied Mr.
V—, `I shall begin to build to-morrow.' `Build!'
echoed the trustees, taken aback by the cool manner in
which this was said, `why, now,' with a cunning smile,
`what can you put up dere, mit a Jews' burying-ground
all around?' `A surgeon's hall!' replied Mr. V—.
`Just think how convenient it will be! You have made
my property the most desirable in the neighborhood.—
Good morning.' The reader may imagine Mr. V—
received his own price for the lots, which were speedily
converted into a Golgotha, and the principal trustee now
lies buried in the midst of them, with a white marble
monument protruding out of his bosom, large enough to
make a resurrection-man commit suicide.”

In his definition of humor the Rev. Sydney Smith
says:

“So, then, this turns out to be the nature of humor;
that it is incongruity which creates surprise, and only sur

prise. Try the most notorious and classical instances of
humor by this rule, and you will find it succeed.”

If this be the nature of humor, namely, “that it is incongruity
which creates surprise,” we will try the rule, and
see how it agrees with the assertion. In the tragedy of
King Lear, when the poor old monarch finds Kent in the
stocks he says:

And this exclamation is caused by a feeling of incongruity,
for he discovers Kent has been treated in a manner
directly opposite to what he expected, and the sudden clash
of the two contending ideas produces surprise. By the
application of the above rule, this should be humorous, but
I confess it is difficult to believe it.

Let us take another example: Macbeth is assured, in
the witches' cavern, that “none of woman born shall harm
Macbeth!” and again:

Yet when Birnam wood does come to Dunsinane, in a
most accountable manner; and afterwards he hears Macduff

had entered the world by the Cæsarean operation, he
does not seem particularly struck with the humor of the
thing, nor is he giving way to a burst of hilarity at the unexpected
relation of ideas, when he utters:

The truth is, surprise is sometimes the effect of wit
or humor, and nothing more; and we cannot predicate of
wit that it is surprise, any more than we can predicate of a
triangle that it is equilateral.

Let us now consider the second part of our subject.
Like wit, the meaning of the term, “Humor,” has
changed, and we seek in vain for any correspondence between
its present, and former significance. Thus Ben Jonson's
“Every man in his Humor,” is equivalent to every
one to his taste, “chacun à son goût,”—it implied whimsies,
fancies, conceits (such as we find in Corporal Nym),
temper, turn of mind, petulance, etc., etc. By Addison it
was used as a synonyme of wit, but rarely, and it is only
within a few years that the word humor has been used as the

generic term of a peculiar class of ideas. I have already
given the Reverend Sydney Smith's definition, and shall
add here that of Leigh Hunt, which certainly is a very different
thing from wit as we understand it.

“Humor, considered as the object treated of by the humorous
writer, and not as the power of treating it, derives
its name from the prevailing quality of moisture in the
bodily temperament; and is a tendency of the mind to
run in particular directions of thought or feeling more
amusing than accountable, at least in the opinion of society.”

I opine that nothing short of a patent digester can
make any thing of this definition. With all deference to
the author of “Rimini,” I am compelled to believe he has no
more idea of humor, than a Bush-boy has of clairvoyance.
Taking out “the quality of moisture in the bodily temperament,”
which is slightly irrelevant, and straightening the
involution of the sentence, it stands thus: “Humor, considered
as the object treated of, is a tendency of the mind
to run in particular directions of thought or feeling more
amusing than accountable.” If this be not the very idea of
humor the Philistines had, when they called for Samson
to make them sport, then I am much, very much mistaken.
For when we cease to consider humor as an active principle,

and only discover it in the weakness of one, who may be
making that sport for us, which is death to him, we must
reflect, it is the ludicrous association of ideas in our own
minds that produces the effect. Thus, although the antics
of a monkey, contrasted with the remarkable gravity of his
physiognomy, may make us laugh, we can scarcely accuse
him of being a humorist; but if a man have a monkey
running loose in his mind, and imitate him, then we may
safely set him down as one.

