EVERY-DAY WIT - - - AND HUMOUR

Otago Witness, Issue 2336, 8 December 1898, Page 43

EVERY-DAY WIT - - - - AND HUMOUR

The commonest kind of wit is the crude personality which sharpens itself on the weaknesses, deficiencies, or absurdities of the company, and finds its applause in the shrill cackle of the frivol, the brutal horselaugh of the larrikin Many degrees higher and better is the wit which for lack of a better definition I may call applique, or applied wit. Moat women know the value of applique in fancy work, and what rich and varied effects with small expenditure of labour may be obtained by its use. To the masculine mmd — necessarily so ignorant of many of our pleasures — it may be described as the application of designs cut from, any beautiful and costly fabric to another material which then serves as a background. Thus in the absence of native wit, applique wit — the epigrams, bon-mots, phrases, and anecdotes gathered from journalistic or standard litelature, and applied to passing events and topics, may well be commended. Such wit and humour may be brilliantly amusing and conspicuously clever, for it will apply the best and wittiest sayings in an apropos manner to everyday adventure and commonplace incident. It is an excellent method, too, for the well-read man to show his culture, and the cultured woman to show her perceptions and make the most telling point 3. Applied wit is a most grateful substitute for the tedium of the punster and the commoness of the "tv quoque " personal wit. We can never— l speak of the average man and woman — be too thankful to the talker who relieves us from the thrall of the Tre;v ther, with its hideous monotone of dissatisfaction, the " locals" of the Morning Chronicle and Evening Planet, the round of fashionable items, and the discussion of the lost popular novel, as rendered in the entirely witless conventional manner. Yet all these topics, commonplsea in themselves, may really be transformed into the delicate brightness of mosaic Trork by the bold brilliance of applique wit! The most commonplace adventure frequently reminds one of some brilliant escapade with which the narrator's tinpot little experience has some affinity. The poorast personal experience may become an excellent and harmonious interlude to a capital joke — always bearing in mind the claims, the imperious claims, of brevity ! Tka -wouldbe artist who has not yet learned what to leave out is still a clumsy tyro : whatever talent he has foiling itself in ineffective detail. So with the raconteur and the conversationalist. To be effective one must know what to leave out, and this most important point is the very thing which is totally overlooked by the average talker. As "regards the humours of everyday life, women, who are usually quoted as being deficient in a senpe of humour, as a matter of fact possesses an extraordinarily keen and appreciative sense. Curiously enough, they seldom, if ever, betray this sense in. their writings, though it colours so much of their intimate conversation, and acts as a muchneeded and daily tonic and stimulant in their lives. Ife is the cunning little jokes which unfold themselves on all sides : the quaintness of animals, the drolleries of the nui&ery, the ironies of maturity which lighten tho monotony of the household duvica, which dispel the worry of " making both ends meet" (that perennial attempt to make tyro and two count fire) which saddens the lives of most women.

Yet how seldom the humorous incidonts so sympathetically noted are retailed in form sufficiently crisp and brief to hold the memory I Droll as the incident may be, quaint

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as the original dialogue no doubt was, eucix a mass of unnecessary detail of time and place dims it, such a chain of " he said " and " I said " weights it down that the flavour is lost in the dilution — the details so obliterate the outline that the crisp little story loses all its sparkle in the telling. Brevity cannot be too greatly accounted in viva voce wit and humour. It is not so much the story even as the way it is told. Thus a good raconteur raps out a cunning little story with a freshness and vivacity which affords every listener the pleasure oi a hearty laugh. Of tiie three or four people who attempt to reproduce the story, perhaps — very much pex'haps — one will succeed ; the remaining persons will so overload it with drivelling detail that the point is completely lost! Many people, feeling the intrinsic value placed upon humour — foi never was this sad world sadder than in tiies< days, never did the populace grasp mori feverishly at the merest excuse for a laugh — patiently retail such humorous incidents 01 witty remarks as they have heard made by others. Thus it not infrequently occurs that a little story containing the elements of an exquisite joke may be launched by its discoverer and straightway forgotten, for youi true humorist is so frequently digging in fresh mines of wealth that an incident ones told is forgotten. Yet within a fortnight, at opposite ends of the town and suburbs farthest apart his own story is told to him again !

He smiles and plays his part of interested listener with one conspicuous advantage — he knows when he ought to laugh, and does it.

But as he lights his cigar and walks meditatively home, he asks Mmself if it is possible that the limp, dejected rag of twaddle, plentifully interlarded with "he said " and " she said " was ever his own production? He is sadder and wiser, for several weeks he contents himself with solitary smiles over life's little drolleries, and conOnes his conversation to " locals " and " generals." This is a point which chills even the confirmed humorist, the occasion on which he fails to rise to what is, properly considered, a most exquisite joke — namely, to have your own wit diluted beyond recognition friskily offered for your amusement!

One or tAvo such experiences effectually prove to one the vanity of the " local hit " and the "personal joke." One is then in the mind to appreciate the value and beauty of applied wit. We feel that " everyday wit and humour" may be usefully and beneficially replaced by applique wit. Quotation, reminiscence, reference, allusion to authors, wits, and playwrights dead and living, seems unusually grateful and stimulating.

Moreover, looked upon as an escape from personal items and local witticisms, we may well find refreshment in the use of applique wit and devote ourselves to its cultivation.