The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
In stature he was tall and slender. His nose was prominent,--
outlined like that of Sir Charles Napier, or Mr. Seward; his eyes
brilliant, small, and close together; his mouth large, teeth
white and pearly; fingers long and slender; hair soft, straight,
and blonde; complexion florid; mustache large, and his voice soft
and clear. In bearing, he moved like a natural-born gentleman.
In his lectures he never smiled--not even while he was giving
utterance to the most delicious absurdities; but all the while
the jokes fell from his lips as if he was unconscious of their
meaning. While writing his lectures, he would laugh and chuckle
to himself continually.
There was one peculiarity about Charles Browne--HE NEVER MADE AN
ENEMY. Other wits in other times have been famous, but a
satirical thrust now and then has killed a friend. Diogenes was
the wit of Greece, but when, after holding up an old dried fish
to draw away the eyes of Anaximenes' audience, he exclaimed "See
how an old fish is more interesting than Anaximenes," he said a
funny thing, but he stabbed a friend. When Charles Lamb, in
answer to the doting mother's question as to how he liked babies,
replied, "b-b-boiled, madam, BOILED!" that mother loved him no
more: and when John Randolph said "THANK YOU!" to his
constituent who kindly remarked that he had the pleasure of
PASSING his house, it was wit at the expense of friendship. The
whole English school of wits--with Douglas Jerrold, Hood,
Sheridan, and Sidney Smith, indulged in repartee. They were
PARASITIC wits. And so with the Irish, except that an Irishman
is generally so ridiculously absurd in his replies as to only
excite ridicule. "Artemus Ward" made you laugh and love him too.
The wit of "Artemus Ward" and "Josh Billings" is distinctively
American. Lord Kames, in his "Elements of Criticism," makes no
mention of this species of wit, a lack which the future
rhetorician should look to. We look in vain for it in the
English language of past ages, and in other languages of modern
time. It is the genus American. When Artemus says in that
serious manner, looking admiringly at his atrocious pictures,--"I
love pictures--and I have many of them--beautiful photographs--of
myself;" you smile; and when he continues, "These pictures were
painted by the Old Masters; they painted these pictures and then
they--they expired;" you hardly know what it is that makes you
laugh outright; and when Josh Billings says in his Proverbs,
wiser than Solomon's "You'd better not know so much, than know so
many things that ain't so;"--the same vein is struck, but the
text-books fail to explain scientifically the cause of our mirth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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