This is a world where some things go well and some things don't, and all we can do about it is try the best we can to make things turn out the way we'd like. It is this attitude which leads people to believe that imps are less responsible than grumps. The grump is the person described by Gautier and a little later by Oscar Wilde as the person whose presence kills poetry. These are not necessarily stupid and unpleasant people, but just very small-souled. They are the ones who make everything into a joke.
Imps take their joking very seriously, whereas grumps make a joke out of everything impish.
Perhaps a great many of us have a potential for impitude, but it is suppressed by the lack of impish stimulus and the pressures of the unimaginative and restrictive world. Prokofiev composed much music of an impish nature. His first piano concerto would be good for any imp to listen to. And if anything suited the imp best it would have to be Peter's Theme from Peter and the Wolf . The Cat's Theme is also quite impy.