§ 30. If wit be the quick flash, the electric spark, the play of summer
lightning which warms the colour of conversation, humour is the
sustained side of the ridiculous, the comic way of looking at things and
people, which may be manifested either in comment upon the statements
made by others or in narrating one’s own experiences. Of course in
receiving and commenting upon what is being said, no preparation is
possible. It depends altogether upon a mental attitude, which looks out
with a smile upon the world, and exposes the ridiculous side of human
life not more by irony of comment than by mock approval of social vices,
mock indignation at social virtues, seriousness when false comedy is
being produced, raillery when false tragedy is being paraded with
insincerity or empty bombast. In these and a hundred other ways humour
receives and criticises what other people say in a company; and if it be
coupled _with kindliness of heart and with tact_, may be regarded as the
very highest of conversational virtues.
Analogous to this is the display of humour, not in receiving but in
producing ideas in company. The humourist is the only good and effective
story-teller; for if he is to monopolise a conversation, and require
others to listen to him, it must be by presenting human life under a
fresh and piquant aspect—in fact, as a little comedy. Thus the lifelike
portrayal of any kind of foible—pomposity, obsequiousness, conceit,
hypocrisy, nay even of provincial accent or ungrammatical
language—ensures a pleased and therefore agreeable audience, and opens
the way for easy and sympathetic intercourse. It is perhaps not too much
to say that in any society where conventionality becomes a threatening
power, humour is our great safeguard from this kind of vulgarity. Let me
point as an illustration of this to the social sketches in _Punch_,
which for years back have been the truest mirror of the vulgarities of
English society. The humorous exhibition of these foibles is the most
effective way we know of bringing them before the public mind, and of
warning people that here is a judge whose censure is really to be
feared. We may also learn from the success of this extraordinary paper
how much more valuable and more respected prepared humour is than
prepared wit. The jokes in the text pass by unheeded, while the sketches
of character are thought deserving of a permanent place in our
literature.
§ 31. I need hardly add that the abuse of these great natural gifts is
not only possible, but frequent, and in both it arises from the same
mental defects—conceit and selfishness. A man who can say a good thing
or make a person appear ridiculous may be so proud of his power that he
exercises it at the cost of good taste and even of real humanity. The
great wit is often cruel, and even glories in wounding to the quick the
sensibilities of others. If he can carry some of the company with him he
has a wicked enjoyment in making one of the rest a butt or target for
his shafts, and so destroying all wholesome conversation. He may leave
in the minds of his society an admiration of his talent, but often a
serious dislike of his character. With such feelings abroad he will
injure conversation far more than he promotes it. People may consent to
go into his company to hear him talk, but will avoid talking in his
presence.
The excesses of the humourist are perhaps rather those of a complacent
selfishness, which does not hesitate to monopolise the company with long
stories in which all do not feel an interest. But humour is its own
antidote; and if a man have the true vein in him he will also have the
tact to feel when he is tedious, and when his fun is out of harmony with
his hearers. For these reasons it is not only a higher but a safer gift
than wit for the purposes of conversation; the pity of it is that so few
possess it, and that there is hardly any use in trying to attain it by
education. No doubt the constant society of an elder or superior who
looks at things in this way may stimulate it in the young, but with the
danger of making them sarcastic and satirical, which are grave faults,
and which are the distortion of humour to ill-natured and unsocial
purposes, so that even in this view of the matter education in humour
may turn out a very mischievous failure.
On the whole we must set ourselves to carry on society and to make good
conversation without any large help from these brilliant but dangerous
gifts. Occasional flashes will occur to ordinary people, and sometimes
the very circumstances themselves will create a situation so humorous
that it requires no genius to bring it home to the company. But beyond
the necessary cautions above indicated, we cannot bring it into any
systematic doctrine of social intercourse.
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