In the Westminster Review for October, 1847, there is a
criticism upon this very essay from which I take the following:
“Humor is felt to be a higher, finer, and more genial
thing than wit, or the mere ludicrous; but the exact definition
of it has occasioned some difficulty. It is the combination
of the laughable with an element of love, tenderness,
sympathy, warm-heartedness, or affection. Wit,
sweetened by a kind, loving expression, becomes humor.
Men who have little love to their fellows, or whose language
and manner are destitute of affectionateness, and soft,
tender feeling, cannot be humorists; however witty they
may be. There is no humor in Butler, Pope, Swift, Dryden,
Ben Jonson, or Voltaire.”

In estimating humor, let us admit this passage, with
some grains of allowance; upon the whole it is ingenious

and elegant, as a description of humor, perhaps the best
that can be found.

I have thus shown what has already been said in regard
to the subject, by way of clearing the ground for the
definitions which follow:

Wit, is an operation of the mind directing the action
of the ludicrous, for the attainment of some specific object.

Humor, is an operation of the mind directing the action
of the ludicrous to the production of mirth.

And herein humor differs from wit, which always
has an ultimate object beyond the mere mirth it creates.
Thus, wit is antagonistic—humor, genial. Wit is concentrated,
sharp, rapier-like; humor, prodigal, diffuse;
in fact, the very wantonness of mirth. Wit converges
to a focus, like a lens. Humor distorts, multiplies, and
grotesquely colors like a prism. Wit is always perceptive;
humor may be conscious or unconscious; a man
is very much in earnest with himself, and yet we see
his words or actions in a humorous light, like the odd
reflections made by an imperfect mirror. Such men
are unconscious humorists; what seems ludicrous to us,
is very sad reality to them; and often, when we get a
glimpse of their inner nature, even while the smile is yet
upon our lips, we feel a touch of pity as deep as tears.

Mr. Richard Swiveller, wending his way home after “a
night” with Mr. Quilp and the case-bottle, may be taken
as a fair specimen of an unconscious humorist.

“Left by my parents at an early age,” said Mr. Swiveller,
bewailing his hard lot, “cast upon the world in my
tenderest period, and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding
dwarf, who can wonder at my weakness!” “Here's
a miserable orphan for you. Here,” said Mr. Swiveller
raising his voice to a high pitch and looking sleepily round,
“is a miserable orphan.”

Now an actor to represent this, or an author to delineate
it, would be a conscious humorist.

Humor and pathos are often twin-born. What is
natural, homely, child-like; little episodes of smiles and
tears,

are inextricably blended with these divine emotions.
I cannot forbear copying entire those beautiful lines by
Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Last Leaf,” so finely illustrative
of both.

Here is indeed humor and pathos blended. But there
is no such thing as pathetic wit. Perhaps nothing marks
the boundary line between wit and humor more accurately
than this.

Let me add another distinction. Satire, whether for
good or evil, is a tremendous implement—a cautery, actual
and potential. See its effect in Punch (which I take to be
the most influential political paper in the world); what

refuge is there for the offender, when Prentice launches his
glittering arrow from the Louisville Journal? How can
Mr. Deuceace answer the charge preferred against him by
Mr. Chawles Yellowplush? What now, and for ever, is
the world's opinion of “His Grace, the Duke of Grafton,”
after the letters of Junius? But satire is a property of
wit—not of humor; we may ridicule a man, but there is
no such word as “ludicrize” in the language.

In support of the first postulate, viz., that wit always
has some object beyond the mere creation of mirth, let us
select Hudibras as an example. This unrivalled poem
abounds in passages of exquisite wit and humor. The description
of the knight himself is perhaps the most felicitous
mingling of both that can be found in the whole range of
English literature. I might glean from it a golden sheaf
of quotations, simply illustrative of the humorous, although
Hudibras is generally considered “pure wit.” And so it
is, as a whole. When we take in view the object
for which it was written, when we remember its intention, and
its effect upon the Puritans of those days, then every absurdity
brightens into points of keenest satire, the pages
fairly blaze with wit, and its burning ridicule is almost
appalling.

Pope's Dunciad, Dryden's MacFlecnoe, and Byron's

English Bards and Scottish Reviewers, are the only compositions
in our language that deserve to be classed with
Hudibras. They belong to the heroic school of wit; epics,
compared with every thing else of a similar nature; and
as holding the highest rank, we can safely estimate by each
and every one of them the value of the above proposition.

