PURE HONEY
BEST BALM
Another thing. The wit-snapper should always carry about with him a little balm and a little honey. That was a good sword that Cambuscan had; it could heal the wounds it gave. Only the wit-snapper who carries a little balm and a little honey will be as well equipped as was the knight whose story Chaucer "left half-told."
A further point which calls for passing comment is this. Wit and merriment do not always go hand in hand; indeed, they are often sundered wide. Thus, of the world's famous humorists, it is well known that they were mostly melancholy at the home-fireside. Something very similar holds good in the case of girls—and there are many such—who, while witty in society, are deplorably glum in the family circle, in this unlike a girl of girls whom her father called "Minnehaha"—laughing water—so merry was she in her home, beyond which her influence was to be shed so far that she is known to-day from Indus to the Pole as the friend of Indian women.
Nell Witty
If they be right who consider, in opposition to Juliet, that something is in a name, then those among us who hold that such a name as Juliet tends to annihilate wit in the possessor of it are not mere fancy-mongers, and we are entitled to a courteous hearing when we submit that on the other hand the name Nelly, and still more the variant of it by which it becomes Nell, almost announces the owner of it to be a wit. This circumstance is quite independent of the fact that Scott has said, in just so many words, in reference to a particular case, "Mistress Nelly, wit she has," and if any explanation of it may be hazarded, the one which will probably satisfy most is that persons named Nelly or Nell—and the number of such is, happily, legion—are hardly ever found lacking in whimsicality. In the few cases in which they are deficient in this quality they should be called—and, as a matter of fact, they are generally called—Nella, the name Nella being that form of Nelly or Nell by which all the sparkle is taken out of it.
In conclusion, a word on wits under their physiognomical aspect. That a certain type of face in general denotes a witty person may be allowed.
"The slightly tossed nose," says one of Thomas Moore's biographers, "confirmed the fun of the expression."