Chapter III: Part 3

_On being introduced to his prospective bride the suitor was rather unpleasantly surprised, and drawing aside the marriage agent he reproachfully whispered to him: “Why have you brought me here? She is ugly and old. She squints, has bad teeth, and bleary eyes.” “You can talk louder,” interrupted the agent. “She is deaf, too.”_

_A prospective bridegroom made his first call on his future bride in company with the agent, and while in the parlor waiting for the appearance of the family the agent drew the young man’s attention to a glass closet containing a handsome silver set. “Just look at these things,” he said. “You can see how wealthy these people are.” “But is it not possible that these articles were just borrowed for the occasion,” inquired the suspicious young man, “so as to give the appearance of wealth?” “What an idea,” answered the agent protestingly. “Who in the world would lend them anything?”_

In all three cases one finds the same thing. A person who reacts several times in succession in the same manner continues in the same manner on the next occasion where it becomes unsuited and runs contrary to his intentions. Falling into the automatism of habit he fails to adapt himself to the demands of the situation. Thus in the first story the assistant forgot that he was taken along in order to influence the suitor in favor of the proposed bride, and as he had thus far accomplished his task by emphasizing through repetition the excellencies attributed to the lady, he now emphasizes also her timidly conceded hunch back which he should have belittled.

The marriage agent in the second story is so fascinated by the failings and infirmities of the bride that he completes the list from his own knowledge, which it was certainly neither his business nor his intention to do. Finally in the third story he is so carried away by his zeal to convince the young man of the family’s wealth that in order to corroborate his proofs he blurts out something which must upset all his efforts. Everywhere the automatism triumphs over the appropriate variation of thought and expression.

That is quite easy to understand, although it must cause confusion when it is brought to our attention that these three stories could just as well be termed “comical” as “witty.” Like every act of unmasking and self-betrayal the discovery of the psychic automatism also belongs to technique of the comic. We suddenly see ourselves here confronted with the problem of the relationship of wit to the comic element—a subject which we endeavored to avoid (see the Introduction). Are these stories only “comical” and not “witty” also? Does the comic element employ here the same means as does the wit? And again, of what does the peculiar character of wit consist?

We must adhere to the fact that the technique of the group of witticisms examined last consists of nothing else but the establishment of “faulty thinking.” We are forced to admit, however, that so far the investigation has led us further into darkness than to illumination. Nevertheless we do not abandon the hope of arriving at a result by means of a more thorough knowledge of the technique of wit which may become the starting-point for further insight.

_Unification_

The next examples of wit with which we wish to continue our investigation do not give us as much work. Their technique reminds us very much of what we already know. Here is one of Lichtenberg’s jokes. “_January_,” he says, “_is the month in which one extends good wishes to his friends, and the rest are months in which the good wishes are not fulfilled._”

As these witticisms may be called clever rather than strong, we shall reinforce the impression by examining a few more.

“_Human life is divided into two halves; during the first one looks forward to the second, and during the second one looks backward to the first._”

“_Experience consists in experiencing what one does not care to experience._” (The last two examples were cited by K. Fischer.)

One cannot help being reminded by these examples of a group, treated of before, which is characterized by the “manifold application of the same material.” The last example especially will cause us to ask why we have not inserted it there instead of presenting it here in a new connection. “Experience” is described through its own terms just as some of the examples cited above. Neither would I be against this correction. However, I am of the opinion that the other two cases, which are surely similar in character, contain a different factor which is more striking and more important than the manifold application of the same word which shows nothing here touching upon double meaning. And what is more, I wish to emphasize that new and unexpected identities are here formed which show themselves in relations of ideas to one another, in relations of definitions to each other, or to a common third. I would call this process _unification_. Obviously it is analogous to condensation by compression into similar words. Thus the two halves of human life are described by the inter-relationship discovered between them: during the first part one longs for the second, and in the second one longs for the first. To speak more precisely there were two relationships very similar to each other which were selected for description. The similarity of the relationship that corresponds to the similarity of the words which, just for this reason, might recall the manifold application of the same

material—(looks forward)
(looks backward).

In Lichtenberg’s joke, January and the months contrasted with it are characterized again by a modified relationship to a third factor: these are good wishes which one receives in the first month, but are not fulfilled during the other months. The differentiation from the manifold application of the same material which is really related to double meaning is here quite clear.

A good example of unification-wit needing no explanation is the following:

_J. B. Rousseau, the French poet, wrote an ode to posterity (à la postérité). Voltaire, thinking that the poor quality of the poem in no way justified its reaching posterity, wittily remarked, “This poem will not reach its destination”_ (K. Fischer).

The last example may remind us of the fact that it is essentially unification which forms the basis of the so-called repartee in wit. For ready repartee consists in using the defense for aggression and in “turning the tables” or in “paying with the same coin.” That is, the repartee consists in establishing an unexpected identity between attack and counter-attack.

For example, _a baker said to a tavern keeper, one of whose fingers was festering: “I guess your finger got into your beer.” The tavern keeper replied: “You are wrong. One of your rolls got under my finger nail”_ (Ueberhorst: _Das Komische_, II, 1900).

