The Irish standard., 1917-02-10
Wit And nUm0R
OF IRISH PEOPLE
A Strong Characteristic Of the Sons
Of Old Erin-Famous
Anecdotes.


us itself" and while some may regard
this proposition as touch of that ex-
aggeration we call poetic license,
little reflection will impress us that
at least humor is potent ingredient
in what we are accustomed to call
the genius of people, says Joseph
Smith in "The Hibernian."
Before passing to my particular
branch of the subject, let me ask,
What is humor and what is wit?"
for while both are readily understood
and appreciated, they are solusive in
quality and so persuasive in nature,
that they are difficult to confine within
the hard and fast limits of definition;
but, if they cannot be defined, they
may be described. Humor, as it ap-
pears to me, is peculiar and jocose
turn of mind united with a lively i'm
agination, which finds expression in
droll, absurd, ludicrous, incongruous.
or exaggerated phraseology. Humor is
a flavor, not a dish; the salt that sa-
vors the sauce, and renders it palat-
able; in fine, it is the pepper, salt, mus
tard, oil and vinegar of language. Wit
is finer thing; it is the flower of
humor-more, it's distilled essence; it
is the spark emitted when the steel
of keen perception strikes the flint of
apt expression. Humof is the full, mel
low Burgundy of language and litera-
ture: Wit is the sparkling champagne.
Wit and humor are unevenly dis
tributed among the races OF the earth;
the Caucasian and Negro are richly en-
lowed; the Indian has but little of
them; the HindOstanee and Semitic
peoples are blessed with both but if
the Mongols and tribes of the far East
have any it assumes to occident eyes
a grotesque coarseness unpalatable to
all but jaded and degenerate palates;
the Japanese have a pretty wit, but
their humor is apt to assume Rabel-
laisean forms that recall the days of
the Restoration in England
Among the nations of Europe the
French and Italians are supreme as
wits, but they are too self-conscious
for humor, too theatrical, even with
Montaigne in mind; the Germans and
Spaniards have humor in abundance
that of the latter running to a phil
osophic and proverbial humor; but
they seem to lack the esprit, the fine
ness of texture that produces wit The
American-the composite man of the
New Worlds both witty and humor-
Gus, and these gifts more than any
others differentiate him from the man
who in his moments of good nature
condescends to call him cousin. De-
spite the threadbare ISLANDERS of DR..
Johnson and Sydney Smith, the Scotch
have humor and wit, though the for
mer is apt to have an acrid and vine
garnish flavor, and the latter just a
touch of venom at the point of it's
barb; both conditions possibly the re-
suit of fire-alarm religion and a eli
mate as delightful as New England
March.
England has produced some bril-
liant wits-though we rail at English
dizziness as joyously as Englishmen
jibe the Briton north of the Tweed
but since the golden age of Shake
speare humOr has not been in evil
dence to an extent warranted by Eng
lands literary progress. Yet the land
was once known as Merry England,
and had jocund, cup-wooing, pleasure
loving people; but that was in that
golden era that modern arrogance
frowns on as the Dark Ages" though
people were light hearted then to an
extent our sordid civilization will
never know. I have often questioned
whether Puritanism was not respons-
ible for the suppression of humor in
England, as it undoubtedly was for
the submergence of music, art, jousts,
merry making and so many of the fin
er and sweeter things of life. Beauty
and JOY were abhorrent things to Cal
vanism; the Puritan had less patience
with the foibles and frailties of human
lily than the Maker of 1t; and the re-
bound from the social joylessness of
the English Commonwealth to the
gross immoralities of the days of
'Pepys and Lovelace, indicates the de-
humanizing side of Puritanism. At any
rate wherever this religious volcano
poured forth it's orthodox lava, art,
music, beauty and humor were bur-
lied.
The wit of England is the legacy
of her submerged Kettle ancestry, sur
viving in the many strains it has min
gled with, even as the sweetness and
perfume of flowers, dead, for unnum-
bered centuries in the coal bed, needs
but the magic touch of chemistry to
yyolyo than IN 1ioht opd 1ifo oooio