HUMOR

(Lat. humor, damp) had already become an Eng. word of the same equivalence as its Lat. progeniterin 1382, but had then already been applied to what the Schoolmen named the cardinal fluids of the body—blood, choler, melancholy, and phlegm. The predominant h, became the means of cla ification of temperaments; thus the word is used by Shakespeare and the XVIL.- cent. writers of ‘comedies of h’s.’ In late XVII. cent. h. appears as a term for a sense of broad fun. To-day, wit is an intellectual cleverne which raises a smile; it may be unkind, unsympathetic. H. is more elemental, it is of the heart, not the intellect; it is born of incongruous incidents, and its product is laughter. Oscar Wilde was a wit; J. M. Barrie isa humorist. In drama wit is the province of comedy; h., of farce. Notable humorists are (great wit alse), Swift, Sterne, Add is on, Oe Woniell Holmes, Mark Twain, Max Adeler, Charles Lever, Jerome K.| Jerome, W. W. Jacobs, Stephen Leacock.