While Serenissimus was traveling through his domains he noticed a man in the crowds who bore a striking resemblance to himself. He beckoned him to come over and asked: “_Was your mother ever employed in my home?_” “_No, sire_,” replied the man, “_but my father was._”

While Duke Karl of Würtemberg was riding horseback he met a dyer working at his trade. “_Can you color my white horse blue?_” “_Yes, sire_,” was the rejoinder, “_if the animal can stand the boiling!_”

In this excellent repartee, which answers a foolish question with a condition that is equally impossible, there occurs another technical factor which would have been omitted if the dyer’s reply had been: “No, sire, I am afraid that the horse could not stand being boiled.”

Another peculiarly interesting technical means at the disposal of unification is the addition of the conjunction “and.” Such correlation signifies a connection which could not be understood otherwise. When Heine (_Harzreise_) says of the city of Göttingen, “_In general the inhabitants of Göttingen are divided into students, professors, Philistines, and cattle_,” we understand this combination exactly in the sense which he furthermore emphasized by adding: “These four social groups are distinguished little less than sharply.” Again, when he speaks about the school where he had to submit “_to so much Latin, drubbing, and geography_,” he wants to convey by this combination, which is made very conspicuous by placing the drubbing between the two studies, that the schoolboy’s conception unmistakably described by the drubbing should be extended also to Latin and geography.

In Lipps’s book we find among the examples of “witty enumeration” (Koordination) the following verse, which stands nearest to Heine’s “students, professors, Philistines, and cattle.”

“_With a fork and with much effort his mother pulled him from a mess._”

“As if effort were an instrument like the fork,” adds Lipps by way of explanation. But we get the impression that there is nothing witty in this sentence. To be sure it is very comical, whereas Heine’s co-ordination is undoubtedly witty. We shall, perhaps, recall these examples later when we shall no longer be forced to evade the problem of the relationship between wit and the comic.

_Representation Through the Opposite_

We have remarked in the example of the Duke and the dyer that it would still have been a joke by means of unification had the dyer replied, “No, I fear that the horse could not stand being boiled.” In substituting a “yes” for the “no” which rightly belonged there, we meet a new technical means of wit the application of which we shall study in other examples.

This joke, which resembles the one we have just cited from K. Fischer, is somewhat simpler. “_Frederick the Great heard of a Silesian clergyman who had the reputation of communicating with spirits. He sent for him and received him with the following question: ‘Can you call up ghosts?’ ‘At your pleasure, your majesty,’ replied the clergyman, ‘but they won’t come.’_” Here it is perfectly obvious that the wit lies in the substitution of its opposite for the only possible answer, “No.” To complete this substitution “but” had to be added to “yes,” so that “yes” plus “but” gives the equivalent for “no.”

This “representation through the opposite,” as we choose to call it, serves the mechanism of wit in several ways. In the following cases it appears almost in its pure form:

“_This woman resembles Venus de Milo in many points. Like her she is extraordinarily old, has no teeth, and has white spots on the yellow surface of her body_” (Heine).

Here ugliness is depicted by making it agree with the most beautiful. Of course these agreements consist of attributes expressed in double meaning or of matters of slight importance. The latter applies to the second example.

“_The attributes of the greatest men were all united in himself. Like Alexander his head was tilted to one side: like Cæsar he always had something in his hair. He could drink coffee like Leibnitz, and once settled in his armchair he forgot eating and drinking like Newton, and like him had to be awakened. He wore a wig like Dr. Johnson, and like Cervantes the fly of his trousers was always open_” (Lichtenberg: _The Great Mind_).

J. V. Falke’s _Lebenserinnerungen an eine Reise nach Ireland_ (page 271) furnishes an exceptionally good example of “representation through the opposite” in which the use of words of a double meaning plays absolutely no part. The scene is laid in a wax figure museum, like Mme. Tussaud’s. A lecturer discourses on one figure after another to his audience, which is composed of old and young people. “_This is the Duke of Wellington and his horse_,” he says. Whereupon a young girl remarks, “_Which is the duke and which is the horse?_” “_Just as you like, my pretty child_,” is the reply. “_You pay your money and you take your choice._”

The reduction of this Irish joke would be: “It is gross impudence on the part of the museum’s management to offer such an exhibition to the public. It is impossible to distinguish between the horse and the rider (playful exaggeration), and it is for this exhibit that one pays one’s hard-earned money!” The indignant expression is now dramatized and applied to a trivial occurrence. In the place of the entire audience there appears one woman and the riding figure becomes individually determined. It is necessarily the Duke of Wellington, who is so very popular in Ireland. But the insolence of the museum proprietor or lecturer who takes money from the public and offers nothing in return is represented by the opposite, through a speech, in which he extols himself as a conscientious business man whose fondest desire is to respect the rights to which the public is entitled through the admission fee. One then realizes that the technique of this joke is not very simple. In so far as a way is found to allow the swindler to assert his scrupulosity it may be said that the joke is a case of “representation through the opposite.” The fact, however, that he does it on an occasion where something different is demanded of him, and the fact that he replies in terms of commercial integrity when he is expected to discuss the similarity of the figures, shows that it is a case of displacement. The technique of the joke lies in the combination of both technical means.

