The same subject gives him an opening for an ingeniously ironical stroke of satire :- "To say the truth, these soporific parts [where Homer nods] are so many scenes of serious artfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the rest; and this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, who told the public, that whenever he was dull they might be assured there was a design in it". It will be sufficient for our purpose of expounding the conditions of success in Humorous creations, to select one more example from our own contemporaries. In the novels of George Eliot we find abundant examples of the richest humour, accompanied with turns of language that could be brought under Wit; although the epigrammatic type of pure word-play is not aimed at specially, still less the mere pun. She is both satirist and humourist on the great scale. She dives into the inmost recesses of egotism in all its shapes-selfishness, conceit, vanity, hypocrisy, self-delusion; while intellectual imbecility, either as ignorance or as folly, is her special butt. By making ample allowance for real generosity and amiability in her characters, she becomes entitled to the higher praise of humour. Both for serious and for comic effects, she possesses the genius of illustrative comparison and simile in no ordinary measure; and can frame the most delicate innuendos. The theory of Humour can be abundantly confirmed from her examples; it is always at the expense of some one's dignity or consequence; although very often whole classes, or mankind at large, are pointed at. Thus : "We are so pitiably in subjection to all sorts of vanity --even the very vanities we are practically renouncing This is intended to take everybody down, and yet we can relish its cleverness. "No system, religious or political, I believe, has laid it down as a principle that all men are alike virtuous, or even that all the people rated for £80 houses are an honour to their species.' Only certain classes are intended here; and those not included will take pleasure in the satire. 66 If there are two things not to be hidden-love and a cough-I say there is a third, and that is ignorance, when once a man is obliged to do something besides wagging his head." There is passable humour in the conjunction of love and a cough, and a pretty strong dose of contempt for ignorance; with which the knowing ones will be delighted. The sayings of the gifted and severe Mrs. Poyser are usually downright and strong; occasionally, they exemplify the author's delicacy of surprise and innuendo. For example: "I'm not denyin' the women are foolish; God Almighty made 'em to match the men There If we were to be critical, for the sake of a Rhetorical lesson, we might say that the humour is sometimes sacrificed to the pungency. The author's judgments of human beings. in general are too severe to be uniformly agreeable. is an unnecessary harshness in such a saying as this: 'We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us than to the women that love us. Is it because the brutes are dumb?' Even if there were plausibility in this surmise, it is needlessly grating. “Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the reverse.” This is clever satire, but not calculated to please. It is typical of an extensive manufacture of witty sayings at the expense of the kindly home relations. WIT. 1. Wit, in its most distinctive feature, is a play upon words, rendered possible by the frequent plurality of meanings in the same language. The ingenuity displayed in this exercise may be such as to excite surprise and admiration. The pleasure of admiration may arise from ingenuity in any work of men; for example, inventions in machinery, as the steam engine; master-strokes of tactics in war, like Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras; discoveries in science, as gravity; skill in games. None of these obtain the designation of Wit. Pope's definition of Wit What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressedpoints to the skilled employment of language generally, and would have been received in his day as a just definition. In our time, a narrower meaning prevails, although not to the exclusion of a wider and vaguer usage. All that class of effects, arising out of the plural meanings of words, is Wit in this narrow sense. By whatever name expressed, there is a notable distinctiveness in the process as a literary art. The Figure of Speech named Epigram coincides very largely with this meaning of Wit. It is an agreeable effect of surprise, through the play upon words that have more than one meaning. (See PART FIRST, EPIGRAM.) A distinction is drawn between the Epigram proper and the Pun. It is under this last form that everyday Wit runs into the wildest profusion. Nine-tenths of all the so-called witticisms are puns. The Paradox is a name for some startling proposition, which owes its force to an apparent contradiction, like the Epigram. Hence it is used among the names for defining and illustrating Wit. Next to the Epigram, we include effects coming under the Figures of Innuendo and Irony; which work by affording two (or more) different openings to the thoughts; the one apparent but not intended, the other intended but not apparent. One of Jerrold's well-known witticisms was directed against an objectionable person, who said of a certain musical air, that he was quite carried away by it'. 'Is there any one here that can whistle it?' was the remark. The play upon 'carried away' was the instrument of a subtle and telling innuendo. Voltaire said of Dante's reputation-that, if people read him, the admiration would cease. Without word-play, there is here a cutting insinuation, aimed at Dante and his admirers alike. The point and compression of the balanced sentence may be treated as nearly allied to effects of wit proper, although wanting in verbal equivocations:-'My poverty, but not my will, consents'. 'Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more.' Many of Fuller's witticisms are of this kind: I shall not wonder that good men die so soon, but that they live so long; seeing wicked men desire their room here on earth and God their company in heaven'. When we pass from the meanings now stated, we lose the distinctive and well-marked character of word-play, and enter on a wider range of literary ingenuity, approaching more closely to Pope's definition. For example, the use of balance and antithesis, when very effective, may receive the compliment of wit. In this application, something is due to the idea of compact brevity and terseness, which entered into the original notion of the Epigram, and adheres still to the character of Wit. As this effect demands an ingenious manipulation of words, and imparts an agreeable surprise when well executed, it easily chimes in with the more strict employment of the term. Still further from the primitive and standard meaning is the application of the word to a brilliant simile or metaphor. Ingenuity, originality, and the putting of much meaning into few words, together operate to awaken surprise and admiration: and, as language is the vehicle of the effect, we regard it as nearly allied to the characteristic effects of wit. Thus Bright like the sun her eyes the gazers strike, When metaphors or similes are exaggerated and disparaging, they are ministerial to vituperation, ridicule, or humour. They are called wit, when they are distinguished for brevity or verbal point. Jerrold, after a bad illness, described himself as having 'made a runaway knock at Death's door'. Sydney Smith's definition of marriage is called witty, from his ingenuity in framing a simile with a plurality of applications: It resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them'. 2. Seeing that Wit, in its purest form, aims chiefly at a pleasing surprise, the originality and ingenuity must be of a distinguished sort: it must sparkle. It may fail from one or other of three vices: (1) Coarseness, (2) Remoteness or Obscurity, (3) Excess. (1) Wit, in itself, besides possessing the essential circumstance of ingenuity, must avoid Coarseness. The search for witticisms has to be controlled by refinement or delicacy. Some of the greatest wits have overstepped this boundary: as Aristophanes, among the ancients; Rabelais, Swift and Pope, among moderns. (See HUMOUR, p. 244.) (2) Like every other effect of style, Wit must be intelligible to those addressed. Far-fetched allusions are condemned, whatever be their purpose. (3) The greatest risk, in constantly aiming at wit, is overdoing it. Like all pungent effects, it palls by repetition; although, by originality, the limits of surfeit can be so far extended. The torturing of language may be carried to a point where meaning is entirely sacrificed to effect. This point is reached by conundrums, riddles and acrostics. 3. In the great majority of instances, Wit lends itself to other effects. It may be used in furtherance of any of the great emotional qualities, although most frequently employed in connexion with Vituperation, Ridicule and Humour. In all such cases, its propriety must be ruled by aptness for the end in view. As employed in Vituperation, Ridicule, and the Ludi |