As in the physical world we find connecting links between
the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, so in
the world of letters we find compositions which combine
wit, fancy, and imagination. For example, in the following
epigram:

The direct compliment in the first line, so strikingly
reversed by the satire of the second, would be ludicrous but
for the fanciful elegance of the whole.

In the definition of wit, the ludicrous is assumed to
be a necessary element. I take this word for want of one
more expressive in our language. I use it to represent the
“essence of mirth;” as a principle, larger and more comprehensive
than “ridicule.” This principle I hold to be
latent in all kinds of wit. Whether it come in the shape
of compliment or satire, somebody feels the divine emotion
of mirth. Whether in the stiletto innuendo, or the sharp,

small-sword repartee; whether it lie, like salt, on the tail
of an epigram, or baffle wisdom in the intricate pun, somebody
may smart, but somebody will smile. Even in the
graceful form of compliment, wit demands this tribute.
At the time Pope borrowed the diamond from Chesterfield,
and wrote, on a wine-glass,
imagine the faces around that table. When the “Rape
of the Lock” was written, imagine its effect in the fashionable
circles of that age. When Henry of Navarre presented
one of his Generals to some foreign Ambassadors, and said,
“Gentlemen, this is the Marechal de Biron, whom I present
equally to my friends and enemies,” imagine the secret
emotion that every Frenchman felt in that courtly circle.
And when the Spanish Minister was shocked at the familiarity
of certain officers, who were pressing around that
chivalric King, although the reply may remind us of Ivry
and the white plume; yet that gallant speech—“You see
nothing here; you should see how close they press upon me
in the day of battle,”—must have awakened in those officers
a sensation, better expressed in their faces, than in the
plastic countenance of the Spaniard.

Let me select another specimen—the generous example

of Lord Dorset, who, when several celebrated men were
debating about harmony of numbers, beauties of invention,
etc., proposed to make a trial of skill, of which Dryden
was to be the judge. His Lordship's composition obtained
the preference. It was as follows:

Dorset.”

There is a kind of legal wit, too, in Blackstone, deserving
of notice, such as his definition of special bailiffs, who,
he says, “are usually bound in a bond for the due execution
of their office, and thence are called bound bailiffs;
which the common people have corrupted into a much more
homely appellation.” I admire this pleasant evasion of an
unsavory phrase.

The laconic note of Dorset is in happy opposition to
one written by Frederic the Great. A Jew banker, who,
fearful of subsidies and loans, sent a letter, petitioning the
King, “to allow him to travel for his health,” received in
answer:

Frederic.”

While we cannot fail to perceive, in all the above examples,
that element which we call the ludicrous, or mirth-moving
power, yet we find in each and every one a purpose;

the arrow is not shot into the air; it is aimed at
the blank. We recognize it in compliment, we feel it in
innuendo, we detect it in irony, it stings in the epigram,
and sparkles in repartee, and still we apprehend it as wit;
Wit! the younger and more polished brother of that,
which has but one name—humor—good humor.

Whoever is familiar with the writings of Jean Paul
Richter, will recognize, in the following a page from an
admirable book, “Flower, Fruit, and Thorn-Pieces.” It
is an example of that kind of humor which is the divine
philosophy of a sensitive heart. Germans are the most
analytical of modern writers. Let us illustrate this subject
by a quotation from one of the best:

“Siebenkas was all day long a harlequin. She (his
wife) often said to him, `The people will think you are
not in your right senses;' to which he would answer, `And
am I?' He disguised his beautiful heart beneath the
grotesque comic mask, and concealed his height by the
trodden-down sock; turning the short game of his life into
a farce and comic epic poem. He was fond of grotesque
comic actions from higher motives than mere variety. In
the first place, he delighted in the sense of freedom experienced
by a soul unshackled by the trammels of circumstance;
and secondly, he enjoyed the satirical consciousness

of caricaturing rather than imitating the follies of
humanity. While acting he had a twofold consciousness;
that of the comic actor and of the spectator. A humorist
in action is but a satirical improvisatore. Every male
reader understands this; but no female reader.

