If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to
tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit--
using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in
a partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a
single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any
intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the
province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the
prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight.
A pun, which is a kind if wit, is a different and much shallower
trick in mental optics throwing the SHADOWS of two objects so that
one overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special
effects, but always keeps its essential object in the purest white
light of truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little
further?
[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape
the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all
must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that the cutting of
the yellow hair by Iris had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm,
and that breakfast was over.]
- Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say
disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer
you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact
and courtesy become.
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