Satire proper, where the purpose of ridicule is confessed, is a very different thing. We see this in the works of Juvenal, of whom Prof. Tyrrell writes, “He is always in a rage and a laugh seems to sit strangely on his lips”.[318] In this more serious and poignant satire the laugh takes on a shrill note of malignity from its mental entourage. The virulence of the satire of antiquity has since been softened. This is frequently effected by allegorical disguise. The mediæval satires, such as that on cunning and treachery in the fable of the Fox, are examples. The satires of Voltaire and of the English satirists, including the bitter and unsparing Swift, illustrate the same tendency.
This throwing of a fierce attack, whether political or moral, into the form of an allegory, though it seems to veil the direction of the assault, really gives it more point. In the attacks of derision, at least, a back-handed blow may often hurt more than one straight from the shoulder. The reader’s satisfaction includes no doubt an {383} element of admiration for the finesse of art: yet more seems to be involved. Swift could not have shown us the absurdities in our social and political institutions half as well by any direct attack on them as he has shown us by the indirect attack in Gulliver’s Travels. The indignity of a familiar vice or folly seems to be made palpable when it is thus ridiculed under the guise of some new semblance. Further, our laughter at the vice is reinforced by that which comes from the detection of the make-believe of the allegory. The playful element probably takes on something of malice from the prevailing tone of the satire, and in the end we may laugh yet more cruelly at the victim who is ever being anew detected, so to speak, under the literary mask.
Much the same kind of remark applies to the effect of simile, innuendo, irony, and all that we mean by wit in satire. We have touched on the playful side of wit under the head of Comedy. But this is only a part of what the word commonly implies. Even in comic dialogue there is something of attack, and the witty women of the Restoration and other writers have now and again a rasping tongue. Yet it is in satire that we see the deep malignity of wit. The witty sarcasms of Voltaire and the rest seem to be imps of malice disguised as toys. The sally of cruel meaning out of what looks harmless nonsense, or a mere verbal slip—as in the polished rebuke of a Master of Trinity to a too confident Junior Fellow, “we are all fallible, even the youngest of us”—has a wounding force greater than that of a direct mode of statement. The effect is still greater where failure and disgrace are exhibited under a thin ironical veil of glorious achievement, as in Pope’s lines on the Lord Mayor’s Show—said by Leigh Hunt to be the finest piece of wit he knew:— {384}
Now night descending the proud scene is o’er,
But lives in Settle’s numbers one day more.
In all such ironical inversion the satirist manages by a suggestion of the worthy and honourable to drive home with added force the humiliating truth; as in the remark of Cicero, apropos of an elderly dame who said that she was but forty years old: “I must believe her, for I have heard her say so any time these ten years”.[319] The presentation in this case of something hidden, immediately followed by an uncovering, may evoke an echo of the “bo-peep” laugh of infancy, which should, one supposes, tend to introduce a milder and playful tone into the attack; yet, owing to the predominance of the attitude of fierce derision, this very element of playfulness appears, somehow, to give a new pungency to the satirical thrust.
Nothing could be more unlike the laughter of virulent satire than that provoked by the expression of humour in literature. As our analysis would lead us to expect, we find in the truly humorous writer the mellowing influences of good nature and sympathy, and a large understanding and acceptance of that against which he pokes fun. While satire, sarcasm and their kind seem to be trying to push things away, or at least to alter them, humour, curiously enough, looks as if it were tenderly holding to the world which entertains it. Yet while all humorous writings illustrate these tendencies, the subjective and personal quality of humour is seen in the circumstance that every writer brings to bear on what he sees a new temper and attitude.
The contrast of the satirical and the humorous point of view may be conveniently studied by glancing at the current {385} and much-discussed distinction between wit and humour. That these do not logically make a pair of contrasting species has been implied in our analysis of the two. Perhaps nowhere do we find the human mind to have been more strangely misled by the fact of the existence of two words than in this case. Wit, as essentially a manner of deportment of the intelligence, can stand in no simple and direct relation to an emotional mood like humour.
No doubt there are facts which give colour to the idea of an opposition in this case. Thus, it is indubitable that whereas humour specially favours certain kinds of imaginative and reflective activity, wit seems always to prefer, even in its play, something in the shape of an incisive logical process.[320] But I suspect that the deeper ground of the distinction is to be found in the circumstance that the wit which is most brilliant, of keenest edge, and most effective in its stroke, appears always to grow out of, and so becomes associated with, those moods of satire and mordant mockery, to which humour as good-natured and tolerant is directly opposed. So it is with the wit of Voltaire and of others of his century.
A closer examination will, however, show that there is nothing incompatible between the humorous sentiment and the witty mode of behaviour of the intellect. As play indeed, wit quite naturally allies itself to the attitude of humour. It will be found that much that is commonly described as wit discloses the softening effect of humour, and might, indeed, just as well be called an illustration of humour. Those who really know the Irish will sometimes hesitate whether to speak of their wit or of their humour. The same applies, I feel sure, to a large number of {386} Shakespeare’s “witticisms”.[321] In all such cases, the wit, which when set in the fierce mood of the satirist has a nasty sting, not only becomes harmless, but may take on something of positive kindliness when it is tempered by an infusion of genial humour. The remark apropos of a very correct person, “He has not one redeeming vice,” may illustrate the point. It may even, in this harmless form, come into a laugh which tells against the humorist, as in the observation of an idler, “I don’t like working between my meals”.[322]