Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 37, November, 1860 | Page 5

But wit and humor constantly run into each other; and though the absence of intention at once shows that a ludicrous surprise belongs to the humorous, the presence of it will not so clearly define it as belonging to the witty. Nor will laughter quite settle this question; for there is wit which makes us laugh, and there is humor which does not. On the whole, it is as to what is purely wit that we are ever the most at fault. Certain phases of humor we cannot mistake,--especially those which are broadly comic or farcical. But sometimes we meet with incidents or scenes which have more in them of the pathetic than the comic, that we must still rank with the humorous. Here is a case in point. A time was when it was a penal offence in Ireland for a priest to say Mass, and under particular circumstances a capital felony. A priest was malignantly prosecuted; but the judge, being humane, and better than the law, determined to confound the informer.
"Pray, Sir," said the judge, "how do you know he said Mass?"
"Because I heard him say it, my Lord."
"Did he say it in Latin?" asked the judge.
"Yes, my Lord."
"Then you understand Latin?"
"A little."
"What words did you hear him say?"
"Ave Maria."
"That is the Lord's Prayer, is it not?" asked the judge.
"Yes, my Lord."
"Here is a pretty witness to convict the prisoner!" cried the judge; "he swears Ave Maria is Latin for the Lord's Prayer!"
Now, surely, this scene is hardly laughable, and yet it is thoroughly humorous. But take an instance which is entirely comic:--"All ye blackguards as isn't lawyers," exclaimed a crier, "quit the Coort." Or this:--"Och, Counsellor, darling," said a peasant once to O'Connell, "I've no way here to show your Honor my gratitude! but _I wish I saw you knocked down in my own parish_, and may be I wouldn't bring a faction to the rescue." A similar instance occurred in this country. An enthusiastic Irishwoman, listening once to a lecturer praising Ireland, exclaimed,--"I wish to God I saw that man in poverty, that I might do something to relieve him."
We shall now cite an example of pure wit.
"How can you defend this item, Mr. Curran," said Lord Chancellor Clare,--"'To writing innumerable letters, ￡100'?"
"Why, my Lord," said Curran, "nothing can be more reasonable. It is not a penny a letter."
But we might fill the whole space of our article, ay, or of twenty articles, with such illustrations; we will content ourselves with two others. The idea is the same in both; but in the first it seems to have a mixture of the witty and the humorous; in the second, it belongs entirely to the humorous.
A lady at a dinner-party passing near where Talleyrand was standing, he looked up and significantly exclaimed, "Ah!" In the course of the dinner, the lady having asked him across the table, why on her entrance he said "Oh!" Talleyrand, with a grave, self-vindicatory look, answered,--"_Madame, je n'ai pas dit_ 'Oh!' _J'ai dit_ 'Ah!'"
Here is the second.--The Reverend Alonzo Fizzle had preached his farewell-sermon to his disconsolate people in Drowsytown. The next morning, Monday, he was strolling musingly along a silent road among the melancholy woods. The pastor of a neighboring flock, the Reverend Darius Dizzle, was driving by in his modest one-horse chaise.
"Take a seat, Fizzle?" said he. "Don't care if I do," said Fizzle,--and took it.
"Why, the mischief, Fizzle," said Dizzle, "did you say in your farewell-sermon, that it was just as well to preach to the dead buried six feet under the earth as to the people of Drowsytown?"
_"I?--I?--I?"_ gasped the astonished Fizzle. "A more alive and wakeful people are not upon the earth than the citizens of Drowsytown. What calumniator has thus outraged them and _me_? Who told you this? Who dared to say it?"
"Brother Ichabod Muzzle," calmly answered Dizzle.
Fizzle leaped out, hurried to his home, and was soon seen whipping his unfortunate horse in a certain direction. He was on his way to the residence of the Reverend Ichabod Muzzle, who lived five or six miles off. He reached the home of the Reverend Ichabod. The friends greeted each other. Fizzle, though pregnant with indignation, assumed the benignant air of the Beloved Disciple. Muzzle looked Platonically the incarnate idea of the Christian Parson.
"Fine day," said Fizzle.
"Lovely," said Muzzle.
"Glorious view from this window," observed Fizzle.
"Superb," replied Muzzle.
"The beauties of Nature are calming and consolatory," murmured Fizzle.
"And so are the doctrines of grace," whispered Muzzle.
Fizzle could hold out no longer. Still he tried to look the placid, and to speak with meekness.
"Pray, how did it come, Brother Muzzle," said Fizzle, "that you reported I declared in my farewell-sermon it was as easy to preach to the dead buried six feet under the earth as to the people of Drowsytown?"
"You