Wit, Humor, and Shakspeare: Twelve Essays

by John Weiss

Punning approaches the character of wit when the identity of sound not only covers two ideas, but also hides an allusion to still another. When Douglass Jerrold by a quick motion accidentally threw himself backward into the water, and was carried into a tavern, he said to the servant, "I suppose these accidents happen frequently off here." "Oh, yes, sir, frequently; but it's not the season yet." "Ah! I suppose it's all owing to a backward spring." "That's it, sir." The play recalls the manner of his ducking, and also involves the servant's idea, as if it depended upon the time of the year. This is witty, because it effects a temporary junction of very opposite ideas, apart from the pun which gives the opportunity.

Let a case in illustration be invented. Suppose a man hears that in the Quissama tribe of Angola any one who cannot pay his debts is at once killed and eaten. He improves this curious fact to say, "That would be a pretty effective way of collecting a debt, if debtors did not always disagree with creditors." This leads us to consider that wit takes place when two or more very distinct objects or perceptions are brought arbitrarily under the sway of one idea which for a moment appears to embrace them. Punning is a constraint of two different ideas to be expressed by one word. Wit is the constraint of different objects to be expressed by one idea. Wit depends for its effect upon ideas alone; and it is reached whenever the mind suddenly forces an idea that is suggested to it to appear, for a moment, like something that belongs to another idea. The latter really resembles the first idea in no point at all: they ought to be kept asunder for want of a natural and organic connection. Yet they are compelled to seem to have this; and, though the illusion can last but for a moment, that is time enough to surprise and delight us with the mental stratagem. Perhaps the second idea, so far from having any natural relation with the first, is violently opposed to it in every sensible way, so that nobody can pretend a possibility that they should communicate. The mind contrives this momentary rendezvous; and a lightning-flash betrays these two heterogeneous things apparently in close communion.

But, although this is the metaphysical basis of all wit, we must notice the distinctions in its quality, according as it draws upon more or less of the imagination, and is more or less interfused with good-nature. It has a range of effects extending from a bitterness which may be ferocious through a cold cynicism, a clear, calm light of the understanding, into moods that are colored by fancy and warmed into geniality by a human heart; and then it becomes a favorite ally of humor to promote its intention of tolerating all our infirmities. Douglas Jerrold gives us examples of the caustic kind; Tom Hood, of its jollity; Charles Lamb, of its clearness; Richter, Sydney Smith, Shakspeare, of its broad humanity.

Some one asked Heine, "Have you read B.'s new pamphlet?" "No, dear friend; I only read his great works: the three, four, and five-volumed ones suit me best." "Ah! you jest, and mean something." "Certainly: a great extent of water—a lake, sea, ocean—is a fine thing; but in a teaspoon I cannot stand it."

Heine said of one of his acquaintances, "The man is really cracked; but I will confess that he has lucid intervals when he is only foolish." This was the same person whom Heine had in his mind when he said to a caller, "My head to-day is perfectly barren, and you will find me stupid enough; for a friend has been here, and we exchanged ideas."

The old age of Lamartine exhibited a painful decline of his truly great qualities, and an exaggeration of his foibles. A French paper concluded his obituary with the remark, "He has ceased to survive himself."

These are caustic specimens; but the last one contains a high per cent of pleasure, because we are left uncertain whether it was a serious case of wit. But none of them can scald as Douglas Jerrold did, when, meeting a man who was such an abject toady that if his friend Jones had the influenza he would contrive to get up a cold, Jerrold said to him, "Have you heard the rumor that is flying around town?" "No." "Well, they say that Jones pays the dog-tax for you."

That is bitter. But when one gentleman during a supper of sheep's heads throws down his knife and fork in rapture, and exclaims, "Well, sheep's heads for ever, say I," and Douglas Jerrold remarks, "There's egotism," we have a point tempered in the flame of fun. So, too, when a member of his club, hearing an air mentioned, said, "That always carries me away when I hear it," Jerrold, merely to seize an opportunity, said, "Then can nobody whistle it?" This kind of wit easily rankles, if there be a drop or two of suspicion in our veins; for there is nothing in the tone to announce its discrimination from ill-nature. For instance: Sheridan, soliciting the votes of the shoemakers of Stafford, exclaimed, "May the trade of Stafford be trampled under foot of all the world!" and mortally offended them.

We should like to know how the French attaché felt who, being at a soirée just after the dubious affair of the annexation of Nice and Savoy to France, met Lord Houghton, as he went towards the supper-room, and said, "Je vais prendre quelque chose!" "Vous avez raison," was the reply; "c'est l'habitude de votre pays."

But the French abound in the kind of wit which penetrates like a colorless North light, and sets a contrast in clearness, so that we admire its outlines, scarcely smiling; as when Hippolyte Taine said, "An Englishman would be exceedingly mortified if he had no faith in another life." When the Duke de Choiseul, who was a remarkably lean man, came to London to negotiate a peace, Charles Townsend, being asked whether the French Government had sent the preliminaries of a treaty, answered that he did not know, but they had sent the outline of an ambassador. This preserves the French flavor, which we recognize, for instance, in Ninon de l'Enclos, who, being asked one day by a Parisian lady whether she believed that St. Denys walked all the way to Paris with his head under his arm, replied, "Pourquoi pas, Mademoiselle? ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte."