Word: humorous
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Dates: during 1873-1873
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...assume to define the legitimate course of a public writer to any one, but merely to express an opinion in regard to it, and that opinion to bear chiefly upon but two of the important auxiliaries in its pursuit, - wit and humor...
...laughing without being tickled, and it is exceedingly difficult to find a sensitive spot whereon to apply the straw. By public we mean the average mass of thinking men and women, excluding wholly that class of constitutional gigglers who laugh alike at David's solemnity and Twain's humor...
...since it is so difficult to be witty, are we to give up the attempt, and devote ourselves to a style of composition as devoid of humor as a statute-book? Certainly not. If we have not the wit to elicit an appreciative smile from our readers, we at least have the ability to throw into our expressions a certain degree of spiciness and originality; otherwise we had better cast our quill aside, and turn our thoughts to other pursuits...
Like beauty ill-attired, our humor clothed in uncouth and meaningless phrases is undiscovered. True, with our limited experience, and wit perhaps, we can hardly expect our efforts to bear even a favorable comparison with the elaborately finished work of a Holmes or Warner, whose humor seldom offends in essence or expression; yet if we would succeed at all in this vein, our style, like theirs, must be characterized by simplicity and elegance, our productions must possess pith and raciness...
...almost with regret that we take up a burlesque of that delight of our school-days, Sandford and Merton; but, since the author of the new history has already given us proof of his humor in Happy Thoughts and other books, we look for amusement, if not instruction, and are not disappointed. The book opens very funnily with a description of the "hilarious" son of the farmer, and of the young Jamaica nabob. Of course the omniscient Mr. Barlow falls an easy prey to the author's talent for ridicule, and becomes in farce what Mr. Pecksniff is in comedy...