Jokes For All Occasions | Page 2

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change by which the story may be brought up to date. Indeed, by such
adaptation, the story is made really one's own--as the professional
humorists thankfully admit!

INTRODUCTION
Wit and humor, and the distinction between them, defy precise
definition. Luckily, they need none. To one asking what is beauty, a wit
replied: "That is the question of a blind man." Similarly, none requires
a definition of wit and humor unless he himself be lacking in all
appreciation of them, and, if he be so lacking, no amount of
explanation will avail to give him understanding. Borrow, in one of his
sermons, declared concerning wit: "It is, indeed, a thing so versatile,
multiform, appearing in so many shapes and garbs, so variously
apprehended of several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard
to settle a clear and certain notion thereof than to make a portrait of
Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting wind." Nor is it fitting to
attempt exact distinctions between wit and humor, which are essentially
two aspects of one thing. It is enough to realize that humor is the
product of nature rather than of art, while wit is the expression of an
intellectual art. Humor exerts an emotional appeal, produces smiles or
laughter; wit may be amusing, or it may not, according to the
circumstances, but it always provokes an intellectual appreciation. Thus,
Nero made a pun on the name of Seneca, when the philosopher was
brought before him for sentence. In speaking the decree that the old
man should kill himself, the emperor used merely the two Latin words:
"Se neca." We admit the ghastly cleverness of the jest, but we do not
chuckle over it.
The element of surprise is common to both wit and humor, and it is
often a sufficient cause for laughter in itself, irrespective of any
essentially amusing quality in the cause of the surprise. The unfamiliar,
for this reason, often has a ludicrous appeal to primitive peoples. An
African tribe, on being told by the missionary that the world is round,
roared with laughter for hours; it is told of a Mikado that he burst a
blood-vessel and died in a fit of merriment induced by hearing that the

American people ruled themselves. In like fashion, the average person
grins or guffaws at sight of a stranger in an outlandish costume,
although, as a matter of fact, the dress may be in every respect superior
to his own. Simply, its oddity somehow tickles the risibilities. Such
surprise is occasioned by contrasting circumstances. When a pompous
gentleman, marching magnificently, suddenly steps on a banana peel,
pirouettes, somersaults, and sits with extreme violence, we laugh before
asking if he broke a leg.
The fundamentals of wit and humor are the same throughout all the
various tribes of earth, throughout all the various ages of history. The
causes of amusement are essentially the same everywhere and always,
and only the setting changes according to time and place. But racial
characteristics establish preferences for certain aspects of fun-making,
and such preferences serve to some extent in differentiating the written
humor of the world along the lines of nationality. Nevertheless, it is a
fact that the really amusing story has an almost universal appeal. I have
seen in an American country newspaper a town correspondent's
humorous effort in which he gave Si Perkins's explanation of being in
jail. And that explanation ran on all fours with a Chinese story ages and
ages old. The local correspondent did not plagiarize from the Chinaman:
merely, the humorous bent of the two was identical. In the ancient
Oriental tale, a man who wore the thief's collar as a punishment was
questioned by an acquaintance concerning the cause of his plight.
"Why, it was just nothing at all," the convict explained easily. "I was
strolling along the edge of the canal, when I happened to catch sight of
a bit of old rope. Of course, I knew that old piece of rope was of no use
to anyone, and so I just picked it up, and took it home with me."
"But I don't understand," the acquaintance exclaimed. "Why should
they punish you so severely for a little thing like that? I don't
understand it."
"I don't understand it, either," the convict declared, "unless, maybe, it
was because there was an ox at the other end of the rope."
The universality of humor is excellently illustrated in Greek literature,

where is to be found many a joke at which we are laughing to-day, as
others have laughed through the centuries. Half a thousand years before
the Christian era, a platonic philosopher at Alexandria, by name
Hierocles, grouped twenty-one jests in a volume under the title,
"Asteia." Some of them are still current with us as