Rev. W. H. Fitchett points out the lack of humor in Susannah Wesley,
the mother of John Wesley:
The only charge which can be fairly urged against Susannah
Wesley is that she had no sense of humor. The very names of
the children prove the complete absence of any sense of the
ridiculous in either the rector of Epworth or his wife. One
daughter was cruelly labeled Mehetabel; a second, Jedidah. Mrs.
Susannah Wesley’s theological performances while yet in short
dresses prove her want of humor. A girl of thirteen, who took
herself solemnly enough to undertake the settlement of “the
whole question betwixt dissent and the Church” must have been of
an unsmiling and owl-like gravity. Now, humor has many wholesome
offices. It acts like a salt to the intellect, and keeps it
sweet. It enables its owner to see the relative sizes of things.
It gives an exquisite tact, a dainty lightness of touch to the
intellectual powers. And Mrs. Wesley visibly lacked any rich
endowment of that fine grace.--“Wesley and His Century.”
(1466)