_Outdoing wit_

This example is closely allied to another small group which might be called “outdoing-wit.” Here “yes,” which would be proper in the reduction, is replaced by “no,” which, owing to its context, is equivalent to a still stronger “yes.” The same mechanism holds true when the case is reversed. The contradiction takes the place of an exaggerated confirmation. An example of this nature is seen in the following epigram from Lessing.[35]

“_The good Galathee! ’Tis said that she dyes her hair black, yet it was black when she bought it._”

Lichtenberg’s make-believe mocking defense of philosophy is another example.

“_There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy_,” Prince Hamlet had disdainfully declared. Lichtenberg well knew that this condemnation was by no means severe enough, in that it does not take into account all that can be said against philosophy. He therefore added the following: “_But there is also much in philosophy which is found neither in heaven nor on earth._” To be sure, his assertion supplements what was lacking in Hamlet’s philosophical utterance, but in doing this he adds another and still greater reproach.

More transparent still, because they show no trace of displacement, are two Jewish jokes which are, however, of the coarse kind.

_Two Jews were conversing about bathing._ “_I take a bath once a year_,” said one, “_whether I need one or not_.”

It is clear that this boastful assurance of his cleanliness only betrays his state of uncleanliness.

_A Jew noticed remnants of food on the beard of another. “I can tell you what you ate yesterday,” he remarked. “Well, let’s hear it,” said another. “Beans,” said the first one. “You are wrong,” responded the other. “I had beans the day before yesterday.”_

The following example is an excellent “outdoing” witticism which can be traced easily to representation through the opposite.

_The king condescended to pay a visit at a surgical clinic, and found the professor of surgery engaged in amputating a leg. He watched the various steps of the operation with interest and expressed his royal approval with these loud utterances: “Bravo, bravo, Professor.” When the operation was over the professor approached the king, bowed low, and asked: “Does your majesty also command the amputation of the other leg?”_

Whatever the professor may have thought during this royal applause surely could not have been expressed unchanged. His real thoughts were: “Judging by this applause he must be under the impression that I am amputating the poor devil’s diseased leg by order of and for the pleasure of the king. To be sure, I have other reasons for performing this operation.” But instead of expressing these thoughts he goes to the king and says: “I have no other reasons but your majesty’s order for performing this operation. The applause you accorded me has inspired me so much that I am only awaiting your majesty’s command to amputate the other leg also.” He thus succeeded in making himself understood by expressing the opposite of what he really thought but had to keep to himself. Such an expression of the opposite represents an incredible exaggeration or outdoing.

As we gather from these examples, representation through the opposite is a means frequently and effectively used in the technique of wit. We need not overlook, however, something else, namely, that this technique is by no means confined only to wit. When Marc Antony, after his long speech in the Forum had changed the mood of the mob listening to Cæsar’s obsequies, at last repeats the words,

“For Brutus was an honorable man,”

he well knows that the mob will scream the true meaning of his words at him, namely,

“They are traitors: nice honorable men!”

Or when _Simplicissimus_ transcribes a collection of unheard-of brutalities and cynicisms as expressions of “people with temperaments,” this, too, is a representation through the opposite. However, this is no longer designated as wit, but as “irony.” Indeed, the only technique that is characteristic of irony is representation through the opposite. Besides, one reads and hears about “ironical wit.” Hence there is no longer any doubt that technique alone is not capable of characterizing wit. There must be something else which we have not yet discovered. On the other hand, however, the fact that the reduction of the technique destroys the wit still remains uncontradicted. For the present it may be difficult for us to unite for the explanation of wit the two strong points which we have already gained.

_Indirect Expression_

Since representation through the opposite belongs to the technical means of wit, we may also expect that wit could make use of its reverse, namely, the representation through the similar and cognate. Indeed, when we continue our investigation we find that this forms the technique of a new and especially extensive group of thought-witticisms. We can describe the peculiarity of this technique much better if instead of representation through the “cognate” we use the expression representation through “relationships and associations.” We shall start with the last characteristic and illustrate it by an example.

_Indirect Expression with Allusion_

It is an American anecdote and runs as follows. _By undertaking a series of risky schemes, two not very scrupulous business men had succeeded in amassing an enormous fortune and were now intent on forcing their way into good society. Among other things they thought it advisable to have their portraits painted by the most prominent and most expensive painters in the city, men whose works were considered masterpieces. The costly pictures were exhibited for the first time at a great evening gathering, and the hosts themselves led the most prominent connoisseur and art critic to the wall of the salon on which both portraits were hanging side by side, in order to elicit from him a favorable criticism. He examined the portraits for a long time, then shook his head as if he were missing something. At length he pointed to the bare space between the pictures, and asked, “And where is the Savior?”_

The meaning of this expression is clear. It is again the expression of something which cannot be represented directly. In what way does this “indirect expression” come about? By a series of very obvious associations and conclusions let us work backwards from the verbal setting.

