Vitreous humor

“ Of honest laughter there shall be no dearth, Wit shall shake hands with humor grave and sweet, Our wisdom shall not be too wise for mirth, Nor kindred follies want a fool to greet. As sometimes from the meanest spot of earth A sudden beauty unexpected starts, So you shall find some germs of hidden worth Within the vilest hearts; And now and then, when in those moods that turn To the cold Muse that whips a fault with sneers, You shall, perchance, be strangely touched to learn You've struck a spring of tears! ”

“ Strange as the genealogy may seem, the original parentage of that wonderful and delicious mixture of fun, fancy, philosophy, and feeling, which constitutes modern humor, was probably the cruel mockery of a savage at the writhings of a suffering enemy—such is the tendency of things toward the good and beautiful on this earth! Probably the reason why high culture demands more complete harmony with its moral sympathies in humor than in wit, is that humor is in its nature more prolix—that it has not the direct and irresistible force of wit. ”

“ But Humor floods you to the brim with measureful content. Wit sends you a sharp, sudden, electric shock, that leaves you tingling from without. Humor operates from within, with its slow and prolonged excitation of your risible soul. ”

“ You’re a dour Scotchman, that’s what you are, and you keep your humor done up in a wet blanket, and when it glints out of the corner of your eye a bit, you draw down the corners of your mouth to belie it. ”

“ That the satirical element in this romantico-realistic form of fiction should be characterized by humor, exposure, and comparative rarity, instead of wit, exaggeration, and ubiquity, is inevitable, since the former qualities accord not only with realism but with one another.
Humor is the comic sense which is amused by things as they are, whereas wit either creates the absurdity or ferrets it out of obscurity. ”

“ Natural, irrepressible humor is always welcome; but the humor of the grotesque, the exaggerated, the distorted, is like a fashion in dress: it has its day. How surely we tire of the loud, the too pronounced, the merely peculiar, whether it be in carpets and wall-papers, or in books and art! ”

“ Feeling must be dominated by reflection; even pathos demands this, for, if we lose ourselves in sorrowful feeling, no fair image can arise and steady us.
There is, however, much comedy that is obviously unsympathetic, even hostile. There is satire, which condemns, as well as humor which pardons. The one blames the unexpected and unconventional, the other sympathizes with it. Comedy is either biting or kindly. ”

“ We are implicated in the scene only by our instinct of observation and sympathy; that needs relief, but, if the blow struck us and became a "fee-grief due to each single breast," we could endure it as we do in real life, as we prefer to do, with a temper that keeps all other strings muted but sorrow. So the Humor which we would not tolerate when the tempest breaks upon our roof-tree, and is sullen within every chamber, is no unwelcome surprise when the heart is so keenly summoned by the mimic scene. ”

“ What is much worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations of weary eyes are being rapidly obscured by sombre and intricate scroll-work, warranted to oppress and fatigue. The great masterpieces of humor, which have kept men young by laughter, are being tried in the courts of an orthodox morality, and found lamentably wanting ”

“ And yet we often find words fail us when we attempt characteristically to indicate their differences, and to pass a discriminating judgment upon them. So, too—to illustrate this topic by the instance of wit—a forced humor, with its wearying repetitions and mannerism, or the ceaseless straining and empty play of an artificial wit, is very different from the overflowing fullness of genuine poetical wit, in which the lively genius of a sportive fancy is every where welling forth, and a profound poetical enthusiasm shines through the coat of ever-shifting hues which its motley humor puts on. ”

“ Humor, in the sense of fun, is doubtless another lyrical heresy. But humor is the overflow of genius,—the humor compounded of mirth and pathos, of smiles and tears,—and in the poems cited, and in Thackeray's ballads, it speaks for the universality of the poet's range. ”

