“When my mother falls,” Ruth said, “I can’t keep from laughing, though I hate to see her fall.”
“But everything funny grows stale very soon,” said Marian.
“That is,” I answered, “because when we get used to a combination it no longer seems incongruous.”
“Well,” asked Marian, “when you laugh at people because they are boors and funny, why is that?”
“That is,” I said, “because you feel yourself to be so vastly superior.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I suppose so.”
“And next time you want to laugh at any one,” I said mock-seriously, “just think of it first, that you are considering how superior you are.”
She seemed greatly impressed and quite cast down by this remark.
I said: “Perhaps a good distinction to make between wit and humor is that wit laughs at people and humor laughs with them.”
“Isn’t satire wit?” asked Marian.