The query, “_where is the Savior?_” or “_where is the picture of the Savior?_” arouses the conjecture that the two pictures have reminded the speaker of a similar arrangement familiar to him as it is familiar to us. This arrangement, of which one element is here missing, shows the figure of the Savior between two other figures. There is only one such case: Christ hanging between the two thieves. The missing element is emphasized by the witticism, and the similarity rests in the figures at the right and left of the Savior, which are not mentioned in the jest. It can only mean that the pictures hanging in the drawing-room are likewise those of thieves. This is what the critic wished to, but could not say, “You are a pair of scoundrels,” or more in detail, “What do I care about your portraits? You are a pair of scoundrels, that I know.” And by means of a few associations and conclusive inferences he has said it in a manner which we designate as “allusion.”

We immediately remember that we have encountered the process of allusion before. Namely, in double meaning, when one of the two meanings expressed by the same word stands out very prominently, because being used much oftener and more commonly, our attention is directed to it first, whereas the other meaning remains in the background because it is more remote—such cases we wished to describe as double meaning with allusion. In an entire series of examples which we have hitherto examined, we have remarked that their technique is not simple and we realized that the process of allusion was the factor that complicated it. For example, see the contradiction-witticism in which the congratulations on the birth of the youngest child are acknowledged by the remark that it is remarkable what human hands can accomplish (p. 77).

In the American anecdote we have the process of allusion without the double meaning, and we find that the character of this process consists in completing the picture through mental association. It is not difficult to guess that the utilized association can be of more than one kind. So as not to be confused by large numbers we shall discuss only the most pronounced variations, and shall give only a few examples.

The association used in the substitution may be a mere sound, so that this sub-group may be analogous to word-wit in the pun. However, it is not similarity in sound of two words, but of whole sentences, characteristic combinations of words, and similar means.

For example, Lichtenberg coined the saying: “_New baths heal well_,” which immediately reminds one of the proverb, “_New brooms clean well_,” whose first and last words, as well as whose whole sentence structure, is the same as in the first saying. It has undoubtedly arisen in the witty thinker’s mind as an imitation of the familiar proverb. Thus Lichtenberg’s saying is an allusion to the latter. By means of this allusion something is suggested that cannot be frankly said, namely, that the efficacy of the baths taken as cures is due to other things beside the thermal springs whose attributes are the same everywhere.

The solution of the technique of another one of Lichtenberg’s jokes is similar: “_The girl barely twelve modes old._” That sounds something like the chronological term “_twelve moons_” (i.e., months), and may originally have been a mistake in writing in the permissible poetical expression. But there is a good deal of sense in designating the age of a feminine creature by the changing modes instead of by the changing of moons.

The connection of similarity may even consist of a single slight modification. This technique again runs parallel with a word-technique. Both kinds of witticisms create almost the identical impression, but they are more easily distinguishable by the processes of the wit-work.

The following is an example of such a word-witticism or pun. The great singer, Mary Wilt, who was famous not merely on account of the magnitude of her voice, suffered the mortification of having a title of a play, dramatized from the well-known novel of Jules Verne, serve as an allusion to her corpulency. “_The trip around the Wilt_ (world) _in eighty days_.”

Or: “_Every fathom a queen_,” which is a modification of the familiar Shakespearian quotation, “_Every inch a king_,” and served as an allusion to a prominent woman who was unusually big physically. There would really be no serious objection if one should prefer to classify this witticism as a substitution for condensation with modification (cf. tête-à-bête, p. 25).

Discussing the hardships of the medical profession, namely, that physicians are obliged to read and study constantly because remedies and drugs once considered efficacious are later rejected as useless, and that despite the physician’s best efforts the patient often refuses to pay for the treatment, one of the doctors present remarked: “_Yes, every drug has its day_,” to which another added, “_But not every Doc gets his pay_.” These two witty remarks are both modifications with allusion of the well-known saying, “_Every dog has his day_.” But here, too, the technique could be described as fusion with modification.

If the modification contents itself with a change in letters, allusions through modifications are barely distinguishable from condensation with substitutive formation, as shown in this example: “_Mellingitis_,” _the allusion to the dangerous disease meningitis, refers to the danger which the conservative members of a provincial borough in England thought impended if the socialist candidate Mellon were elected_.

The negative particles make very good allusions at the cost of very little changing. Heine referred to Spinoza as:

“My fellow _un_believer Spinoza.”

“We, by the _Un_grace of God, Laborers, Bondsmen, Negroes, Serfs,” etc., is a manifesto (which Lichtenberg quotes no further) of these unfortunates who probably have more right to that title than kings and dukes have to the unmodified one.

_Omission_

Finally _omission_, which is comparable to condensation without substitutive formation, is also a form of allusion. For in every allusion there is really something omitted, namely, the trend of thought that leads to the allusion. It is only a question of whether the gap, or the substitute in the wording of the allusion which partly fills in the gap, is the more obvious element. Thus we come back through a series of examples from the very clear cases of omission to those of actual allusion.

Omission without substitution is found in the following example. There lived in Vienna a clever and bellicose writer whose sharp invectives had repeatedly brought him bodily assault at the hands of the persons he assailed. During a conversation about a new misdeed by one of his habitual opponents, some one said, “_When X. hears this he will receive another box on his ear_.” The technique of this wit shows in the first place the confusion about the apparent contradiction, for it is by no means clear to us why a box on one’s ear should be the direct result of having heard something. The contradiction disappears if one fills in the gap by adding to the remark: “_then he will write such a caustic article against that person that, etc._” Allusions through omission and contradiction are thus the technical means of this witticism.

