“_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.