“ A concomitant loss in this dissolving of our civilization is that of the sense of humor. Being so recently returned from barbarism and its beyond, I can confidently assert that the ape and the savage, while they may be laughable, do not laugh. In the sickroom of the not very sick, the brightest witticisms seem only studied banalities. There is no comedy in the incidents of ministration; it is all unrelieved tragedy. Yet it is not the humorous, but the humor that is lacking, for frequently the situations are appreciated at recovery, and furnish us amusement at intervals for a lifetime. ”

“ The humor is Rabelaisian—or American—in its pure love of size; it floats in a gigantic, inflated balloon, to which a small basket of mental cargo is attached. In this, however, is wrapped up the very important secret that continuous laughter releases one from enchantment and restores one’s true form.
The romantic satirist must have, like any other compound, certain more or less inconsistent traits. There must be the inventive wit of romance plus the shrewd logic of satire. Yet this rare combination does not insure the best satiric results. ”

“ However that may be, we have as yet invented nothing to surpass the general Victorian satiric philosophy,—that the wisest reaction to life is a high seriousness graced with humor, and the most acceptable attitude toward one’s fellow creatures is a compassionate comprehension of our common tragedy, redeemed from emotionalism by an ironic appreciation of the human comedy. ”

“ Without the saving grace of humor our Puritan conscience which we all possess would lead us again into all extravagance, witch-burnings, Quaker-stoning, heresy trials, and intolerance of politics and religion. From all these we are saved by our feeling for the incongruous. A touch of humor recalls us to our senses. It "makes the whole world kin." ”

“ It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. ”

“ Inside the cab I tried on the thing, just to get a picture in my mind of the old gentleman going it up Broadway with my opera-hat on his head. The hat sagged over my ears; and I laughed. The picture I had conjured up was too much for my anger, which vanished suddenly. And once I had laughed I felt a trifle more agreeable toward the world. So long as a man can see the funny side of things he has no active desire to leave life behind; and laughter does more to lighten his sorrows than sympathy, which only aggravates them. ”

“ If these women suspect their hearts to be distilling a sigh, laughter sparkles into the recess and exposes the illicit business. It is just like the men to roam about in disordered attire, with blue, inclement features, shaking with the "quotidian-tertian" of their love-turn. ”

“ Here Voltaire had to give pictures of life as well as to convey philosophic truth and satire, and here we feel the want of humor. The sense of the ludicrous is continually defeated by disgust, and the scenes, instead of presenting us with an amusing or agreeable picture, are only the frame for a witticism. ”

“ We usually include under the general term all forms of pleasantry, grotesqueness, drollery, sarcasm, irony, ridicule. Our common acceptation shall serve us in these studies.
“There are many things,” says Prof. Matthews, “that definition helps us to understand, but there are other things that we understand better than we can any possible definition of them; among these are the cold, sparkling, mercurial thing we call wit, [Pg 21] and that genial, juicy, unconscious thing we call humor.” ”

“ The same intelligence that discerns the incongruity between what men ought to be and what they are, cannot fail to penetrate the impelling reasons for the failure. Only in humor is sympathetic insight complete. Satire has the temporal usefulness of a practical expedient, humor the eternal value of beauty.
CHAPTER VII THE STANDARD OF TASTE Our interest in art is seldom a matter of mere feeling or appreciation; usually it is a matter of judgment as well. Beginning in feeling, the sthetic experience passes over into comparison and estimation—into criticism, and there finds its normal completion. ”

“ The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. ”

“ but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me to-day will have somebody to laugh at him to-morrow, and revenge my quarrel. ”

“ For humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals. ”

“ The fragrance of flowers and of new-mown hay; the genial warmth of sunshine, and the beauty of a sunset among clouds; the comfort and cheerful glow of the fireside; the deliciousness of fruits and of all good cheer; the magnificence of mountains, and seas, and cataracts, and the softer charm of rural scenery; even the fast-falling snow and the gray atmosphere through which it descends,—all these and innumerable other enjoyable things of earth must perish with her. Then the country frolics; the homely humor; the broad, open-mouthed roar of laughter, in which body and soul conjoin so heartily! ”

