This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...of her front door during the great flood at that place in 1824. A niXXER PARTY. After a Painting by Karl Hrrpfer. WIT AND HUMOR Iwish, after all I have said about wit and humor, I could satisfy myself of the good effects upon the character and disposition; but I am convinced the probable tendency of both is to corrupt ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...of her front door during the great flood at that place in 1824. A niXXER PARTY. After a Painting by Karl Hrrpfer. WIT AND HUMOR Iwish, after all I have said about wit and humor, I could satisfy myself of the good effects upon the character and disposition; but I am convinced the probable tendency of both is to corrupt the understanding and the heart. I am not speaking of wit where it is kept down by more serious qualities of mind, and thrown into the background of the picture; but where it stands out boldly and emphatically, and is evidently the master quality in any particular mind. Profound wits, though they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities they possess. The habit of seeing things in a witty point of view, increases, and makes incursions from its own proper regions, upon principles and opinions which are ever held sacred by the wise and good. A witty man is a dramatic performer: in process of time, he can no more exist without applause than he can exist without air; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or if a new wit defrauds him of any portion of his admiration, it is all over with him--he sickens and is extinguished. The applauses of the theatre on which he performs are so essential to him that he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling. It must always be probable, too, that a mere wit is a person of light and frivolous understanding. His business is not to discover relations of ideas that are useful, and have a real influence upon life, but to discover the more trifling relations which are only amusing; he never looks at things with the naked eye of common sense, but is always gazing at the world through a Claude Lorraine glass, --discovering a ..
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