WIT AND HUMOR.
The distinction between wit and humor may be said to consist in this,—that the characteristic of the latter is Nature, and of the former Art. Wit is more allied to intellect, and humor to imagination. Humor is a higher, finer, and more genial thing than wit. It is a combination of the laughable with tenderness, sympathy, and warm-heartedness. Pure wit is often ill-natured, and has a sting; but wit, sweetened by a kind, loving expression, becomes humor. Wit is usually brief, sharp, epigrammatic, and incisive, the fewer words the better; but humor, consisting more in the manner, is diffuse, and words are not spared in it. Carlyle says, “The essence of humor is sensibility, warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence;” and adds, of Jean Paul’s humor, that “in Richter’s smile itself a touching pathos may lie hid too deep for tears.” Wit may be considered as the distinctive feature of the French genius, and humor of the English; but to show how difficult it is to carry these distinctions out fairly, we may note that England has produced a Butler, one of the greatest of wits, and France a Molière, one of the greatest of humorists. Fun includes all those things that occasion laughter which are not included in the two former divisions. Buffoonery and mimicry come under this heading, and it has been observed that the author of a comedy is a wit, the comic actor a humorist, and the clown a buffoon. Old jests were usually tricks, and in coarse times we find that little distinction is made between joyousness and a malicious delight in the misfortunes of others. Civilization discountenances practical jokes, and refinement is required to keep laughter within bounds. As the world grows older, fun becomes less boisterous, and wit gains in point, so that we cannot agree with Cornelius O’Dowd when he says, “The day of witty people is gone by. If there be men clever enough nowadays to say smart things, they are too clever to say them. The world we live in prefers placidity to brilliancy, and a man like Curran in our present-day society would be as unwelcome as a pyrotechnist with a pocket full of squibs.” This is only a repetition of an old complaint, and its incorrectness is proved when we find the same thing said one hundred years ago. In a manuscript comedy, “In Foro,” by Lady Houstone, who died near the end of the last century, one of the characters observes: “Wit is nowadays out of fashion; people are well-bred, and talk upon a level; one does not at present find wit but in some old comedy.” In spite of Mr. Lever and Lady Houstone, we believe that civilized society is specially suited for the display of refined wit. Under such conditions satire is sure to flourish, for the pen takes the place of the sword, and we know it can slay an enemy as surely as steel. This notion owes its origin in part to an error in our mental perspective, by which we bring the wit of all ages to one focus, fancying what was really far apart to have been close together, and thus comparing things which possess no proper elements of comparison, and placing as it were in opposition to each other the accumulated, broad, and well-storied tapestry of the past with the fleeting moments of our day, which are but its still accumulating fringe. Charles Lamb will not allow any great antiquity for wit, and apostrophizing candle-light says: “This is our peculiar and household planet; wanting it, what savage, unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in eaves and unillumined fastnesses! They must have laid about and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbor’s cheek to be sure he understood it! Jokes came in with candles.”