wit1 (wit)

[ IMG:content-2474.png:[blocks in formation] .. wit Serious wit is neither more nor le than quick wisdom. Burnet . Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit ; by and by it will strike. Shak., Tempest, ii. 1. 13. In more recent use wit in the singular generally implies comic wit ; in that sense it is different from humor . One principal difference is that wit always lies in some form of words, while humor may be expre ed by manner, as a smile, a grimace, an attitude. Underlying this is the fact, consistent with the original meaning of the words, that humor goes more deeply into the nature of the thought, while wit catches pleasing but occult or far fetched resemblances between things really unlike: a good pun shows wit ; Irving's "History of New York" is a piece of sustained humor , the humor lying in the portrayal of character, the nature of the incidents, etc. Again, " Wit may, I think, be regarded as a purely intellectual proce , while humor is a sense of the ridiculous controlled by feeling, and coexistent often with the gentlest and deepest pathos" (H. Reed , Lects. on Eng. Lit., xi. 357). Hence humor is always kind, while wit may be unkind in the extreme: Swift's "Travels of Gulliver" is much too severe a satire to be called a work of humor . It is e ential to the effect of wit that the form in which it is expre ed should be brief; humor may be heightened in its effect by expansion into full forms of statement, description, etc. Wit more often than humor depends upon pa ing circumstances for its effect. The best and most agreeable specimen of English humor (it is humor in contrast to wit ) which belongs to that period is Steele's invention, and Add is on's use, of the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. The same species of pure, genial, wise, and healthful humor has been sustained in the incomparable "Vicar of Wake field," and in the writings of our countryman Washington Irving. H. Reed, Lects. on Eng. Lit., xi. 369. While wit is a purely intellectual thing, into every act of the humorous mind there is an influx of the moral nature; rays, direct or refracted, from the will and the affections, from the disposition and the temperament, enter into all humor; and thence it is that humor is of a diffusive quality, pervading an entire course of thought; while wit -because it has no existence apart from certain logical relations of thought which are definitely a ignable, and can be counted even - is always punctually concentrated within the circle of a few words. De Quincey. Dr. Trusler says that wit relates to the matter, humour to the manner; that our old comedies abounded with wit, and our old actors with humour ; that humour always excites laughter but wit does not; that a fellow of humour will set a whole company in a roar, but that there is a smartne in wit which cuts while it pleases. Wit , he adds, always implies sense and abilities, while humour does not; humour is chiefly relished by the vulgar, but education is requisite to comprehend uit . Fleming, Vocab. Philos. It is no uncommon thing to hear "He has humour rather than wit ." Here the expre ion commonly means pleasantry; for whoever has humour has wit , although it does not follow that whoever has wit has humour . Humour is wit appertaining to character, and indulges in breadth of drollery rather than in play and brilliancy of point. Wit vibrates and spirts; humour springs up exuberantly as from a fountain and runs on. In Congreve you wonder what he will say next; in Add is on you repose on what is said, listening with a ured expectation of something con genial and pertinent. Landor . Small room for Fancy's many chorded lyre, For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire. O. W. Holmes, An After-Dinner Poem. I am not speaking of the fun of the book [Don Quixotel of which there is plenty, and sometimes boisterous enough, but of that deeper and more delicate quality, suggestive of remote analogies and e ential incongruities, which alone deserves the name of humor . Lowell , Don Quixote.