Heine remarked about some one: “_He praises himself so much that pastils for fumigation are advancing in price._” This omission can easily be filled in. What has been omitted is replaced by an inference which then strikes back as an allusion to the same. For self-praise has always carried an evil odor with it.

Once more we encounter the two Jews in front of the bathing establishment. “_Another year has passed by already_,” says one with a sigh.

These examples leave no doubt that the omission is meant as an allusion.

A still more obvious omission is contained in the next example, which is really a genuine and correct allusion-witticism. Subsequent to an artists’ banquet in Vienna a joke book was given out in which, among others, the following most remarkable proverb could be read:

“_A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may also take a cab._”

An umbrella does not afford enough protection from rain. The words “_at worst_” can mean only: when it is raining hard. A cab is a public conveyance. As we have to deal here with the figure of comparison, we shall put off the detailed investigation of this witticism until later on.

Heine’s “Bäder von Lucca” contains a veritable wasps’ nest of stinging allusions which make the most artistic use of this form of wit as polemics against the Count of Platen. Long before the reader can suspect their application, a certain theme, which does not lend itself especially to direct presentation, is preluded by allusions of the most varied material possible; e.g., in Hirsch-Hyacinth’s twisting of words: You are too corpulent and I am too lean; you possess too much conceit and I the more business ability; I am a practicus and you are a diarrheticus, in fine, “You are altogether my Antipodex”—“Venus Urinia”—the thick Gudel of Dreckwall in Hamburg, etc. Then the occurrences of which the poet speaks take a turn in which it merely seems to show the impolite sportiveness of the poet, but soon it discloses the symbolic relation to the polemical intention, and in this way it also reveals itself as allusion. At last the attack against Platen bursts forth, and now the allusions to the subject of the Count’s love for men seethe and gush from each one of the sentences which Heine directs against the talent and the character of his opponent, e.g.:

“Even if the Muses are not well disposed to him, he has at least the genius of speech in his power, or rather he knows how to violate him; for he lacks the free love of this genius, besides he must perseveringly run after this youth, and he knows only how to grasp the outer forms which, in spite of their beautiful rotundity, never express anything noble.”

“He has the same experience as the ostrich, which considers itself sufficiently hidden when it sticks its head into the sand so that only its backside is visible. Our illustrious bird would have done better if he had stuck his backside into the sand, and had shown us his head.”

Allusion is perhaps the commonest and most easily employed means of wit, and is at the basis of most of the short-lived witty productions which we are wont to weave into our conversation. They cannot bear being separated from their native soil nor can they exist independently. Once more we are reminded by the process of allusion of that relationship which has already begun to confuse our estimation of the technique of wit. The process of allusion is not witty in itself; there are perfectly formed allusions which have no claims to this character. Only those allusions which show a “witty” element are witty, hence the characteristics of wit, which we have followed even into its technique, again escape us.

I have sometimes called allusion “indirect expression,” and now recognize that the different kinds of allusion with representation through the opposite, as well as the techniques still to be mentioned, can be united into a single large group for which “indirect expression” would be the comprehensive name. Hence, _errors of thought—unification—indirect representation_—are those points of view under which we can group the techniques of thought-wit which became known to us.

_Representation Through the Minute or the Minutest Element_

On continuing the investigation of our material we think we recognize a new sub-group of indirect representation which though sharply defined can be illustrated only by few examples. It is that of representation through a minute or minutest element; solving the problem by bringing the entire character to full expression through a minute detail. Correlating this group with the mechanism of allusion is made possible by looking at the triviality as connected with the thing to be presented and as a result of it. For example:

_A Jew who was riding in a train had made himself very comfortable; he had unbuttoned his coat, and had put his feet on the seat, when a fashionably dressed gentleman came in. The Jew immediately put on his best behavior and assumed a modest position. The stranger turned over the pages of a book, did some calculation, and pondered a moment and suddenly addressed the Jew. “I beg your pardon, how soon will we have Yom Kippur?” (Day of Atonement). “Oh, oh!” said the Jew, and put his feet back on the seat before he answered._

It cannot be denied that this representation through something minute is allied to the tendency of economy which we found to be the final common element in the investigation of the technique of word-wit.

The following example is much similar.

_The doctor who had been summoned to help the baroness in her confinement declared that the critical moment had not arrived, and proposed to the baron that they play a game of cards in the adjoining room in the meantime. After a while the doleful cry of the baroness reached the ears of the men. “Ah, mon Dieu, que je souffre!” The husband jumped up, but the physician stopped him saying, “That’s nothing; let us play on.” A little while later the woman in labor-pains was heard again: “My God, my God, what pains!” “Don’t you want to go in, Doctor?” asked the baron. “By no means, it is not yet time,” answered the doctor. At last there rang from the adjacent room the unmistakable cry, “A-a-a-ai-e-e-e-e-e-e-E-E-E!” The physician then threw down the cards and said, “Now it’s time.”_

How the pain allows the original nature to break through all the strata of education, and how an important decision is rightly made dependent upon a seemingly inconsequential utterance—both are shown in this good joke by the successive changes in the cries of this childbearing lady of quality.