I have often wished to give a woman, who beheld the
white sunbeam of wisdom decomposed, checkered, and
colored from behind the prism of humor, a well-ground
glass which would burn this variegated row of colors white
again; but it would not answer. The woman's delicate
sense of the becoming is scratched and wounded, so to say,
by every thing angular and unpolished. These souls bound
up to the pole of conventional propriety, cannot comprehend
a soul which opposes itself to these relations; and
therefore in the hereditary realms of women—the courts,
and in their kingdom of shadows—France, there are seldom
any humorists to be found, either of the pen or in real life.”

But of all creations of humor, what is there to compare
with the hero of Cervantes? Don Quixote may
move us to mirth by his guileless simplicity, but his nature
is noble, beyond any artifice of mere wit. For the spring
of all his actions is what we most admire in humanity—
valor, love of justice, patience and fortitude; even his want
of prudence is almost a virtue. Strange that it should

excite our laughter to behold the aberrations of an enthusiast,
who believed himself to be “the defender of the
innocent, the protector of helpless damsels, the shield of the
defenceless, and the avenger of the oppressed.”

Is there not something in this madness nearer heaven
than much of worldly wisdom?

But in our admiration of the relies of chivalrie life,
who can forget thee, thou modestest of men, “My Uncle
Toby?” What is more admirable than thy goodness of
heart, thy tenderness, thy patience of injuries, thy peaceful,
placid nature, “no jarring element in it, which was
mixed up so kindly within thee; thou hadst scarcely a
heart to retaliate upon a fly!”

“I'll not hurt thee,” says my Uncle Toby, rising from
his chair, and going across the room with the fly in his
hand; “I'll not hurt a hair of thy head. Go,” says he,
lifting up the sash and opening his hand as he spoke, to
let it escape; “go, poor devil! get thee gone, why should
I hurt thee? this world is surely wide enough to hold both
thee and me.”

In direct opposition to this stands the character of
burly Falstaff. No one would lay a straw in the way of

Uncle Toby, but how we relish “the buck-basket,” the
“cudgel of Ford,” and the castigation at “Gadshill;”
nay, if we bear in mind how exquisitely selfish Falstaff is,
we can even admire the reply of King Harry, beginning
with:

Such is the nature of wit. We love Charles Lamb,
Goldsmith, Irving, Fielding, Dickens, our young, admirable
humorist, Shelton, and glorious Dan Chaucer; but we
have no such feeling toward Pope, Swift, Dryden, Chesterfield,
or the author of “Vanity Fair.”[1]

Dante at times is witty, and his wit is tremendous!
In his journey through hell he meets the shade of a friar,
who tells him, that the soul of a living man, one “Branca
Doria, who murdered his father-in-law, Zanche,” is there.

“Nay,” replies Dante, “you do not tell the truth.
Branca Doria is on earth; eats, walks and sleeps like any
other man.”

“Nevertheless,” returns the friar, “his soul has been

many years here in hell, and in place of it, a devil inhabits
his body above.”[2]

Coleridge's remarks, written on the cover of Charles
Lamb's copy of Donne's Satires, which I give briefly,
are severely witty: “The irregular measure of this verse
is only convertible into harmony by the feeling of the reader.
I would like to hear a Scotchman read Donne. If he read
it as it should be read, I would think, either that he was
not in reality a Scotchman, or that his soul had been geographically
slandered by his body.”

We must not consider, however, this caustic quality as
inseparable from wit. True, in all the forms of innuendo,
satire, irony, and epigram, we may discover it; but happily,
there is a species of wit as innocent as it is delightful.
Perhaps there is nothing more agreeable than being in company
with a person who possesses this faculty, with sufficient
amiability and good sense to keep it in subjection;
the perfection of strength is in the reserve of power;
and he is an exquisite swordsman who can disarm, without
wounding, his adversary.

If, in this essay I have touched but lightly upon the
innooency of wit, which certainly is its most charming attribute,

it is because instances are rare, and we should be
chary in commending too much a faculty, which sometimes
has the power to turn even
Thus while we enjoy
we must make a reservation in favor of a more genial quality;
not that we love wit less, but that we love humor
more: for humor is of nature, and wit is of artifice.

The limits of and essay will not permit any further consideration
of this fruitful subject, else I might name one
whose wit is such that “'tis a common opinion that all
men love him.”

I trust is not prophetic; for in the whole wide world lives
not one possessed of such powers of wit, humor and fancy,
as he; nor is there any one to whom his own lines will apply
better: