up in the justness and value of the observation. So that I think I have some colour for saying, that wit is produced by those relations between ideas which excite surprise, and surprise only. Observe, I am only defining the causes of a certain feeling in the mind called wit; I can no more define the feeling itself, than I can define the flavour of venison. We all seem to partake of one and the other, with a very great degree of satisfaction; but why each feeling is what it is, and nothing else, I am sure I cannot pretend to determine. Louis XIV. was exceedingly molested by the solicitations of a general officer at the levée, and cried out, loud enough to be overheard, "That gentleman is the most troublesome officer in the whole army." "Your Majesty's enemies have said the same thing more than once," was the answer. The wit of this answer consists in the sudden relation discovered in his assent to the King's invective and his own defence. By admitting the King's observation, he seems, at first sight, to be subscribing to the imputation against him; whereas, in reality, he effaces it by this very means. A sudden relation is discovered where none was suspected. Voltaire, in speaking of the effect of epithets in weakening style, said, that the adjectives were the greatest enemies of the substantives, though they agreed in gender, number, and in cases. Here, again, it is very obvious that a relation is discovered which, upon first observation, does not appear to exist. These instances may be multiplied to any extent. A gentleman at Paris, who lived very unhappily with his wife, used, for twenty years together, to pass his evenings at the house of another lady, who was very agreeable, and drew together a pleasant society. His wife died; and his friends all advised him to marry the lady in whose society he had found so much pleasure. He said, no, he certainly should not, for that, if he married her, he should not know where to spend his evenings. Here we are suddenly surprised with the idea that the method proposed of securing his comfort may possibly prove the most effectual method of destroying it. At least, to enjoy the pleasantry of the reply, we view it through his mode of thinking, who had not been very fortunate in the connection established by his first marriage. I have, in consequence of the definition I have printed of wit in the cards of the Institution, passed one of the most polemical weeks that ever I remember to have spent in my partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her, that it could hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game of the patriarchs. Now here are two distinct meanings contained in the same phrase: for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh at them; or to make game of them is, by a very extravagant and laughable sort of ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection and calls game; and the whole pleasure derived from this pun consists in the sudden discovery that two such different meanings are referable to one form of expression. I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them; it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters, from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the world. One invaluable blessing produced by the banishment of punning is, an immediate reduction of the number of wits. It is a wit of so low an order, and in which some sort of progress is so easily made, that the number of those endowed with the gift of wit would be nearly equal to those endowed with the gift of speech. The condition of putting together ideas in order to be witty operates much in the same salutary manner as the condition of finding rhymes in poetry; it reduces the number of performers to those who have vigour enough to overcome incipient difficulties, and makes a sort of provision that that which need not be done at all, should be done well whenever it is done. For we may observe, that mankind are always more fastidious about that which is pleasing, than they are about that which is useful. A commonplace piece of morality is much more easily pardoned than a commonplace piece of poetry or of wit; because it is absolutely necessary for the well-being of society that the rules of morality should be frequently repeated and enforced; and though in any individual instance the thing may be badly done, the sacred necessity of the practice itself, atones in some degree for the individual failure; but as there is no absolute necessity 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 surprise. WIT A CULTIVABLE FACULTY. Ir is imagined that wit is a sort of inexplicable visitation, that it comes and goes with the rapidity of lightning, and that it is quite as unattainable as beauty or just proportion. I am so much of a contrary way of thinking, that I am convinced a man might sit down as systematically, and as successfully to the study of wit, as he might to the study of mathematics: and I would answer for it, that, by giving up only six hours a day to being witty, he should come on prodigiously before midsummer, so that his friends should hardly know him again. For what is there to hinder the mind from gradually acquiring a habit of attending to the lighter relations of ideas in which wit consists? Punning grows upon everybody, and punning is the wit of words. I do not mean to say that it is so easy to acquire a habit of discovering new relations in ideas as in words, but the difficulty is not so much greater as to render it insuperable to habit. One man is unquestionably much better calculated for it by nature than another: but association, which gradually makes a bad speaker a good one, might give a man wit who had it not, if any man chose to be so absurd as to sit down to acquire it. PUNS. I have mentioned puns. They are, I believe, what I have denominated them-the wit of words. The are exactly the same to words which wit is to ideas, and consist in the sudden discovery of relations in language. A pun, to be perfect in its kind, should contain two distinct meanings; the one common and obvious; the other, more remote: and in the notice which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets of words, and in the surprise which that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun consists. Miss Hamilton, in her book on Education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful, that he could never be brought to read the word patriarchs; but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her, that it could hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game of the patriarchs. Now here are two distinct meanings contained in the same phrase: for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh at them; or to make game of them is, by a very extravagant and laughable sort of ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection and calls game; and the whole pleasure derived from this pun consists in the sudden discovery that two such different meanings are referable to one form of expression. I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them; it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters, - from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the world. One invaluable blessing produced by the banishment of punning is, an immediate reduction of the number of wits. It is a wit of so low an order, and in which some sort of progress is so easily made, that the number of those endowed with the gift of wit would be nearly equal to those endowed with the gift of speech. The condition of putting together ideas in order to be witty operates much in the same salutary manner as the condition of finding rhymes in poetry; it reduces the number of performers to those who have vigour enough to overcome incipient difficulties, and makes a sort of provision that that which need not be done at all, should be done well whenever it is done. For we may observe, that mankind are always more fastidious about that which is pleasing, than they are about that which is useful. A commonplace piece of morality is much more easily pardoned than a commonplace piece of poetry or of wit; because it is absolutely necessary for the well-being of society that the rules of morality should be frequently repeated and enforced; and though in any individual instance the thing may be badly done, the sacred necessity of the practice itself, atones in some degree for the individual failure; but as there is no absolute necessity that men should be either wits or poets, we tolerate their mediocrity in superfluities. are less inclined to If a man have or dinary chairs and tables, no one notices it; but if he stick vulgar gaudy pictures on his walls, which he need not have at all, every one laughs at him for his folly. A SARCASM. A SARCASM (which is another species of wit) generally consists in the obliquity of the invective. It must not be direct assertion, but something established by inference and analogy;-something which the mind does not at first perceive, but in the discovery of which it experiences the pleasure of surprise. A true sarcasm is like a sword-stick — it appears, at first sight, to be much more innocent than it really is, till, all of a sudden, there leaps something out of it—sharp, and deadly, and incisive—which makes you tremble and recoil. SUPERIORITY TO RIDICULE. I KNOW of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the minds of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachments of ridicule. Give up to the world, and to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion, every trifling question of manner and appearance: it is to toss courage and firmness to the winds, to combat with the mass upon such subjects as these. But learn from the earliest days to inure your principles against the perils of ridicule: you can no more exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life, if you are in the constant terror of death. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic, it may appear;-do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly—as a man who wore a soul of his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean, if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel that you are firm: resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect; and no after |