_Comparison_

Another kind of indirect expression of which wit makes use is _comparison_, which we have not discussed so far because an examination of comparison touches upon new difficulties, or rather it reveals difficulties which have made their appearance on other occasions. We have already admitted that in many of the examples examined we could not banish all doubts as to whether they should really be counted as witty, and have recognized in this uncertainty a serious shock to the principles of our investigation. But in no other material do I feel this uncertainty greater and nowhere does it occur more frequently than in the case of comparison-wit. The feeling which usually says to me—and I dare say to a great many others under the same conditions—this is a joke, this may be written down as witty before even the hidden and essential character of the wit has been uncovered—this feeling I lack most. If at first I experience no hesitation in declaring the comparison to be a witticism, then the next instant I seem to think that the pleasure I thus found was of a different quality than that which I am accustomed to ascribe to a joke. Also the fact that witty comparisons but seldom can evoke the explosive variety of laughter by which a good joke proves itself makes it impossible for me to cast aside the existing doubts, even when I limit myself to the best and most effective examples.

It is easy to demonstrate that there are some especially good and effective examples of comparison which in no way give us the impression of witticisms. A beautiful example of this kind which I have not yet tired of admiring, and the impression of which still clings to me, I shall not deny myself the pleasure of citing. It is a comparison with which Ferd. Lassalle concluded one of his famous pleas (_Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter_): “A man like myself who, as I explained to you, had devoted his whole life to the motto ‘Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter’ (Science and the Workingman), would receive the same impression from a condemnation which in the course of events confronts him _as would the chemist, absorbed in his scientific experiments, from the cracking of a retort. With a slight knitting of his brow at the resistance of the material, he would, as soon as the disturbance was quieted, calmly continue his labor and investigations._”

One finds a rich assortment of pertinent and witty comparisons in the writings of Lichtenberg (2 B. of the Göttingen edition, 1853). I shall take the material for our investigation from that source.

“_It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody’s beard._” This may seem witty, but on closer examination one notices that the witty effect does not come from the comparison itself but from a secondary attribute of the same. For the expression “the torch of truth” is no new comparison, but one which has been used for a long time and which has degenerated into a fixed phrase, as always happens when a comparison has the luck to be absorbed into the common usage of speech. But whereas we hardly notice the comparison in the saying, “the torch of truth,” its original full force is restored it by Lichtenberg, since by building further on the comparison it results in a deduction. But the taking of blurred expressions in their full sense is already known to us as a technique of wit; it finds a place with the Manifold Application of the Same Material (p. 35). It may well be that the witty impression created by Lichtenberg’s sentence is due only to its relation to this technique of wit.

The same explanation will undoubtedly hold good for another witty comparison by the same author.

“_The man was not exactly a shining light, but a great candlestick.... He was a professor of philosophy._”

To call a scholar a shining light, a “_lumen mundi_,” has long ceased to be an effective comparison, whether it be originally qualified as a witticism or not. But here the comparison was freshened up and its full force was restored to it by deducting a modification from it and in this way setting up a second and new comparison. The way in which the second comparison came into existence seems to contain the condition of the witticism and not the two comparisons themselves. This would then be a case of Identical Wit-Technique as in the example of the torch.

The following comparison seems witty on other but similarly classifiable grounds: “_I look upon reviews as a kind of children’s disease_ which more or less attacks new-born books. There are cases on record where the healthiest died of it, and the puniest have often lived through it. Many do not get it at all. Attempts have frequently been made to prevent the disease by means of _amulets of prefaces and dedications, or to color them up by personal pronunciamentos; but it does not always help_.”

The comparison of reviews with children’s diseases is based in the first place upon their susceptibility to attack shortly after they have seen the light of the world. Whether this makes it witty I do not trust myself to decide. But when the comparison is continued, it is found that the later fates of the new books may be represented within the scope of the same or by means of similar comparisons. Such a continuation of a comparison is undoubtedly witty, but we know already to what technique it owes its witty flavor; it is a case of _unification_ or the establishment of an unexpected association. The character of the unification, however, is not changed by the fact that it consists here of a relationship with the first comparison.

_Doubt in Witty Comparisons_

In a series of other comparisons one is tempted to ascribe an indisputably existing witty impression to another factor which again in itself has nothing to do with the nature of the comparison. These are comparisons which are strikingly grouped, often containing a combination that sounds absurd, which comes into existence as a result of the comparison. Most of Lichtenberg’s examples belong to this group.

“It is a pity that one cannot see the _learned bowels_ of the writers, in order to find out what they have eaten.” “_The learned bowels_” is a confusing, really absurd attribute which is made clear only by the comparison. How would it be if the witty impression of this comparison should be referred entirely and fully to the confusing character of their composition? This would correspond to one of the means of wit well known to us, namely, representation through absurdity.

Lichtenberg has used the same comparison of the imbibing of reading and educational material with the imbibing of physical nourishment.