“ As the spring advances in Venice, and the heat increases, the expansive delight with which the city hails its coming passes into a tranquiler humor, as if the joy of the beautiful season had sunk too deeply into the city’s heart for utterance. ”

“ Certain sentiments are inappropriate to Christmastide, but Humor, like Death, has all seasons for his own. ”

“ But if vice, divested of disgust and terror, is thus in its own nature ridiculous, we ought not to be surprized if the very same vices which spread horror and desolation thro' the Tragic scene should yet furnish the Comic with its highest laughter and delight, and that tears, and mirth, and even humour and wit itself, should grow from the same root of incongruity: For what is humour in the humourist, but incongruity, whether of sentiment, conduct, or manners? What in the man of humour, but a quick discernment and keen sensibility of these incongruities? ”

“ For hardier aspirants, the two main entrances to popular favour are by the twin gates of laughter and tears. Pathos knits the soul and braces the nerves, humour purges the eyesight and vivifies the sympathies ”

“ Those who eagerly crowded around to gaze at this grim exemplification of the covert sarcasm and irony which dwells in every human breast, nearly died with laughter at the sepulchral immobility of the sneering smile. ”

“ The qualities which go to the complete enjoyment of the jokes she plays, I lack. The laughter she compels has characteristics which I do not find altogether to my taste. It gets upon my brain; steals my sleep; nips my heart; fills the world with—faces; grinning faces, all of them—like his. And so I’m resolved to tell the joke, and I promise that it shan’t be spoilt in telling.” This with a smile upon his lips, a something elusive in his eyes, which, to my mind, again betrayed the lunatic. He threw out his arms with a burst of sudden wildness. ”

“ The nakedness only strikes and offends the eye in the barrenness of other matter. It is the same in the drama. Mere grossness or ribaldry is intolerable; but you often find in the old comedy that the wit and ingenuity (as well as custom) carry off what otherwise could not be borne. The laughter prevents the blush. So an expression seems gross in one person’s mouth, which in another passes off with perfect innocence. ”

“ He laughs, and laughs, staggers to the sofa, falls on it, rocks and roars till the tears roll down his cheeks. He sways from side to side, unable to control himself—his laughter is so colossal that the infection catches the others; theirs becomes genuine too. ”

“ For laughter may be reckoned in some sort an antidote to sensuality, at least to sensuality in its vilest and most insinuating mood. "There is no passion," as Sterne says, "so serious as lust;" and we may safely conclude that when laughter is provoked, the wit of expression or the ludicrousness of [Pg x] situation is more active to our apprehension than the license of sentiment. ”

“ Humour is the whimsical Oddity, or Foible, which fairly appears in its Subject, of itself; whereas Wit, is the Lustre which is thrown upon one Subject, by the sudden Introduction of another Subject.
To constitute Humour, there need be no more than one Object concern'd, and this must be always some Person in real Life;--whereas to produce Wit, there must be always two Objects arranged together, and either or both of these may be inanimate. ”

“ It is the best thing altogether.
In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense can’t forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke—an enjoyment expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady’s mirrors when my Lady is not among them. ”

“ And she laughed from the red lips outward, the laugh of the brave who die,
But a ghost in her laughter murmured, "I lie—I lie!"
She pressed the glass to her lips as one presses the lips of love,
And I said: "Are you always merry, and what is the art thereof?" ”

“ Even in comic dialogue there is something of attack, and the witty women of the Restoration and other writers have now and again a rasping tongue. Yet it is in satire that we see the deep malignity of wit. The witty sarcasms of Voltaire and the rest seem to be imps of malice disguised as toys. The sally of cruel meaning out of what looks harmless nonsense, or a mere verbal slip—as in the polished rebuke of a Master of Trinity to a too confident Junior Fellow, “we are all fallible, even the youngest of us”—has a wounding force greater than that of a direct mode of statement. ”