LESSON 70.

WIT AND PATHOS.

Wit. Wit is a word once used to name our intellectual powers powers by which we perceive, learn, understand, think. In Hamlet's reply to Guildenstern, "I cannot make you a wholesome answer, my wit's diseased," the word is so used. In our infinitive phrase, to wit, the etymology of the word (A.-S. witan, to know) determines its meaning. The supreme act of the intellect is thinking. The relation upon which a thought is based the relation affirmed by the thought may be a relation between things, between ideas, that lie wide apart from each other, and are seemingly unrelated to each other. The union of such ideas in a thought excites surprise and pleasure in the reader or listener. It may even excite laughter an expression of pleasure by the muscles of the face. Indeed, to produce laughter, the laughter of derision or the laughter of goodfeeling, seem to be the purpose and the effect of what we now call wit. Of the thought which causes it we say that it is witty or that it is humorous. Wit, then, in our modern use of the word, denotes a power in the thinker to detect hidden and pleasing relations between ideas, and it names a quality of the thought which expresses these relations. In rhetoric, we may say that

Wit is a quality of style resulting from the union of seemingly unrelated ideas- a union producing surprise and pleasure.

Its Use. Wit is not, like perspicuity, a common and necessary quality of style, since the feeling which begets it is not always or often the mood of the author. But the

forms which it takes and its uses and occasions are many. Often wit is belligerent, and then it pricks the "swim-bladders" on which pretension or pomposity floats, or shoots its sharp arrows at follies and vices and meannesses and wickednesses wherever it finds them. Often wit is only sportive, genial, and humane, and, without hostility to anybody or anything, ministers to our sense of the ludicrous, our feeling of mirthfulness.

Taking wit as the genus, we may, in subdivision of it, say that

Satire is a species of wit used to correct the follies and vices of men and to reform abuses. It attacks both men and institutions. A production, long or short, into which this quality enters is called a satire.

Sarcasm is a species of wit used only against the foibles and follies and vices of men. We call a sentence or a group of sentences into which this quality enters a sarcasm. The etymology of the word implies that a sarcastic expression tears away a portion of the flesh.

Ridicule is a species of wit which provokes laughter at its object, and thus makes it contemptible. Nothing derided, or made ridiculous, can command respect, can long stand.

Irony is a species of wit used in discourse which, taken literally, conveys the very opposite of what is intended. The words convey a compliment in the guise of an insult; oftener, an insult in the guise of a compliment. Its presence in a sentence makes of it a boomerang, Lowell says. The weapon goes in a direction different from that in which it is thrown, and does not strike the one at which it is seemingly aimed.

A burlesque is a species of witty discourse or of caricature used to take off, by ludicrous imitation, what may be dignified and proper. Things may be burlesqued not by words

alone but by pictures, by gestures, by attitudes-by ludicrous imitations of all kinds.

The mock-heroic is a species of witty discourse used to raise low or trivial things to a plane of false dignity and importance.

A parody is a species of witty discourse in which the words of a production are copied in part, but the spirit of the piece is changed and lowered.

A pun is a witty expression in which a word agreeing in sound with another is used in place of it. Words agreeing in sound, but differing in meaning, are called homonyms. Into a pun, not only is the homonym of a word imported, but, if there are any words which should accompany the homonym to identify it, these also are brought along to complete the incongruity and the ludicrousness of the expression. There must be consonance of sound to produce a pun; but perhaps we should qualify our definition by adding that the agreement of sound may be between a syllable and a word, between one word and a group of words, between two groups, or between one word or group and another misspelled and mispronounced but still capable of being recognized.

The wit we have thus far been describing and defining is the wit which, in various degrees, is essentially hostile, and is used to attack and to destroy. It raises a laugh at bad men and things. It is invaluable, almost indispensable, in the discussion and the reformation of bad manners, morals, and institutions.

But there is another department of wit, less earnest, sweeter in temper, more playful and tender, compassionate towards its objects, and sympathetic with them. It ministers to our desire for fun, but the laughter it provokes is not a "laugh at men and things," but a "laugh with them." This kind of wit we call

Humor. - Humor is that kind of wit which, without hostility to anything, ministers to our feeling of mirthfulness. Humor is not to be distinguished from wit, but from the subdivisions of wit just defined; it is one hemisphere of wit, these subdivisions being the other. That which distinguishes it from them all is its freedom from animosity. Humor looks leniently upon human frailties and foibles, and finds food only for harmless fun in the imperfections and infelicities of life. It is a shower that quickens, not a storm that destroys. For its effect, humor depends less upon surprise than do the other forms of wit; hence the productions into which it enters please continually.

It will be seen that, though we have called wit a quality of style, we have grouped under it the burlesque, the mockheroic, the parody, and the pun, which are not species of wit, but species of witty discourse - productions or expressions into which wit enters. But it seemed best, even to the disregard of logic, to speak of these witty productions here where we were attempting to define wit and illustrate its nature and functions-especially as the door to this was opened by our being obliged to say of satire and sarcasm not only that they are species of this quality of style but that they are also productions into which wit enters.

Literature teems with witty productions and with productions in which witty expressions gleam and sparkle from the setting of serious discourse. Such productions appear in the decadence of manners and morals; and they appear at all times, since in our imperfect civilization there are always institutions that demand reformation, and evils that cry aloud for redress. And that form of wit which we have called humor, "full of humanity, flavored throughout with tenderness and kindness," has given us creations which are an exhaustless source of refreshment and delight.

Pathos. Pathos is a quality of style found in passages that express sorrow or grief, or sympathy with these. Pathos brings tears into the eye and tremulousness into the voice. It has some natural connection with humor. Laughter and tears lie close to each other, and the transition from the humorous to the pathetic is short and easy. Pathetic passages, full of tender feeling, abound in discourse of almost every kind.

Tender feelings, prompting to pathetic expression, compassionate or sympathetic, may be awakened by allusions (1) to "tender relationships" as of home or country; (2) to "acts of goodness" as of heroism or devotion; (3) to "humane sentiments" toward the brute creation; (4) to "human misery or happiness."

Direction. Classify the witty sentences below according to the species of wit which enters into them, and the pathetic sentences according to the source of the pathos : —

1. Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached the ground, encumbers him with help?

2. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.

3. What was Joan of Arc made of? She was Maid of Orleans.

4. I am, indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them.

5. I had rather be married to a Death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these.

6. Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.

7. Ichabod Crane was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small and flat at