“He thought highly of _studying in his room_ and was heartily in favor of _learned stable fodder_.”

The same absurd or at least conspicuous attributes, which as we are beginning to notice are the real carriers of the wit, mark other comparisons of the same author.

“_This is the weatherside of my moral constitution, here I can stand almost anything._”

“Every person has also his _moral backside_ which he does not show _except under the stress of necessity_ and which he covers as long as possible with the _pants of good-breeding_.”

The “moral backside” is the peculiar attribute which exists as the result of a comparison. But this is followed by a continuation of the comparison with a regular play on words (“necessity”) and a second, still more unusual combination (“the pants of good-breeding”), which is possibly witty in itself; for the pants become witty, as it were, because they are the pants of good-breeding. Therefore it may not take us by surprise if we get the impression of a very witty comparison; we are beginning to notice that we show a general tendency in our estimation to extend a quality to the whole thing when it clings only to one part of it. Besides, the “pants of good-breeding” remind us of a similar confusing verse of Heine.

“_Until, at last, the buttons tore from the pants of my patience._”

It is obvious that both of the last comparisons possess a character which one cannot find in all good, i.e., fitting, comparisons. One might say that they are in a large manner “debasing,” for they place a thing of high category, an abstraction (good-breeding, patience), side by side with a thing of a very concrete nature of a very low kind (pants). Whether this peculiarity has something to do with wit we shall have to consider in another connection. Let us attempt to analyze another example in which the degrading character is exceptionally well defined. In Nestroy’s farce “_Einen Jux will er sich machen_,” the clerk, Weinberl, who resolves in his imagination how he will ponder over his youth when he has some day become a well-established old merchant, says: “_When in the course of confidential conversation the ice is chopped up before the warehouse of memory; when the portal of the storehouse of antiquity is unlocked again; and when the mattings of phantasy are stocked full with wares of yore._” These are certainly comparisons of abstractions with very common, concrete things, but the witticism depends—exclusively or only partially—upon the circumstance that a clerk makes use of these comparisons which are taken from the sphere of his daily occupation. But to bring the abstract in relation to the commonplace with which he is otherwise filled is an act of _unification_. Let us revert to Lichtenberg’s comparisons.

_Peculiar Attributions_

“_The motives for our actions may be arranged like the thirty-two winds, and their names may be classified in a similar way, e.g., Bread-bread-glory or Glory-glory-bread._”

As so often happens in Lichtenberg’s witticisms, in this case, too, the impression of appropriateness, cleverness, and ingenuity is so marked that our judgment of the character of the witty element is thereby misled. If something witty is intermingled in such an utterance with the excellent sense, we probably are deluded into declaring the whole to be an exceptional joke. Moreover, I dare say that everything that is really witty about it results from the strangeness of the peculiar combination bread-bread-glory. Thus as far as wit is concerned it is representation through absurdity.

The peculiar combination or absurd attribution can alone be represented as a product of a comparison.

Lichtenberg says: “_A twice-sleepy woman—a once-sleepy church pew_.” Behind each one there is a comparison with a bed; in both cases there is besides the comparison also the technical factor of _allusion_. Once it is an allusion to the soporific effect of sermons, and the second time to the inexhaustible theme of sex.

Having found hitherto that a comparison as often as it appears witty owes this impression to its connection with one of the techniques of wit known to us, there are nevertheless some other examples which seem to point to the fact that a comparison as such can also be witty.

This is Lichtenberg’s characteristic remark about certain odes. “They are in poetry what Jacob Böhm’s immortal writings are in prose—_they are a kind of picnic in which the author supplies the words, and the readers the meaning_.”

“When he _philosophizes_, he generally sheds _an agreeable moonlight_ over his topics, which is in the main quite pleasant, but which does not show any one subject clearly.”

Again, Heine’s description: “_Her face resembled a kodex palimpsestus, where under the new block-lettered text of a church father peek forth the half-obliterated verses of an ancient Hellenic erotic poet._”

Or, the continued comparison of a very degrading tendency, in the “Bäder von Lucca.”

“_The Catholic priest_ is more like a clerk who is employed in a big business; the church, the big house at the head of which is the Pope, gives him a definite salary. He works lazily like one who is not working on his own account, he has many colleagues, and so easily remains unnoticed in the big business enterprise. He is concerned only in the credit of the house and still more in its preservation, since he would be deprived of his means of sustenance in case it went bankrupt. _The Protestant clergyman_, on the other hand, is his own boss, and carries on the religious businesses on his own account. He has no wholesale trade like his Catholic brother-tradesman, but deals merely at retail; and since he himself must understand it, he cannot be lazy. He must praise his _articles of faith_ to the people and must disparage the articles of his competitors. Like a true small trader he stands in his retail store, full of envy of the industry of all large houses, particularly the large house in Rome which has so many thousand bookkeepers and packers on its payroll, and which owns factories in all four corners of the world.”

In the face of this, as in many other examples, we can no longer dispute the fact that a comparison may in itself be witty, and that the witty impression need not necessarily depend on one of the known techniques of wit. But we are entirely in the dark as to what determines the witty character of the comparison, since it certainly does not cling to the similarity as a form of expression of the thought, or to the operation of the comparison. We can do nothing but include comparison with the different forms of “indirect representation” which are at the disposal of the technique of wit, and the problem, which confronted us more distinctly in the mechanism of comparison than in the means of wit hitherto treated, must remain unsolved. There must surely be a special reason why the decision whether something is a witticism or not presents more difficulties in cases of comparison than in other forms of expression.

This gap in our understanding, however, offers no ground for complaint that our first investigation has been unsuccessful. Considering the intimate connection which we had to be prepared to ascribe to the different types of wit, it would have been imprudent to expect that we could fully explain this aspect of the problem before we had cast a glance over the others. We shall have to take up this problem at another place.

_Review of the Techniques of Wit_

Are we sure that none of the possible techniques of wit has escaped our investigation? Not exactly; but by a continued examination of new material, we can convince ourselves that we have become acquainted with the most numerous and most important technical means of wit-work—at least with as much as is necessary for formulating a judgment about the nature of this psychic process. At present no such judgment exists; on the other hand, we have come into possession of important indications, from the direction of which we may expect a further explanation of the problem. The interesting processes of condensation with substitutive formation, which we have recognized as the nucleus of the technique of word-wit, directed our attention to the dream-formation in whose mechanism the identical psychic processes were discovered. Thither also we are directed by the technique of the thought-wit, namely displacement, faulty thinking, absurdity, indirect expression, and representation through the opposite—each and all are also found in the technique of dreams. The dream is indebted to displacement for its strange appearance, which hinders us from recognizing in it the continuation of our waking thoughts; the dream’s use of absurdity and contradiction has cost it the dignity of a psychic product, and has misled the authors to assume that the determinants of dream-formation are: collapse of mental activity, cessation of criticism, morality, and logic. Representation through the opposite is so common in dreams that even the popular but entirely misleading books on dream interpretation usually put it to good account. Indirect expression, the substitution for the dream-thought by an allusion, by a trifle or by a symbolism analogous to comparison, is just exactly what distinguishes the manner of expression of the dream from our waking thoughts.[36] Such a far-reaching agreement as found between the means of wit-work and those of dream-work can scarcely be accidental. To show those agreements in detail and to trace their motivations will be one of our future tasks.

III
THE TENDENCIES OF WIT[37]

Near the end of the preceding chapter as I was writing down Heine’s comparison of the Catholic priest to an employee of a large business house, and the comparison of the Protestant divine to an independent retail dealer, I felt an inhibition which nearly prevented me from using this comparison. I said to myself that among my readers probably there would be some who hold in veneration not only religion, but also its administration and administrators. These readers might take offense at the comparison and get so wrought up about it that it would take away all interest in the investigation as to whether the comparison seemed witty in itself or was witty only through its garnishings. In other examples, e.g., the one mentioned above concerning the agreeable moonlight shed by a certain philosophy, there would be no worry that for some readers it might be a disturbing influence in our investigation. Even the most religious person would remain in the right mood to form a judgment about our problem.

It is easy to guess the character of the witticism by the kind of reaction that wit exerts on the hearer. Sometimes wit is wit for its own sake and serves no other particular purpose; then again, it places itself at the service of such a purpose, i.e., it becomes purposive. Only that form of wit which has such a tendency runs the risk of ruffling people who do not wish to hear it.

Theo. Vischer called wit without a tendency “_abstract_” wit, I prefer to call it “_harmless_” wit.

As we have already classified wit according to the material touched by its technique into word- and thought-wit, it is incumbent upon us to investigate the relation of this classification to the one just put forward. Word- and thought-wit on the one hand, and abstract- and tendency-wit on the other hand, bear no relation of dependence to each other; they are two entirely independent classifications of witty productions. Perhaps some one may have gotten the impression that harmless witticisms are preponderately word-witticisms, whereas the complicated techniques of thought-witticisms are mostly made to serve strong tendencies. There are harmless witticisms that operate through play on words and sound similarity, and just as harmless ones which make use of all means of thought-wit. Nor is it less easy to prove that tendency-wit as far as technique is concerned may be merely the wit of words. Thus, for example, witticisms that “_play_” with proper names often show an insulting and offending tendency, and yet they, too, belong to word-wit. Again, the most harmless of all jests are word-witticisms. Examples of this nature are the popular “shake-up” rhymes (Schüttelreime) in which the technique is represented through the manifold application of the same material with a very peculiar modification:

“Having been forsaken by _Dame Luck_, he degenerated into a _Lame Duck_.”

Let us hope that no one will deny that the pleasure experienced in this kind of otherwise unpretentious rhyming is of the same nature as the one by which we recognize wit.

Good examples of abstract or harmless thought-witticisms abound in Lichtenberg’s comparisons with which we have already become acquainted. I add a few more. “_They sent a small Octavo to the University of Göttingen; and received back in body and soul a quarto_” (a fourth-form boy).

“_In order to erect this budding well, one must lay above all things a good foundation, and I know of no firmer than by laying immediately over every pro-layer a contra-layer._”

“_One man begets the thought, the second acts as its godfather, the third begets children by it, the fourth visits it on its death-bed, and the fifth buries it_” (comparison with unification).